When asked what age he decided he wanted to serve in pastoral ministry, Dr. Stephen Pietsch, dean of Theological Research and Publication, has a surprising answer. Growing up in Australia, Pietsch was profoundly influenced by his home congregation’s pastor: “I’ve wanted to be a pastor from a very young age, since I was seven or eight years old,” says Pietsch. “The pastor I had as a child was a very gentle pastoral man who was very good to our family, particularly after the death of our mother.”
Inspired by the care and compassion shown to him at that pivotal moment in his life, and after attending Lutheran secondary school where he was mentored by pastors who fostered his desire to serve within the church, Pietsch left to attend Luther Seminary (now Australian Lutheran College) in Adelaide, Australia, at 17. Seven years later, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in theology and was ordained within the Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA) in 1988.
Leaving the seminary with a love for theology, Pietch thought, “maybe God wants me to be a seminary professor.” But not yet. “The church needed me to get out there and be a pastor. And that is what I did — and I am glad I did.
His first five years as a parish pastor proved to be a challenge, with Pietsch overcoming a series of unique obstacles. “I had a whole lot of stuff to handle by myself as an inexperienced associate pastor. My senior pastor became sick and then died, and it was pretty tricky,” he says. “But then I went on to my second parish, and things became a lot better. I was enjoying parish ministry greatly and found a lot of fulfillment in it.” Settling into this new position, he later became vice president of his district and increasingly active within the wider church scene. “Then one day, the seminary in Adelaide (ALC) called me and said, ‘We think you should come back and be a professor here,’ so back I went, and began teaching as a professor,” he says.
During his time teaching at ALC, Pietsch completed a Master of Ministry and a Ph.D., focusing on Luther’s care for people with depression, studying Luther’s Table Talk and his pastoral letters. “I loved teaching as much as I loved parish ministry,” he says.
The time came for Pietsch to leave ALC, following the institution’s change of theological direction in 2022. With two advanced degrees and professional teaching experience under his belt, he found himself wondering “where next?” God had it covered. He was called to serve for five months as interim pastor at Bethlehem Lutheran, his home church in Adelaide, before receiving a call from Concordia Seminary, to teach as a professor again. It was a quick turnaround: “I received and accepted the call in May, and I arrived in July,” he reflects.
Since coming to Concordia Seminary, Pietsch has had to adjust to colder, wetter weather as well as high summer humidity. He and his wife, Coralie, also have had to adjust to living away from their adult children in Australia and continue acculturating to U.S. society. He has found it challenging but also delightful to learn and grow as a teacher in a new context, matching his teaching approach to the Seminary’s large student body. “The seminary in Australia that I came from has much smaller numbers than this Seminary’s nearly 650 students,” he says. “With larger classes, you need to teach differently — more structured and animated.”
Recently, he also has taken on the role of dean of Theological Research and Publication. “I am inheriting the responsibility from Dr. Kevin Golden, who had things well sorted out and has been very helpful in my learning of the new position,” Pietsch says. “The staff who now work under my oversight are very able and committed professionals who do a great job and are very supportive team players. So, while it is like ‘learning to fly the plane while flying the plane,’ it has been a good transition, and I feel I will get up to speed with it just fine.” He highly recommends that readers look at the Seminary’s Continuing Education and Concordia Theology resources available to the public. “Our Prof Insights and Lay Bible Institutes seminars and our “Tangible: Theology Learned and Lived” and “Lectionary Kick-start” podcasts and all the additional materials put out through Concordia Theology are incredibly high quality. We will be continuing to work on these to make them even better, and I am always happy to receive suggestions and feedback!”
Something that has followed Pietsch, from his days as a student to his time as a parish pastor and professor in Australia and now in the U.S., is his interest in Martin Luther’s theology and practice of soul care. His main research interest is how Luther approached caring for those who were suffering. “Luther offered an in-depth teaching and spiritual counsel that has largely been lost in the modern era but is now being rediscovered,” says Pietsch.
He approaches this research by diving deeper into Luther’s letters and teachings to uncover some of this lost guidance. He wrote, “Of Good Comfort: Martin Luther’s Letters to the Depressed and their Significance for Pastoral Care Today” (ATF Press, 2016) based on his doctoral research thesis centered around Luther’s perspectives on pastoral theology and psychology. Currently, he plans on doing significant work over the summer on his second book, which focuses more widely on Luther’s practice of soul care for those suffering and distressed. A lesson from this research that has served as a guiding light for Pietsch’s approach to ministry is Luther’s theology of joy. “It’s fantastic,” he says. “Joy is not everything going right; it’s being able to find peace and comfort when everything is going wrong. That peace and comfort is a gift of God through the work of the Holy Spirit in your life.”
To end the interview, Pietsch shares some of his favorite parts of teaching at the Seminary. “One of the things I love about life here is daily chapel,” he says. “I think it is a key formative element in the training of pastors.” Along the same lines, Pietsch is a great supporter of residential pastoral formation, believing that face-to-face engagement is an indispensable feature of preparation for ministry. He is excited for the seminarians preparing to receive their calls and graduate this spring. “I really enjoy Call Day and Commencement,” he says. “It’s very exciting to see pastors and deaconesses called and going out into ministry.”
He has some words of wisdom for these upcoming graduates: “Read the Bible for your own edification, not just for writing sermons; remember that the calling of husband and father is just as important as your calling as a pastor,” and finally, “Echoing the words of C.F.W. Walther, you should regard the place you are sent to serve as the most wonderful and beautiful place on earth. Try to ‘fall in love’ with the place and the people Christ has given you.”