By Karen Vance
Enquirer contributor

TAYLOR MILL - For the Shafer family, ministry at the Taylor Mill Seventh-day Adventist Church has become a family affair.

And this weekend, that family and the church will celebrate a marriage, a new pastor and their faith.

Pastor Edwin Shafer was head of the church when it was Covington First Seventh-day Adventist Church on Greenup Street. He moved the church in 1962 to 5235 Taylor Mill Road .

And that's where Joseph Shafer spent the first years of his childhood. Now more than 40 years later, Joseph returned to the community as the pastor of the church on June 5 this year.

"When my father was in Taylor Mill, he baptized more than 100 people. Many of those people are still in the congregation and remember me as 'little Joey Shafer,'" Joseph Shafer said.

His parents, Edwin and LaVon, are returning to the area this weekend to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary with the church. Edwin will speak at Saturday's service at 10:45 a.m. with the anniversary celebration at Walton Community Park from 1 to 5 p.m.

"We're looking forward to it as a church family, to see familiar faces and show off new faces who have come," said John Robison, 42, of Covington, a member of the church since he was a child when Edwin Shafer baptized his father Gerald. "It will be a fantastic event and wonderful to celebrate 60 years of marriage, a testament that it can be done."

While the congregation stayed in touch with the Shafers as they moved from church to church in Wyoming, Nebraska, Tennessee, Michigan, Dublin, Ireland, and now Hawaii, the path that Joseph Shafer took to this post was less than direct.

As a young man, Joseph did not feel the pull of ministry, instead majoring in business and becoming a sales representative.

"When I thought I was called in 1996, I sent resumes out all over the country without a response," he said. "But then this church called me. I didn't have much interest in moving to a small town in Tennessee. I was making six figures, but I was overwhelmed by God, and I went."

He spent 51/2 years at the church in Jackson, Tenn., before hearing from his childhood home in Taylor Mill.

"The Lord has always led my efforts. I believe he blesses people when they honor him with their lives," Shafer said.

Now the congregation hopes Shafer will bring with him a spark to continue the congregation's recent efforts to reach out to the community.

"It's a sign of the continuing dedication of this family to this church that he's returned," said Michelle Barkan, 39, of Fort Wright, who remembers attending the church school with Joseph. "He's young and vivacious and has a real passion for spreading the Word."

Shafer's goal is to grow the congregation and establish Seventh-day Adventist congregations in three other Northern Kentucky cities.

"I'm looking to oversee that because of my love for evangelization," he said.