Hope Lutheran Church in Palm Desert, California, just installed a new pastor, the Rev. Dr. Tony Stiff, and they owe this find in part to Rev. Stiff’s penchant for regular email maintenance.
“I was cleaning out my emails and one had been in there for probably six weeks or so, with a subject line ‘Could this be the one?’” Rev. Stiff said. “I thought it was clickbait and didn’t touch it, but I also didn’t delete it.”
A California native, Rev. Stiff has been in ministry for over 27 years now and is ordained in the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA). He is serving at Hope under a Formula of Agreement, a historic ecumenical proposal that formalizes a common communion and calling between the ELCA and the PCUSA.
Rev. Stiff came to Hope from the Redwoods Presbytery in Marin County, where he was already familiar with the ELCA and formulas of agreement.
“We had a number of our pastors serving ELCA congregations,” Rev. Stiff said. “My two closest PCUSA colleagues were the primary pastors for ELCA churches, so partnership with the ELCA was normalized. It really felt like the two of our traditions were living as one up there, and I loved it.”
Still, though Rev. Stiff wasn’t actively looking, he was doing bridge pastor work and was hoping for an installation. But he was willing to wait for the right call to open up, which is why, when a search organization he’d worked with years previously sent him an email about Hope Palm Desert, it went straight into a dead inbox he rarely checks, where it waited six weeks for him to find it.
Could this be the one?
“A couple weeks later I was going through my inbox again and I was curious,” Rev. Stiff said. “I clicked through it and started reading it and a portion of the email was to me personally, and so I realized it was intentional.”
The email was about the open Senior Pastor position at Hope, and once Rev. Stiff began to consider it, the ball began rolling quickly.
“I shared it with my wife, and we were thinking of doing an install call, so I started talking to the search team at Hope,” Rev. Stiff said. “I had been staffed at a large Presbyterian church like Hope that had over 1000 people in weekly worship, and we had both contemporary and traditional, so I culturally understood the model. And that resonated with me.”
But beyond the church model, Hope had another aspect that spoke the loudest to Rev. Stiff.
“The most important draw for me is that Hope is an affirming church, well known in the Valley for its inclusion, love, and support of the LGBTQIA+ community,” Rev. Stiff said. “That was why I didn't take the match email seriously at first because that organization doesn't typically represent churches that are affirming.”
Rev. Stiff and his wife made the trek to Palm Desert to visit with the search team in person, and everything felt right.
“It made a lot of sense to continue the shared discernment journey,” Rev. Stiff said. “I reached out to my PCUSA exec, who was herself serving as an ELCA pastor, and they encouraged me to investigate this journey. And with their blessing I went forward and all the pieces came together.”
Rev. Stiff began serving as pastor at Hope in August of this year and was formally installed on September 27, 2026. He’s already making pleasant new discoveries about his new church home.
“I’ve been with churches that have Celebrate Recovery, and I’ve always valued that ministry, but Hope has it happening at a much deeper, intentional level,” Rev. Stiff said. “And what I didn’t feel out at first was how deep their impact is with the unhoused community, and their deep weekly connection with that community. That was a huge surprise bonus on the backside, how well they’re loving the unhoused in a city that’s actively trying to push the unhoused out.”
Seems like everyone is happy he got the message.
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