Concordia Seminary Newsroom
The Long Run
From field work to three decades in ministry
Dr. Stephen Krenz (D.Min. ’13, M.Div. ’94) grew up about 40 miles south of the Canadian border in Kramer, N.D., a small farming community with a few hundred residents. One of the nearest big towns, Milnot, was still an hour’s drive away. His family raised small grains, mostly barley, wheat and sunflowers. His father served as a church elder. His mother played the organ. Church life, in one form or another, was always shaping his experiences.
His farming roots influenced Krenz in ways he fondly recalls. “You learn a work ethic on the farm,” Krenz says. “And you learn to trust God, because the rain comes when it comes.” His father was good at practical day-to-day business at church, while his mother, he says, was “the theologian, the thinker” in the family and both helped influence him. However, it was his high school pastor, Dr. Jim Gimbel (M.Div. ’85), who first suggested that Krenz consider the ministry.
“Initially, I didn’t think that was really an option, because I have no pastors in my family,” Krenz says. “I didn’t think I could be that spiritual all the time.” With encouragement from his family and Gimbel, the idea took root. He enrolled in the pre-seminary program at Concordia University St. Paul, in St. Paul, Minn., then headed to Concordia Seminary, where he earned his Master of Divinity in 1994.
Now, 32 years later, Krenz is the pastor at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Columbia, Ill., which he calls “a really typical LCMS kind of congregation, size-wise.” Over the past three decades, he has moved from a mission startup in central Missouri to an established Illinois parish to his current suburban church. He has built his ministry the same way he logs his running miles: one step at a time.
Krenz delayed his first call and spent a year in clinical pastoral education: three months at Deaconess Hospital and nine months at EverTrue Laclede Groves, a senior living community, both in St. Louis, Mo. It was during this time that he met his wife, Lisa, a Lutheran school teacher. They married the next year.
His first call was to Grace Lutheran in Holts Summit, Mo., a mission congregation that was only three years old when he arrived as its first full-time pastor in 1995. Krenz remembers feeling uncertain at times, especially with his wife and now two young children. “I may have to get another job here,” he told Lisa. “We’ll see if this startup is going to really pull it off.” It did and it was a growing experience for Krenz. During his nearly seven years there, the congregation doubled in size and built its first church building.
In 2002, Krenz moved to Trinity Lutheran in Hoffman, Ill., an established congregation with more than 150 years of history and its own school. He was there for nearly 17 years, long enough to see his children, Joel and Anna, grow up attending Trinity Lutheran School. Krenz also helped launch Christ Our Rock Lutheran High School in Centralia, Ill. Then, with his children grown and he and Lisa empty-nesters, Krenz felt called to something new. He has been sole pastor at St. Paul’s since 2018.
While at the Seminary, Krenz served his field work at Unity Lutheran Church, a predominately African American congregation in East St. Louis, Ill. As a white student from rural North Dakota, Krenz stood out. Still, he joined the choir and helped lead summer programs for neighborhood children.
“I felt connected and enjoyed it, even though I stood out,” he says. “It was a great experience for me.” What struck him most, beyond the cultural difference, was the shared Lutheran liturgy. “The Lutheran service that we held there was similar to what we do in other places,” he says. “The theology stays the same and Unity is where I preached my first sermon and led Bible classes.”
That experience stays with him now as a field work supervisor. St. Paul’s has hosted seminarian students for years, and Krenz has worked with seven since he arrived in Columbia. Right now, two first-year students from the Seminary, Austin Kudray and Josh Gillespie, are assigned to the congregation.
The first months as a field worker at St. Paul’s are deliberate and measured. Students observe worship, learn the basics of liturgy, then gradually take on prayers, adult Bible classes, shut-in visits and congregational meetings. Recently Kudray and Gillespie led their first adult Bible classes. “They both did a great job,” Krenz says. “They’re well-received because they’ve got all this knowledge and they just want to share it.” His usual reminder: pace yourself.
His wife, Lisa, now an editor of curriculum resources at Concordia Publishing House, is involved as well. The couple welcomes students into their home, hosting Sunday lunches and casual conversations. “Lisa wants to give them an example of, ‘Hey, you can do this,’” Krenz says. “This can work for a spouse and everybody can still have their life.”
Krenz remains humble about his role. “I just see myself as one cog among many,” he says. “They’re going to have vicarage supervisors, they’re going to have seminary professors, they have their own home pastor. I’m just one person.”
To stay in shape, Krenz runs 25 to 30 miles each week, a habit he started in Hoffman when he realized he could remember his congregation members’ names better after a morning run before Sunday service. Now, running is as much a part of his day as preparing sermons and is a ready metaphor for ministry.
“You’re just looking more long-term,” he says of the marathon mindset. “The issues you face in churches, which may seem overwhelming at first, you realize, ‘Well, this will look different in six months.’ It’s about putting one step in front of the other.”
His advice for new pastors, drawn from 31 years of experience: build trust before making changes, visit people in their homes while there is still time, and keep studying the Word. “If you love the Scriptures, you love God’s Word and you love people, you’re going to be fine.”
After three decades, Krenz says he is still learning — still working to become a better preacher, still lacing up his running shoes every morning. “A lot of what you do in ministry,” he says, “is just putting one foot in front of the other.”