Erhart Leonard Bauer

1. 5/13/1934 Bluegrass, North Dakota USA

 

Spouse/Family

Wife: Anita Joanne (nee Frick), b. 9/9/1934 Wartburg, Illinois USA, m. 6/26/1960

Children: Leonard James (1961); Sarah Joanne (Orellana Bauer) (1962); Jennifer

Joy (Hipp) (1964); Philip Joseph (1967)

 

Dates of Service Field Call Assignment

1994-99 Jamaica Evangelistic Missionary

2000 Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan Missionary Retreat

2001-05 India Administrative Consultant, IELC

 

Biographical Summary

Erhart Bauer attended Concordia University in St. Paul, Minnesota, then enrolled at Concordia Seminary in Saint Louis to study for the ministry.  He graduated and was ordained in 1959.  During his seminary years, Erhart met Anita Frick while both were singing in the Bach Chorus.  Anita had received a teaching certificate from Concordia Teachers College in River Forest, Illinois in 1954.  She taught in the St. Louis area until their marriage in 1960.  Erhart’s first call was to St. John’s Lutheran Church in Elk River, Minnesota.  He served in this congregation for five years, as well as doing mission outreach to start the congregation of Trinity Lutheran Church in St. Francis, Minnesota.  While in Minnesota, the Bauers’ first two children were born, Leonard in 1961 and Sarah in 1962.  Anita did not work as a full-time teacher after their marriage, but throughout Erhart’s pastoral career she worked part-time in libraries, gave piano lessons, and worked as a substitute teacher, in addition to taking care of their home and children and participating in church activities.

 

In 1964, Erhart received a new call to the town of Pocatello, Idaho.  Here both of the Bauers’ younger children, Jennifer and Philip, were born.  Erhart worked in campus contact ministry at Idaho State University, from which he also received a Masters Degree in Counseling.  During this pastorate he also took on some responsibilities for the Northwest District, eventually being elected as regional vice president of the district in 1972.  He could only serve in this capacity for one day, however, because he was considering a call to be pastor of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Yakima, Washington at that time.  Erhart took the call and remained at Bethlehem for ten years.  For the most part he performed pastoral duties for the congregation, but he was also again involved in district matters.  After the turmoil the LCMS went through in 1974, the Northwest District created a District Reconciliation Committee of which Erhart was elected chairman.  The committee served from 1974-78.  Erhart also served terms as district 1st vice president and circuit counselor during the years in Yakima.

 

After ten years, in 1982, Erhart was elected president of the Northwest District.  He left his position at Bethlehem to begin this task.  Besides his administrative duties, one major event in his presidency happened when the Hong Kong church became part of the Northwest District.  Because of this, Erhart made several trips to Hong Kong to consult with the church there and strengthen church relations.

 

Erhart served four terms as district president.  However, he had always had an interest in foreign mission work, and in his fourth term he approached the recruiter for foreign missions for LCMS to find out if there were any opportunities available.  The Board for Mission Services then contacted the Bauers with a new mission opportunity in Jamaica.  There had been no LCMS mission work in Jamaica up until 1993.  The Lutheran Hour had been broadcast on the island for thirty-five years, so there were listeners requesting that LCMS send missionaries to plant churches.  After another missionary served an 8 month stay, but terminated, Erhart was called as an evangelistic missionary to help begin this work

 

When the Bauers arrived in Jamaica, one of Erhart’s first tasks was to connect with Lutheran Hour listeners. His Call was to plant churches.  He worked to gather a nucleus of worshippers in Kingston.  Worship services were begun after three months and he provided pastoral service toward starting a congregation.  Anita acted as the Lutheran Hour ministry contact, receiving and organizing information from people who called in to the program.  Because the Lutheran Hour was a dynamic part of the mission in Jamaica, she handled quite a bit of information.  Anita also provided music for worship, leading the choir and serving as instrumentalist.  She also gave piano lessons to a woman who would later become one of the musicians for the congregation.

 

Within a year another missionary couple was called to the mission in Jamaica, and they worked with the Bauers to expand the mission.  A second mission location was started in Portmore.   Also, Anita made sure that lessons and correspondence courses were sent to Lutheran Hour listeners who called in, and after the courses were completed, Erhart would travel to make contact with the students to work on creating a nucleus for worship and evangelism in other locations on the Island.  The overall vision for mission was to cover the island, and the missionaries were working towards creating hubs for the church in three population centers.  Although the goal of having congregations in each area was not yet accomplished by the time the Bauers left Jamaica, Erhart helped begin the work by initiating studies of the possibilities for these areas.

 

Recognizing that a large part of their role was to train national leaders for the church, the missionaries began training lay leaders as soon as they had congregation members.  They led Bible study, using the Gospel of John as the primary text; conducted workshops on church leadership; and after some training had indigenous leaders assume responsibility for worship leadership, for which missionaries would supervise and assist as necessary.  Erhart also tried from the beginning to instill in church members a mission perspective.  As soon as a congregation was begun, that congregation also started its own mission work; Erhart made a connection with mission in Haiti, and worshippers would send a portion of their offerings to the mission there.  Finally, besides their main evangelism work, the missionaries did human care work as they were able and worked with Wheatridge Foundation to set up a medical clinic on the western side of the island.

 

After working in Jamaica for several years, the Bauers decided it was time to return to the U.S. and retire from ministry.  They had served Jamaica two terms, and Erhart wanted to transition gradually from the mission field.  Therefore, they returned to the U.S. in September, 1998, settling in Oregon, but Erhart continued to work as missionary to Jamaica until 1999, assisting congregations to move toward self-sufficiency.  In June, 1999, the Bauers officially began their retirement, but remained active.  Erhart led a missionary retreat with teams in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan in 2000.  Then in 2001, Erhart was asked by LCMS World Missions to serve as LCMS Administrative Consultant for the India Evangelical Lutheran Church (IELC).  His call was to assist the IELC in working through problems they were having in their administration, help to create a new vision for that church, and work to prepare for the church convention in which the IELC would elect a new president and a new council.  For this work, Erhart traveled to India in five trips of three weeks each during a three-year period.  Each trip was “very intense,” and the work included conducting seminars on mission outreach vision with each of the seventeen circuits of the IELC; writing reports for World Mission to help measure progress; studying and analyzing the situation; and helping to establish a newly elected functional administration.  The convention and new election that served as the culmination of this work happened in 2005.

 

Back in the U.S., Erhart continues to be involved in mission outreach.  He retains contact with the Area Director for India and is involved with Vietnamese Lutherans who seek to begin Lutheran work in Vietnam.  He also serves on the synod’s African Immigrant Ministry Board and on the Northwest District’s Ethnic Ministry Board.

 

Nota Bene

The establishment of the medical clinic in western Jamaica was a project the missionaries were pleased to undertake in order to address some of the human needs on the island.  It was also a missiological task to consider and work out how that project fit into evangelistic ministry.

 

Erhart considers it an important ministry to work with immigrants to the U.S. for connections and outreach to their lands of birth.  For instance, those who have emigrated to the U.S. from Jamaica and have joined the Lutheran church in the U.S. have an opportunity to make connections with fellow church-members in Jamaica, now that Lutheran churches have been established in that country.  Connections between churches could benefit their members both in the U.S. and abroad and can contribute to Christian community and ministry.  Erhart has done some work toward promoting these types of connections among various national and ethnic groups and has written an article on “Linkages” for Missio Apostolica (journal of the Lutheran Society for Missiology) about the importance of such connections.

 

Phase 2 Information

 

Biggest missiological issue faced?

One of the challenges that has been prevalent since missionaries first began work in Jamaica and up to the present time is the training of church leaders.  Jamaica is a small island with only a few large cities and only a few educational structures.  Training for Lutheran church leaders must still be done mostly by missionaries or one-on-one by more senior leaders; there is not currently a seminary or other formal education program set up for the church.  Two seminaries do exist on Jamaica.  One was begun by evangelical Protestants, and the Kingston congregation (St. Andrew) did worship in rented space on the campus.  The missionaries also did some teaching there for a time.  At the other seminary, which is ecumenical, there is one ELCA Lutheran pastor on the campus whose work includes preparation of Lutheran pastors for Guyana and Suriname.  The LCMS missionaries connected somewhat with this seminary while the Bauers were in the country, and the LCMS congregations they established provided fieldwork sites for Lutherans being trained at this seminary.  Erhart believes that one of the options for the mission is to stay connected and perhaps enlist this pastor or any future Lutheran missionary who might teach at the seminary to begin training leaders from LCMS congregations.  Students could then perhaps take colloquies or study in courses in the U.S. for a time.  This or another similar type of training structure has not been established, though, so that leadership training remains somewhat informal.

 

Bringing the Gospel to people within a different cultural context was challenging for Erhart.  As an experienced church worker when he began his mission work, he had knowledge to draw on, but as a missionary he also had to learn to work in a different way than as a pastor and district leader in his own home country.

 

The missionaries to Jamaica struggled with finding a balance between evangelism and human care.  In mission work, a person who comes into a country as an evangelist often finds that there’s so much human need that it draws their time and attention.  There’s a constant tension and need for prayer and introspection to balance the types of work.

 

Because of the relatively short period of the Bauers’ work and the fact that they were helping to begin mission work in Jamaica, they experienced a strong sense of urgency to “get things done” and “get the work going.”  They wanted to do as much as possible while they were there, while understanding that the cultural context often required patience and that ultimately what happened was in God’s hands.

 

Most significant contribution during missionary service?

Erhart was able to make a contribution through his role as an experienced church worker who went into foreign missions after having served in various capacities in the U.S. for 35 years.  He hopes that his sense of the great importance of mission might have been demonstrated in his having been a district president who chose to give up that position for foreign mission work (the only district president to have done so up to the present time).

 

Currently, more than anything Erhart prays for mission work around the world, undertaking an intentional prayer ministry for all those who are engaged in this work.

 

Anita gave much time and energy to her work with the Lutheran Hour in Jamaica, and her contributions were very significant for the congregations and new believers in that country.

 

Connection to today’s mission?

Lutheran congregations remain in Jamaica, although the LCMS World Mission department has removed LCMS missionaries from the island.  Currently the Lutheran Church of Nigeria, a partner church of LCMS, has sent a Nigerian missionary to Jamaica to serve the one existing congregation located in Kingston.

 

Certain people who became part of the church while the Bauers were serving in Jamaica are now church leaders in their own right.  Two examples are of a native African who recently graduated from ministry studies through the LCMS Ethnic Immigrant Institute of Theology and is awaiting a call to ministry; another is a Jamaican who studied to be teacher in US colleges, and is now teaching at a parochial school in the Cleveland area.

 

Erhart continues to try to foster connections between Christians worldwide by linking Lutherans who have emigrated from other countries with Lutheran churches in the countries from which they came.

 

His work with the church in Hong Kong as it became part of the Northwest District was foundational for that relationship.  Today, that ministry has expanded into a wider Pacific Rim partnership.

 

Lessons Learned

• Erhart points to the words of 1 Peter 3:15: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.  But do this with gentleness and respect.”  Though he had always found inspiration in this verse, the final sentence really came alive for him when he was placed in a new cultural context.  Missionaries who are trying to share the Gospel and to understand the culture in which they live often feel frustrated, and it’s important to perform one’s ministry with gentle care.  Learning that God expects gentle care and respect even when things are difficult is a part of witnessing to and living one’s faith.
• Missionaries should concentrate on establishing a niche within a particular culture and mission field.  In most places, there are other church presences, and rather than compete, missionaries and mission bodies should determine how they can best reach those who are unchurched.  In the case of LCMS work in Jamaica, the niche ended up being with the “upper poor” – those who were poor but not destitute – because that group had not been reached by other mission organizations.
• Upon reflection, Erhart notes that the LCMS mission in Jamaica probably began worship services too soon.  The missionaries were eager to begin a congregation, but it may have been more effective to establish more small groups and begin worship at a later time with a larger nucleus of people.  This might have been more beneficial for church growth.
• It’s always important to train national leaders immediately when mission work begins.
• Particularly in India, Erhart was reminded of the importance of staying focused on one’s task.  There can be so many different calls and so many needs in mission work that a missionary can be overwhelmed and fail to accomplish much at all.  In India, Erhart had a particular task assigned him to help the IELC in admistration, and only by focusing most of his energies on that task (and limiting requests, such as guest-preaching every week) was he able to assist the IELC in the way the LCMS Mission Department had requested.

 

Best Practices

• As congregations formed in Jamaica, the missionaries made sure to instill both a sense of mission and a sense of stewardship and tithing in the congregations.  The practice of giving gifts for mission in Haiti is one strong example.
• When the first congregation began serving communion, only about one-third of the worshippers were confirmed.  The leaders had all worshippers come up to the front of the church for communion distribution, however, and offered a prayer blessing for those who were not yet taking communion.  This sense of community and care was important for all church members.
• The “passing the baton” transition model of training national leadership worked well for this mission, in which Erhart returned to the U.S. but continued helping and advising the congregations in Jamaica for another year.
• Linkages between people in different countries.  Finding ways to create and strengthen bonds between immigrants and fellow Lutherans in their home countries strengthens support among the Christian community and the impulse for mission.

 

Phase 3 Information

 

Inspiration for entering foreign missions?

A pastor at Erhart’s church when he was very young had been a missionary to South America, and he was quite influenced by this pastor’s experience and zeal for mission.  He also had one uncle who had served as a missionary and one who was a pastor.  After receiving his M.Div. and being ordained, Erhart began his pastoral duties but never completely lost sight of his interest in missions.  Once he became a district president, he was troubled that district leadership can easily become burdened with work in the district and lose sight of anything having to do with missions.  After some time, he expressed his interest in serving as a foreign missionary and was able to receive a call.  Also influential in his work and his call was Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

 

Anita had not strongly considered foreign mission work during their time in the U.S., but she felt its importance, and when Erhart expressed interest in looking for a call she encouraged him.  She felt it was time for a change and was excited to work closely with Erhart as a ministry team, which she had been less able to do while he served as district president.  She was eager for the call and dedicated to his ministry and her own in Jamaica.  Both Erhart and Anita consider their time in Jamaica as a highlight of their whole ministry experience.

 

Quotation by/about or brief story:

• One upcoming leader whose ministry Erhart has felt blessed to be involved in is a man named Lumembo Tschiswaka.  Lumembo was originally from Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), and he came to Jamaica as a United Nations worker.  When the Bauers had been in Jamaica for about two weeks, they received a visit from an older lady who informed them that she was Pentecostal but would like them to come to her house on Boxing Day and then start a Bible class on her veranda.  Erhart took her up on the offer and began teaching the Bible class, and Lumembo was one of the woman’s fellow congregants who attended the class. He became interested in studying Lutheranism and read the Book of Concord in three weeks.  Soon Lumembo decided he wanted to be a Lutheran church worker.  Erhart was able to be in contact with Lutheran Immigration Services to help him bring his family (wife and six children) to Jamaica from Africa.  They, too, became part of the Lutheran mission.  Lumembo also was trained as a lay minister and served in this position.  After a time, Lumembo and his family decided to move because they didn’t feel the country was the safest place for their children, and they settled in Canada.  Lumembo has now completed seminary studies through the Ethnic Immigrant Institute for Theology of the LCMS and is waiting for a call to a congregation.

 

• Another story of a church leader who has come through the mission is of a young man, Kevin Williams, who first affiliated with the mission as a grade school student.  He continued as a member of the Lutheran church in Jamaica and studied with the missionaries.  He came to the US to receive college training, including a year at Concordia University, Mequon, Wisconsin.  Since that time he has become a teacher in the LCMS and is currently teaching near Cleveland, Ohio.