Norbert Becker

1. 07/21/1922 Indianola, NE

 

Spouse/Family

Wife: Gloria (Fuchs) m. July, 1955; d. 10/17/1971

Geraldine (Senne/Lutz) m. 1975

Children: Paul Norbert, Mark Allen, Lois Jean (Budd), Timothy John, Stephen Theodore

Step-children: Brian Anton Lutz, Karla Gayle (Lutz) Gray

 

Dates of Service Field Call Assignment

1947-1964 Philippines Missionary

1965-1974 Philippines Seminary Professor,

Mission President

 

Biographical Summary

Norbert (Norb) Becker grew up as a pastor’s child in rural Nebraska.  He attended prep school at St. Paul’s College in Concordia, MO, then Concordia Seminary in St. Louis from 1942-1947, including a year of graduate study.  While at seminary, Norb felt a call to serve in foreign missions, hoping to serve as one of the first to a newly open mission field.  He volunteered to serve in the Philippines and in due time was called by the LCMS to travel there as part of a group of four missionaries.  At the time, Norb had no wife or girlfriend to consult about whether it was possible to live halfway around the globe for several decades, so it was easy for him simply to answer the call affirmatively!  Three LCMS missionaries had reached the Philippines a year ahead of their group and begun work, including Alvaro Carino, a Filipino man who had studied in the United States and who, as Norb says, truly served as a “door-opener” for the American missionaries.

 

Norb’s first assignment was to Binalonan, Pangasinan, in the company of a Filipino worker whose family was in the area.  From 1947-1953 he worked as an evangelistic missionary, teaching Bible classes, leading worship services, and spreading the Gospel to those who had no Christian faith or only a nominal faith.  He learned the Ilocano language of the region, which did not seem too difficult as he had already been trained in German, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, and sign language!  At the very start, however, until he had mastered the language, he worked mainly with younger Filipinos who had learned English in school.  During a furlough in 1953, Norb undertook deputation work: speaking and preaching about mission work and his experiences in the Philippines for different churches and groups.  This furlough was also notable for its impact on his personal life, since he met his wife-to-be, Gloria, at a meeting of the St. Louis Women’s missionary society.  Gloria was in training to be a nurse and midwife and had planned to undertake her work in India.  However, her plans changed when, as Norb relates in his book Unsung Heroes: Missionary Wives, he popped the question: “Do you really think you should go to India?”  Because Gloria’s training would not be finished until June 1955, Norb returned first to the Philippines, where she joined him in June and they were married in Manila in July 1955.

 

For this second term of work, Norb and Gloria were assigned to the highland area of Guinzadan, the only missionaries in the immediate area.  Here again Norb learned to communicate, teach and preach in the local language, which was Kankanaey.  While Norb undertook the work of church-planting, teaching, preaching, and training leaders for newly established congregations, Gloria put her medical skills to work in delivering babies and treating those who were sick.  The remoteness of the area and lack of medical personnel meant that she often had to act as doctor as well as nurse – diagnosing illnesses when possible and sending those in need of more specialized help to distant hospitals.  This work of medical missions opened doors for much evangelism, when people from nearby villages would come or bring their sick children for treatment.  This work, and the work of evangelism undertaken by Norb in the area, led to the planting of six churches.  With no pastors in the area, Norb trained laymen to serve in the churches, which were not serving communion at the time.  It was a challenge to find leadership for such small congregations in remote areas, especially since most people were illiterate.  In one village, only one woman could read, and leadership responsibilities therefore fell to her.  While this work carried on, Gloria also home-schooled the Beckers’ young children.

 

Norb and Gloria lived and worked in Guinzadan for nine years, until Norb was asked to take a position teaching at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Baguio City.  The family returned to the United States so that Norb could study for a master’s degree in 1964-65, then moved to Baguio, where Norb began teaching practical theology to Filipino students training to be pastors – including nearly every subject in ministry, from preaching to evangelism to worship to Greek.  The seminary was small; only 4-5 students graduated each year, and four professors taught all classes; but its presence meant that Filipino nationals were being trained to take on pastoral roles in the churches that often had been planted by missionaries.  Moreover, because many who wished to undertake theological education could not move to Baguio City for their seminary training, a program was begun called Theological Education by Extension (TEE), for which Norb wrote two textbooks which students could use to study on their own (those who were training to be pastors did still travel to the seminary on occasion for evaluation).  Although Gloria did less medical work in Baguio City than she had in the highlands, she joined a group of expatriate women called the “Monday Afternoon Club” which took on charitable work throughout the area, while continuing to take care of the children and maintain the Becker’s home.  Sadly, Gloria was called to her eternal rest following complications from surgery in 1971.  Norb continued to teach at the seminary, and he and the children stayed on in the Philippines until 1974.

 

Following the completion of his mission work, Norb took calls to parishes in the Unites States, first to Faith Lutheran Church in East Wenatchee, WA and then to Trinity Lutheran Church in Jefferson City, MO.  He and Geraldine (Gerry) were married in 1975.  In 1988, Norb “retired” but took on a part-time role at Salem Lutheran Church in St. Louis for the next 20 years.  He states that he returned to St. Louis because it served as his home base during seminary and his time in the Philippines, and because “the St. Louis Cardinals play here.”

 

Nota Bene

Author of books including:

• Theological Education by Extension textbook: Ministry in the Church. Lutheran Church in the Philippines. Manila, Philippines.
• Theological Education by Extension textbook: Sermon Preparation. Lutheran Church in the Philippines. Manila, Philippines: 1974.
• Laymen: Hope of the Church. New Day Publishing. Manila, Philippines: 1974.
• Pitfalls in Preaching. New Day Publishing. Manila, Philippines: 1973.
• Unsung Heroes: Missionary Wives. Self-published.
• Things I Remember. Self-published.
• Adventures in Mission. Self-published.

Author of devotions for five issues of Portals of Prayer.

Writer of approximately fifteen mission hymns.

Translator of over one hundred hymns into Ilocano and Kankanaey for the Ilocano Hymnal. (Lutheran Hymnal in Ilocano. Lutheran Literature Center. Manila, Philippines: 1966.)

Worked with the American Bible Society in revising the Ilocano Bible.

 

Phase 2 Information

Biggest missiological issue faced?

Especially because the Philippines were such a new mission field, one of the most pressing issues facing the missionaries who served at the time was that of training leaders for the churches which were planted.  Not every congregation could be provided right away with a seminary-trained pastor, and many small congregations were unable to call and support a full-time pastor in their first years of existence.  Therefore, some pastors served part-time and took other jobs and some served several congregations at once.  For many remote congregations, missionaries trained lay leaders who could lead worship services, and these lay leaders often had more authority within their congregations than do lay leaders in the United States, simply because there were not enough pastors to serve the churches.

 

Most significant contribution during missionary service?

Norb wrote two textbooks for the Theological Education by Extension program begun by the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Baguio City, one on ministry in the church and one on sermon preparation.  These manuals were used in the Philippines during his mission service and have since been used in other mission fields.  The textbook on ministry has been translated into Spanish and Chinese and used in Africa as well; these books continue to help students become trained as pastors and evangelists.

 

He also made a very significant contribution to the Filipino church through hymn translation, having translated one hundred hymns into two different Filipino languages.

 

Connection to today’s mission?

Norb’s work as a missionary in the Philippines has helped to build up the work of the Spirit through Filipino nationals, in particular through two of his seminary students who have gone on to pastor congregations in the more remote highland areas of the country.  He has also helped to encourage the next generation of missionaries in the United States through his preaching and speaking.  The LCMS continues to work with the Lutheran Church of the Philippines and to send missionaries to the country, though not as many as during the Becker’s service.  The LCMS also supports a business manager who advises the Lutheran Church of the Philippines along with other churches in Asia.

 

Lessons Learned

• “People are people” – in any place and culture, people have the same feelings, needs, connection to family, and weaknesses and problems as well.
• Mission work takes a great deal of patience.  A missionary cannot always expect immediate results; some people will believe and some won’t (as we know well from Scripture!).  The Holy Spirit works as He will, and in some places it’s possible that mission just won’t work, at least for a period of time.
• Learning the language of the place in which one is serving is critically important.
• Norb found that it helped his work immensely that he knew he was to serve in the Philippines for a long time.  He considered his work to be a life-long call and found that this attitude was conducive for his work among the Filipino people.

 

Best Practices

• In general, it is most effective when missionaries minister holistically to the people to whom they are called.  That is, the most effective ministry is usually to the whole person, so that evangelism works in combination with social ministry, development assistance, education, medical ministry, etc.  As long as evangelism is not neglected while other forms of ministry are done, they can be a useful tool for mission.
• Once a seminary was begun in the Philippines, the missionaries found that the Theological Education by Extension program was a best practice for training people for ministry (both ordained and lay).  Ministry training became open to a much greater number of people when students did not have to move or travel for most of their education.
• Particularly in areas with few missionaries, ecumenical work with missionaries from other denominations proved effective for the spread of the Gospel.
• Liturgy was most worshipful when it was adapted for the needs of the culture and educational level of the people worshipping.

 

Phase 3 Information

Inspiration for entering foreign missions?

Norb’s father was a Lutheran minister with a strong sense of call to evangelism.  He was encouraging of Norb’s decision to become a pastor as well as his interest in foreign missions, feeling that in a new mission field people would be very receptive to the Gospel message.  Norb became interested in mission work and volunteered to be called as a missionary while at seminary, hoping to be sent to a newly-open mission field; when the call subsequently came, he accepted it.

 

Quotation by/about or brief story:

• Norb recalls a trip back to Baguio City in the years after he left the mission field, when he was greeted by a man about thirty years old, who gave him a lovely tailored jacket.  This man told the story of being hospitalized when he was a child in the highlands many years ago.  Norb had donated a pint of blood to assist in this child’s medical care, and he subsequently recovered.  Years later, he heard that Norb would be in Baguio City and came to present him with the jacket as a thank-you gift.

In Things I Remember, Norb writes of his decision to go to the Philippines: “[Most important]…was the challenge of being a pioneer in a new mission field.  Even the Apostle Paul, we recall, preferred not to build on someone else’s foundation.  Getting ‘in on the ground floor’ did, in fact, prove to be not only challenging, but also a satisfying ministry.  In retrospect, however, I have to believe that the Holy Spirit was guiding the process all along” (pp. 97-98).