Richard Gantenbein

Pastor of St. Andrew. Board Member of the Sonoma Valley Community Health Center.

Rich came to St. Andrew in January, 1982. Back then, St. Andrew was a small country church, meeting in the converted carriage house on what was the Spreckles Sugar family estate. In 1989, things changed when the old building burned to the ground. From the ashes, God raised up a new church building with a congregation that has been "on fire" and growing ever since. The one thing that has been constant for the past twenty-six years is change -- change in Rich's life and change in the life of the congregation. The verse that gives Rich hope and purpose is from Paul's prayer for the Philippians: "...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you, will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 1:6)

Rich graduated from Fuller Theological Seminary with a Master of Divinity degree in 1976, then went on to earn a Doctor of Ministry degree from San Francisco Theological Seminary in 1985. He grew up in Portland, Oregon, and met his wife Lorna at Portland Adventist Hospital, where she worked as a nurse and he worked as an orderly. They were married in 1972. Their daughter Julie, her husband Russ Findley, along with grandchildren Oliver and Cecily live in Kensington, CA. Julie is an attorney with the Water & Power Law Group PC. Rich is passionate about bicycling (passionate is an understatement), builds custom furniture in his “Geppetto’s” woodshop, and is a neophyte fly fisherman.