Pr. Scott Jones - Lead pastor
Pastor Scott Jones was born, raised and met his wife, Robin, in the Sacramento area. He grew up as a farm kid (Wilton), worshipping at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Elk Grove. After attending and working at Mt. Cross, Pr. Scott decided to attend college in the Santa Cruz Mountains (UC Santa Cruz). After graduation Pr. Scott remained on college campuses for another thirteen years working in contract food service management at UC Davis, Santa Rosa Jr. College, UC Santa Cruz and UNLV. When Pr. Scott sensed a call to ministry he and his family moved to Chicago, where he attended North Park Theological Seminary. Pr. Scott served Evangelical Covenant Churches in Chicago, IL and Cromwell, CT before being called back to his theological and geographical roots as Lead Pastor at Lutheran Church of the Ascension. In addition to being a San Francisco Giants fan, Pr. Scott is very fond of coffee (black) and chocolate (without coconut). Pr. Scott enjoys spending time with his family, going out to eat, trips to the coast and watching the Giants in the Pacific Standard Time zone.
Andrea Toven - Director of worship and media
Andrea Toven has served Ascension as the director of worship and media arts since September 2021, having previously served as Ascension’s technology outreach coordinator since August 2020. At Ascension, she is responsible for worship planning, music leadership, graphic design, videography, social media, and technology, among many other things!
Andrea grew up in northwest Wisconsin, a Minnesota Vikings fan in the middle of “enemy territory”, and graduated from St. Olaf College in 1995 with a BA in Music. While at St. Olaf, she had the tremendous honor of playing bass and contrabass clarinets in the St. Olaf Band, bass clarinet in the St. Olaf Orchestra, and contrabass clarinet in the St. Olaf Clarinet Choir. She also sang first alto in the St. Olaf Cantorei, studied choral and instrumental conducting, played baritone saxophone in the St. Olaf Pep Band, and wrote music for the Band and Clarinet Choir.
After St. Olaf, Andrea studied for and received an Advanced Technical Certificate in LAN Management from Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College (now Northwood Technical College), awarded High Honors with a 4.0 GPA. Andrea then took a fifth undergraduate year at UW-Milwaukee, studying medieval history and religious studies, and was named Outstanding Student in Medieval History for her research in corruption and controversy in the medieval European church. This year was followed by four years of MDiv and MA-Church Music studies at Trinity Lutheran Seminary and Luther Seminary. At Trinity, Andrea was awarded the Holleque Scholarship in Church Music on the merits of her composition portfolio. She served her internship at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Richland Center, WI, in 2001-02. During her last year at Luther, Andrea undertook study abroad at Gladstone’s Library in Wales, where she researched the intersection of Celtic and Benedictine monasticism in early medieval England as a recipient of the Canon Symonds Scholarship. After returning to Minnesota from Wales, Andrea met a radio engineer named Shane, and they got married a year later. They spent time in Minnesota and Michigan and lived in Laramie, Wyoming, for several years before moving to California in March 2020.
Outside the church, Andrea loves cruising anywhere and exploring new-to-her places in England. Someday, she would like to pursue a Ph.D. in early medieval English church history, focusing on worship and liturgy in monastic communities. Andrea likes riding trains (her favorite is the 08:00 LNER service from London Kings Cross to York), eating lefse (Countryside from Blair, WI), watching soccer (Sunderland – Ha’way the Lads!) and baseball (San Francisco Giants – Beat LA!), and speaking Norwegian (Bokmal). Her athletic non-prowess peaked when she bowled her Hebrew professor out for a duck in the annual Luther Seminary cricket match … and yes, she got extra credit points for that.
William Barker - Youth director
William Barker is the youth director here at Ascension. William has been attending Ascension Lutheran since 2002 and was a part of G1 Youth until he graduated high school. He loves to call himself the traveling man and has been all around the world experiencing and learning all the things God has created. His main goal is to apply these experiences to the youth and bring back the love and passion that has been missing for so long.
Justin Carballar - Assistant youth director
My name is Justin Carballar, I have been attending Ascension since I was 6 years old. I grew up here, and when I was 18 I attended a year studying the Bible at Lutheran Bible Institute in Irvine, CA. The next year I came back to Ascension and started helping with the youth group as a volunteer. In 2008, God blessed me and called me to be the Assistant youth director here at Ascension. I love working with kids of all ages and sharing the love of Jesus that he freely gives to me. I am excited to teach the kids about being a part of God’s Family here at Ascension.