When asked how they first considered becoming a pastor, teacher, or staff minister, many called workers point to someone who noticed their gifts and gently encouraged them to consider ministry. Today the need for called workers remains high, and encouragement is more important than ever.

WELS has launched a four-year pilot program to strengthen ministry recruitment efforts across the synod. Ministry recruitment counselors, a new called position, will work alongside pastors, teachers, staff ministers, parents, and lay leaders to help them actively recognize gifts in others, share information about ministerial education, and keep gospel ministry top of mind for WELS youth.

Three individuals have accepted calls to serve in this role.

Mary Heckendorf

Mary Heckendorf brings experience as both a WELS and public school teacher. Most recently, Heckendorf has been teaching at a public school in Reno, Nev., where her husband, Joel, serves as pastor at Light of the Valleys, a WELS home mission. “Moving here opened my eyes to how many people are lost, hurting, and searching,” she says. “They need someone to tell them the good news: that they have a Savior who loves and forgives them.”

In fact, Heckendorf explains that everyone knows someone who needs to hear the gospel. Reflecting on the birth of her first granddaughter, Heckendorf says, “My prayer is that the Lord of the harvest will give her pastors, teachers, family, neighbors, and friends who will share their faith and joy in the Lord with her. That they will encourage and support her.”

Having been encouraged by her own parents to enter ministry, Heckendorf hopes to encourage the encouragers. She says, “I have the privilege of encouraging, supporting, and equipping parents, pastors, teachers, and mentors—people who already have deep, trusting relationships—to recognize the ministry potential in others and to plant that seed.”

Mark Schroeder

Mark Schroeder, most recently serving as pastor at Peace in Gilbert, Ariz., has also served at Michigan Lutheran Seminary, Saginaw, Mich., and Luther Preparatory School, Watertown, Wis. With experience as both a pastor and teacher—and as a parent who has sent his own children across the country to attend Michigan Lutheran Seminary—he brings a broad perspective to his new role.

Schroeder looks forward to being a catalyst for culture change, one in which the whole church body actively encourages public ministry as a realistic career path for its own sons and daughters. He explains, “We want called workers to think about, ‘Who will replace you? Who will preach in your pulpit? Who will teach in your classroom when you retire?’ The answer might be the very children who sit in your pew or who are your students right now.”

Samuel McKenna

After graduating from public high school, Samuel McKenna headed straight into the military, where he spent most of his career in recruitment—first for the Marines and then the National Guard. He and his wife, Missy, live in Wisconsin, and all three of their children graduated from Lakeside Lutheran High School, Lake Mills, Wis.

McKenna is filled with gratitude to be following this new path God has laid out for him as a ministry recruitment counselor. He shares that his unique experience in military recruiting sets him up well to “help our team develop an effective, systematic approach to help the synod find, encourage, and train people for the public ministry.”

His goal is simple: to talk to as many people as possible across the synod and teach people to see themselves as encouragers. “We all know someone that should be in ministry. . . . Encourage them,” says McKenna. “Words of encouragement from a pastor or teacher can be life-changing. We need to empower everyone to be able to say those words.”

Overall, all three counselors’ work centers on one goal: that more young people, guided by encouragers in their lives, hear and reflect on the question, “Have you thought about serving in ministry?”