The Rev. Alden Towberman, senior pastor at St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, 201 W. Jefferson St., has been elected to lead the Mid-Northeast Mission District of the North American Lutheran Church.

Towberman was elected by the 150 pastors and lay delegates attending the church’s Oct. 19 annual convocation of the mission district in Pittsburgh.

He was installed along with those elected to the Executive Council during the Eucharistic Festival Service at the close of the convocation by Bishop John Bradosky, the church’s leader.

Towberman, who marks his ninth year as senior pastor for St. Mark’s 1,500 members, said, “The way it works in the structure of the church is there is one bishop presiding and the church is divided into geographical areas and the deans are elected by the mission.”

Towberman said, “The dean, in this case me, supports the work of the bishop by supporting the functions of the district.

“And that includes the oversight of the teaching of the pastoral functions of the church, pastoral care of the congregations and pastors of the district and leading the program of ministries of the church, as well as helping to fill pastoral vacancies,” he said.

The Mid-Northeast Mission District serves Western Pennsylvania, western New York, western Maryland and West Virginia.

“There are presently 38 churches and soon to be 41 churches in our mission district,” Towberman said.

Deans, the equivalent of bishops in other churches, also conduct a ministry of teaching, preaching, oversight and visitation with pastors and congregations.

“I will be traveling more, and we do have an administrative assistant in the mission district that will assist in some of the work. I will continue to serve St. Mark’s while taking on additional responsibilities as the dean,” he said.

But really, he said, “it is about bringing people to experience the joy and salvation of Jesus Christ and through teaching and leadership to help the church grow.”

One of his responsibilities will be the new seminary of the North American Lutheran Church located in Ambridge.

“Actually, they were just doing some restructuring but there are 23 mission districts of the North American Lutheran Church in Canada and the United States,” said Rebecka Andrae, the Greensburg-based administrative assistant of the Mid-Northeast Mission District.

“I’m here to assist the dean and arrange for the annual convocation,” said Andrae.

“The church selects its deans by ecclesiastical ballot, which means we don’t have political candidates per se,” she said. “The pastors and delegates are asked to nominate from the floor after a time of prayer.

“Then the first ballot narrows it down from those nominated from the floor, then it gets to the candidate who is brought before the assembly who has the majority of the votes,” she said.

Towberman’s three-year term as dean began at the end of the convocation at Zion Lutheran Church in Pittsburgh.

Towberman stressed his main function was to help the church uphold its traditional Lutheran values, including the authority of Scripture and the sanctity of marriage and human life from conception.

Towberman said the church is “Christ-centered, mission-driven, traditionally grounded and congregationally focused, as well as committed to ecumenical relationships with other churches.”

Towberman’s election as dean will mean some interesting ramifications for his own relationships.

Both his wife and his daughter are pastors at Lutheran churches.

But while his daughter, the Rev. Tiffany Towberman Gander, is the pastor of a church in Stirling, Va., a Washington, D.C., suburb outside of the Mid-Northeast Mission District, his wife, the Rev. Sandra Towberman, serves as part-time minister at Springdale Lutheran Church in the mission district.

“You could say that for some 50 pastors I am their boss, but as dean I am the servant of others, not their boss,” said Towberman. “My daughter is not under my purview but my wife is.”