ALUMNI FOCUS
Joy in Patient Endurance Michael P. Schuermann
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1. The Rev. Micahel Schuermann and students from UniLu pose for a group shot after spending an afternoon touring and volunteering at a Pregnancy Resource Center and Merci’s Refuge in Champaign, Illinois. 2. UniLu students and Rev. Schuermann during an outing to a local pumpkin patch. 3. Rev. Schuermann and students of UniLu tackle a trivia event together. 4. The UniLu Choir members with Pastor Scheurmann.
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“This has been my worst year of being a pastor.” As intense gathering restrictions and mask mandates continued here in Illinois toward the end of 2020, a brother pastor confessed this to me. He had shouldered a great burden as he cared for his congregation; especially in the conviction that he must continue to be a steward of the mysteries to his people in the ordinary weekly Divine Service as well as in other extraordinary ways for those who were weak or afraid. In his case, a fair amount of congregational disagreement and tension ensued. He was not alone in this burden. I hadn’t faced as tough a year. Though it was a difficult one, I can definitively say I would not rank it worst. I began serving at University Lutheran Church in Champaign, Illinois, at the very beginning of 2020. I had really only had about six “normal” weeks with this majority-student congregation before the whole country ground to a halt. With most of my congregation now absent
from town and back home, I had a small group to care for. We did “online church” for a handful of weeks until it was more clear what was really going on in our area. Then our little congregation regularly and gladly gathered together for the ensuing months. Until August, the campus was pretty much deserted and there were practically no students in town. Come August, my own struggle became apparent. It’s the pastoral struggle I’ve experienced for the so-far 11 years of pastoral ministry that God has blessed me to carry out. That struggle is this: lacking confidence in the often slow working of God in the hearts and minds of His people. In other words, God is very, very patient, and I find myself to be very much not. My struggle manifested in anxiety, frustration, and even despair over so many who seemed not to hunger or thirst for the gifts of God so needed in the midst of upheaval and daily uncertainty. For the Life of the World
