Longtime Covenant pastor and leader Richard Lucco died Tuesday, May 17, one day shy of his 71st birthday. He helped guide the Covenant as a local, conference, and denominational leader who was known for his compassion as well as his Hawaiian shirts and his passion for the St. Louis Cardinals.
Dick was born in Webster Groves, Missouri, to Giorgio and Harriet Lucco on May 18, 1951.
He attended Monmouth College and earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Missouri-St. Louis and a master’s of divinity from North Park Theological Seminary.
He married Valerie Sanchez on November 27, 1975. They served congregations in Kewanee and Elgin, Illinois, as well as Salem, Oregon, before he became superintendent of the Great Lakes Conference in 2002. In 2011, President Gary Walter appointed him the first executive director for ministry development at Covenant Offices, where he served until 2018.
Dick returned to his ministerial “first love” in 2019 when he accepted the call to serve as part-time associate pastor at Northwest Covenant Church in Mt. Prospect, Illinois. Although he resigned when cancer no longer allowed him to work, he continued to write as many as three devotionals a week for the church.
“It meant a lot to him to finish his career in a local church,” said Kurt Carlson, senior pastor of Northwest Covenant. “He genuinely loved people. The thing he did so well is he really listened to people. He definitely had his opinions, but he was always quick to say, ‘Don’t dismiss someone because they disagree with you.’”
“I love being a pastor,” Dick wrote in a 2020 Companion column titled “Back to the Heart of Ministry” for the Companion. “I love leading people in worship on Sunday that they might experience God. And I love being with them during the week to remind them of his presence, power, and provision in their lives. I love God and want others to know his love and love him back.” Dick was diagnosed with prostate cancer in February 2015. During a virtual chapel service in which he was honored with the 2021 North Park Theological Seminary Alumni Award for Distinguished Service, Dick announced in his sermon, “Carried by Hope,” that he had run out of treatment options. He also wrote about his experience in the Companion in November 2018.
More than ever, hope and trust in the grace of God were constant themes in his writings and preaching in recent years. Despite worsening pain, he wrote in a March 27 post on the Caring Bridge website, “I am the guy who is an 8 on the enneagram and fights for fairness and justice and speaks for the voiceless. I am the guy who loves to laugh and argue and always thinks he is right. And, most of all I am the guy, right now who clings to God’s mercy and grace and shares it with others as best I can. I am the guy who lives in the grayness of the universe and usually rejects the blackness and whiteness of things. I am the guy who against all odds lives with a deep sense of hope and joy.”
Curtis Ivanoff, superintendent of the Alaska Conference, wrote on Facebook, “He had a generous spirit and was also a straight shooter. Shared the truth in love.”
“He had a generous spirit and was also a straight shooter. Shared the truth in love.”
Friends and colleagues repeatedly echo the same themes—Dick believed in people, at times when they didn’t believe in themselves; he was a mentor, friend, companion, and leader.
Covenant pastor and former executive minister of develop leaders and ordered ministry Mark Novak said, “Dick cared deeply for the marginalized, always wanting them to be heard. He was their biggest advocate. He believed we could reach the next generation if we had the courage to imagine beyond the present. He will be missed for his wisdom, insightful preaching, writing, and infectious laugh.”
Dick encouraged women to plant churches, oversaw a broad expansion of ministry in Detroit, and worked alongside Debbie Blue, the former executive minister of Compassion, Mercy and Justice (now Love Mercy Do Justice), as a facilitator of the denomination’s Invitation to Racial Righteousness and co-leader of Sankofa journeys.
As they always have, friends continue to joke about his sartorial taste for Hawaiian shirts and outsized love for his hometown baseball team. He often defiantly wore his red Cardinals cap while living in the city of their arch-rival, the Cubs.
He is survived by his wife, Valerie; children, Zach Lucco (Tracey), Drew Lucco, Jeff Lucco, and Chris Sanchez; and two grandchildren.
Memorials may be directed to North Park Theological Seminary; the Salem (Oregon) Leadership Foundation, and North Park Preschool at North Park Covenant Church in Chicago.
A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. on June 11 at North Park Covenant Church.
Peace be to his memory.
