Staff - St. Petri United Church of Christ

The Rev. Robert L. Hempel

Meet Pastor Robert L. Hempel

Robert Lee Hempel grew up in West Columbia, TX, a small town southwest of Houston. He was graduated from the local high school in 1955. He attended Lon Morris College, Jacksonville, TX; the University of Houston; and was graduated from Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth in 1960. For his seminary education, he attended Perkins School of Theology, a school of Southern Methodist University and was graduated in 1965.

During his college/seminary years, he served as pastor of the Graham United Methodist Circuit (three churches) and the Richland - Streetman United Methodist congregations in Texas.

As a part of his seminary training, he received Clinical Pastoral Education at the California State Prison at San Quentin and the St. Luke’s Episcopal/Texas Children’s Hospitals in Houston.

He was an Assistant Chaplain at the Garden Chapel at San Quentin and Chaplain/Special Services Officer at the Santa Rita Rehabilitation Center, Pleasanton, CA, in the prison ministry.

He was ordained at the Baker Community Church, UCC, on October 18, 1969, in Baker, MT., where he served as pastor for five years. Since, he has served as pastor at Newburg/Chester UCC, rural Grinnell, IA; Manson/Moorland UCC, near Fort Dodge, IA; interim pastor for Congregational Church UCC in Sloan, IA; and, interim pastor for the First Congregational Church, UCC, Iowa Falls, IA.

He served in Illinois at the Village Church, UCC, La Grange Park, as pastor and interim pastor for Doremus Congregational Church, UCC, in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago. He was called as pastor at St. Petri in November 1, 1998.

In the wider church, he has always been active. In Montana, he served as Moderator of the Eastern Association and on the Montana-Northern Wyoming Conference Board of Directors. In Iowa, he served on his association nominating committee and on InterCom, the communications committee of the Iowa Inter Church Forum. In Illinois, he has served on the Church and Ministry Committe and was Dean of Cluster Five of the Chicago Metropolitan Association and served on the CMA Council (2007-2009). Currently, he serves on the Illinois Conference Nominating Committee.

Pastor Hempel has extensive training in psychotherapy in the modality of Transactional Analysis and Gestalt. He enjoys working on his Mac computer and listening to music, particularly jazz. He is married to Elaine and they have two young adult sons, Edward and Aaron. The family resides in La Grange Park, a western suburb of Chicago.