The Extraordinary Life of a Lutheran Educator
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Lori Lee Joerz had been a teacher for nearly three decades when she received a surprising email in her inbox. It was from Lt. Co. Edmund Torraca. He’d been recently commissioned as a 2nd Lt. in the U.S. Army and mobilized as a reservist at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla.
“The opportunity that we have to call on God’s name—it’s precious. There are a lot of wonderful Christian teachers out there who can pray for their students, but we can pray with our students.”
Lori Lee Joerz, Learning strategies teacher, St. Paul Lutheran, Lakeland, Fla.
Joerz remembered Torraca. He’d been in her very first sixth grade class in 1989. Now, he was inviting her out for a cup of coffee. What could this possibly mean?
The conversation was a long time coming.
“He said that he owed me that cup of coffee because my husband Jeff and I had taken him out for a burger after a school function as his parents were detained and could not pick him up for some reason,” she said. “I remember none of this, but he sure did.”
Like many Lutheran teachers, Joerz has impacted countless lives. She is just one of over 21,300 educators who teach more than 160,000 students a year in the nation’s largest Protestant parochial school system. Joerz serves as the learning strategies teacher at St. Paul Lutheran School in Lakeland, Fla.
From ships to schools
From the beginning, Lutherans and education have always gone together.
“On their journey from Europe to the United States, Lutherans educated their children on board the ships, and once settled in the United States, they built schools and churches,” explained Dr. Alan Freeman, director of Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod School Ministry.
In fact, “the Saxons [in America] accorded the same priority to education as they did worship. A congregation was to establish a school if possible,” Freeman said, quoting Thomas Korcok’s book Lutheran Education from Wittenberg to the Future.
While many decent schools in the country boast quality academics, Lutheran educators are concerned with the whole student.
The Lutheran classroom experience
“Lutheran education nourishes students intellectually and spiritually,” said Kelli LaVoie, a middle school teacher at St. John Lutheran School in Elk River, Minn.
“My favorite moments are when students are joyfully engaged in learning, however strange that may be occasionally.”
Joel Gilbert, Geography teacher, Lutheran High School South, St. Louis, Mo.
“Some students come in with a faith that has already begun to grow. In others, we get to help plant the seeds.”
Paige Buchholz, a kindergarten teacher at Martin Luther Academy in Kansas City, Mo., said, “[Lutheran teachers] are set apart because we use our vocations as teachers to further His Kingdom on Earth.”
The ability to share Christ and His love with students and families is a significant responsibility of Lutheran school teachers. These faithful servants couldn’t even imagine their work taking place without being about to speak of Jesus with their students.
“The opportunity that we have to call on God’s name, it’s so precious,” said Joerz. “There are a lot of wonderful Christian teachers out there that can pray for their students, but we can pray with our students.”
In this way, Christ is truly at the center of the Lutheran classroom, and the teachers who lead these classes have the beautiful freedom to model the Christian life of repentance and forgiveness, day after day, for all of their students.
Early mornings, long days
But what does a typical day look like for a Lutheran educator?
There is certainly a daily grind that teachers experience. Most teachers arrive early to school and leave quite late—and the newer the teacher, the more time they typically spend on the job.
“I try to get to school each day by 6:45 a.m. and do some planning and prepping for the day,” explained Jared Jurss, serving in his first year as a second grade teacher at Trinity Lutheran School in Freistadt, Wis.
“The school day starts at 7:15 with a staff morning meeting. After that, students arrive at 7:35, and we go until 3:00. After school, I either have school sports coaching or do a little end-of-the-day work, clean up or get stuff ready for the next day.”
Although the days may be long, they are anything but typical. Working with children means that every day is different and exciting, and some variety is usually built into the schedule.
“In kindergarten, our schedule is physical education on Mondays and Fridays, music and library on Tuesdays, chapel on Wednesdays, art on Thursdays and choir and computers on Fridays,” Buchholz said.
Beyond the classroom
“Full-time church work has its ups and downs, but the biggest blessing is the family you build with those around you: students, their families, your co-workers—everyone comes together and supports each other.”
-Laura Robinette, fourth grade teacher,
Central Lutheran School, New Haven, Ind.
Of course, the rumors are true: Many teachers work on lesson plans and grading at home in the evenings.
Joel Gilbert, seasoned geography teacher at Lutheran High School South in St. Louis, said that most nights he has “dinner with the family and puts off grading until my kids head to bed or start their schoolwork.” But it’s not all work and no play.
“The greatest joys include the baptism of students,” Gilbert said. “Aside from that, I have shared excellent scenes of pointless destruction for the betterment of mankind. This includes throwing objects against load-bearing walls at great speed, injuring myself to the point of blood loss during lectures, and breaking a classroom window. All of this was done to better understand our planet. My favorite moments are when students are joyfully engaged in learning, however strange that may be occasionally.”
Through all of the memorable moments, grace-filled days and dedication of time, the work of Lutheran teachers has one common denominator: close, lasting relationships.
“My favorite aspect is the relationships I have formed with my students and their families,” said LaVoie. “I am still in contact with some of my first students—they are now grown, and some have started their own families.”
Gilbert agreed that “teaching provides an opportunity to build relationships in transformational rather than transactional ways.
“I am confident I have positively influenced and equipped students in their lives. Likewise, my students have also greatly influenced me.”
Mark Newman, spiritual life director at Lake Country Lutheran School in Hartland, Wis., relishes these close relationships and has enjoyed seeing how some of his former students have even become teachers themselves.
“As a Lutheran teacher, you get to build lasting relationships with students,” he said. “You become their mentors, and eventually, they become your friends.”
Cultivating future teachers
As the need grows for more Lutheran teachers, the LCMS’ Set Apart to Serve initiative has brought to light the opportunities for young people to enter these church work vocations.
To support this initiative, LCEF partnered with Concordia Publishing House to develop a curriculum for Set Apart to Serve that can be used with early childhood through high school students. The curriculum guides discussion on “what the church is, who our LCMS church workers are, how the church cares for its workers and how the church creates a culture of church work formation and recruitment.”
Simply bringing awareness to church work vocations is sometimes all it takes to plant the seed—and the earlier, the better.
“I knew I wanted to be a Lutheran teacher from a young age,” said Buchholz. “I had experience working with children, including babysitting and working in various daycares and summer camps. I wanted a career that involved working with children, and I felt most called to serve Christ in an elementary classroom setting.”
For Gilbert, it was during his early years at Cross Lutheran in Yorkville, Ill., that he knew he wanted to become a teacher.
“The formative teachers at Cross showed me the love of Christ and the joy and fun that can be had in an educational setting. When deciding what to do, I gravitated toward Lutheran education to serve the Lord. I felt I could bring the fun and excitement to the classroom, as my teachers at Cross did for me.”
From students to servants
“Lutheran teachers are set apart because we use our vocations as teachers to further His Kingdom on earth.”
Paige Buchholz, Kindergarten teacher, Martin Luther Academy, Kansas, City, Mo.
Sarah Nimmer, second grade teacher at Trinity Lutheran School in Mequon, Wis., is in her 13th year of teaching. Likewise, she had a positive experience in Lutheran grade school, especially when her family endured challenging circumstances.
“My dad had a stroke when I was in fifth grade,” Nimmer recalled. “The staff, school families and church rallied around my family. They showed us God’s love and helped support us in many ways. I decided that this example of serving was something I felt called to do as a Lutheran teacher.”
For Joerz, her high school principal, Bruce Schaller, opened that door. “He said, ‘You’re going to be a Lutheran school teacher.’ He kept encouraging me and said I had such a heart for Jesus.”
No surprise, after Joerz graduated with a degree in education from Concordia University in Bronxville, N.Y., she came full circle.
“Mr. Schaller gave me my first call teaching sixth grade at the school from which I’d graduated,” she said. And since then, she hasn’t looked back.
“I can’t imagine what it would be like not working for the church,” Joerz said. “It’s about that community. We get to go to a place where everybody is there for the same reason. It’s not always perfect, but we are always there with the same vision in mind with our eyes on Jesus.”
The community life
Speaking of community, it’s everything—when you work for the church, the church becomes your whole life. For some, that may sound daunting, but for many church workers, it’s a blessing to be woven into the church community daily.
For Laura Robinette, a fourth grade teacher at Central Lutheran School in New Haven, Ind., the church and school have become a home away from home since she started teaching 17 years ago.
“Full-time church work has its ups and downs, but the biggest blessing is the family you build with those around you: students, their families, your co-workers—everyone comes together and supports each other,” she said.
“Living six hours away from my own family, I have built a second family with those I work with and attend church with, and it has been the biggest blessing of my life.”
An eternal impact
Lutheran teachers do what they do for a reason.
“What we do is important,” explained Joerz. “We lay the foundation for eternity. We’re not just teaching math or English. We’re teaching kids about the love of Jesus, and it’s a great honor to do that.”
Just ask Newman, who wasn’t even a Christian when his family enrolled him in a Lutheran school as a child.
“My family wasn’t particularly religious when I was young,” he said. “We were looking for a private school with a smaller class size. My dad was really into basketball, so we picked a Lutheran grade school with a nice wood gym floor. But the result was that the Gospel was faithfully shared with us, and my whole family became Christian. I know Lutheran schools’ impact—and it’s a profound eternal impact.”
