“It’s often easier to see God at work in your life when you look back than when you’re in the thick of it,” shares 2025 Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary graduate Jacob Borgwardt.

Borgwardt hails from a relatively long line of pastors—including his father and a few uncles. So while full-time ministry was always a viable option, he ultimately chose to attend the University of Wisconsin–Platteville in pursuit of an engineering degree. Soon after, however, “I realized that I wanted to switch paths to be a pastor when I found the weekly campus ministry Bible studies . . . more interesting than my math and science courses,” Borgwardt explains.

Two other factors ultimately led him to transfer to Martin Luther College (MLC), New Ulm, Minn., to begin his studies: his high school friends already attending MLC and his desire to learn the Bible in its original languages so he could gauge the truth of its teachings. “Two pretty arrogant reasons!” he admits. “Yet, God used even those self-centered desires to put me on the path toward ministry.”

Now, Borgwardt is eager to begin his ministry in a world where people seek satisfaction in all the wrong places. He says, “Being a pastor is getting a chance to be a mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit to tell the world, one person at a time, that the peace and hope and joy that they crave is theirs already.”

To see all of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary’s 2025 graduates, visit forwardinchrist.net/2025-wls-graduates.

Volume 112, Number 7
Issue: July 2025