After working for 36 years as a journalist at several Pennsylvania newspapers, the Rev. Brenda Martin left journalism in Advent 2018 to take a full-time call as pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Greenville, Mercer County.

As a journalist, she could never advocate for public policy or use her voice to talk about current issues in any public way because that would have been a conflict.

As a pastor, she’s looking forward to serving on LAMPa’s policy council and being able to now use her voice to advocate for public policy that helps make people’s lives easier and that cares for those who are often forgotten or pushed to the margins, especially in critical areas like education, health care and meeting basic human needs — to care for our neighbors as commanded by Jesus. Rev. Martin joins the policy council as a representative of the NWPA Synod.

Martin grew up in Lebanon, PA, where most of her family still lives. She graduated from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania with a degree in English/journalism, and worked for newspapers in both Bloomsburg and Erie. She has been a resident of Erie for 30 years until moving recently to Greenville.

Martin also served as a church musician at two congregations in Erie for about 20 years. She received a Master of Arts degree in Church Music from Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio. She took classes at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg and was ordained eight years ago as part of the ELCA’s Theological Education for Emerging Ministries (TEEM) program.

She is married to John Myers, an opera singer, and they have cats, lots of cats.