Candidate Application Detail Listing

Layperson

willing to be placed on the ballot for the Office/Board(s) for which I have been recommended

At Calvary Lutheran Church I have served as congregational vice president (2014-2016), president (2017-2020), and elder (2021-present).

In March of 2019, I participated in one of the NID vision events. A year later in 2020, I was honored to serve on the search committee for Dean of the College of Health, Science & Technology at Concordia University Chicago.

I was nominated to serve on the LCMS Board of National Mission for the 2023 triennium; I declined that nomination due to family circumstances.

As a father of school-age children, home responsibilities prevent me from organized community service. However, my wife and I try to teach our kids that serving a community means being part of it in daily life: greeting your neighbors when you're on a walk, bringing their garbage cans to their house after the garbage has been picked up, getting involved in local issues, etc.

Many believe that "mission" implies serving others away from home, outside of our families and communities. But serving our neighbors and confessing Christ to them is something that happens every day among our family members, next-door neighbors, coworkers, and even among fellow Christians, whom we are to exhort in the Holy Scriptures (Hebrews 3). This occurs at a local level for most. The mission of the NID, therefore, is to support the local congregations whose pastors are charged with preaching Christ's Word and administering His Sacraments—God's undeserved gifts that bring us into the Faith and sustain us in it.

Students should be encouraged to pursue God-pleasing, academic knowledge, but not just in preparation for their own careers. CUC will excel by embracing our Lutheran identity, which treasures the pursuit of knowledge such that others may be served by the gifts God grants each student. Based on my interactions with many students, this vocational aspect of higher education is missing at most institutions. The concept of vocation in higher education is truly unique to our understanding as Lutheran Christians, and it is a treasure to be guarded. I would love to serve as regent in the capacity to guard that treasure, which is not limited to only the classroom—it pervades the way students and professors carry themselves outside of the classroom, during office hours, in the dorm room, etc.