About Pastor

Pastor, Donald D. Fraker II, was born November 1, 1956, in Greeley, Colorado. His father spent 22 years in the Air Force, so Pastor regularly saw the inside of new homes and new schools. He attended three high schools in Colorado, Mississippi, and the Panama Canal Zone, graduating in 1974. During his senior year of high school in Panama he believed God was calling him to study to become a pastor, and enrolled at St. Paul's College in Concordia, Missouri (a two-year college).

After graduation, he spent one year touring the country with a contemporary Christian music ministry called Joy, Inc. He then enrolled at Concordia College in Ann Arbor, Michigan, graduating with his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1979. While there, he met Sharon Hinz, the daughter of a Lutheran pastor in Michigan. They were married in June of 1980.

Being a pastor in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod requires four years of seminary training (after college) for a graduate degree, and Pastor entered Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, in the fall of 1979. Pastor & Sharon's third year of seminary training was spent on Vicarage (a one-year internship) at Hope Lutheran Church in Bradenton, Florida.

Pastor earned his Master of Divinity degree and was graduated from the seminary in May of 1983. His first congregation was Zion Lutheran Church and School in Denison, Iowa. He and Sharon spent four years there, where daughter Rachel was born in 1985.

In 1987 Pastor accepted the Call to serve St. Paul Lutheran Church in Union, Missouri, where they lived for eleven years. Sons, Tim and Jon were born there in 1988 and 1991.

In 1998 Pastor accepted the Call to serve at Cross in New Braunfels. He says: "God is richly blessing our church family as we strive to build His kingdom and grow as His disciples. In every aspect of our ministry here, exciting and joyful things are always happening at Cross!"