Pete Warmanen is pastor of St.Paul Evangelical Lutheran in Medford, Wis.
He’s known as “Pastor Pete” to his congregation and “Dad” to his children, but Pete Warmanen confesses he still feels like a kid at heart.
The pastor of St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran, an ELCA congregation in Medford, Wis., believes that a sense of childlike enthusiasm is essential to keeping his passion for ministry fresh.
“I hope that no matter what I do, or wherever I go, I can still have fun serving God and God’s people as a pastor,” Pete says.
“One day I’m visiting people in the hospital, one day I’m celebrating a baptism, one day I’m at a youth gathering, one day I’m grieving with a family, one day I’m celebrating a wedding,” Pete explains.
“Something I can never say about my vocation as a pastor is that it is boring! Each day when I awake, I never know what my day will look like. This is exhausting at times, but all in all it’s very fulfilling.”
Pete admits he was initially reluctant to consider ministry for himself. Possibly he was the victim of too much encouragement, as family, teachers and even the counselors at Fortune Lake Lutheran Camp all urged him to attend seminary.
So, like a typical teenager, Pete resisted. He comes from a long line of Lutheran pastors and didn’t want to consider a call simply because everyone else expected him to do so.
Then he had a revelation.
“Eventually I realized that it was God calling me through all of those encouraging people. I went to the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, and there I immediately discovered that this was what God was calling me to do.”
After graduating from the ELCA seminary, Pete is now an ordained pastor, husband and father. Pete challenges himself daily to stay open to the Holy Spirit moving in his life and to how he can be an inspiration to others.
“Just as God surprises me on a daily basis, I believe that God has called me to surprise others as well.
“Every Sunday I try to present the gospel in a way that surprises the congregation so that they can hear the good news in a new way. God surprised death, the devil and the whole world when he opened the grave and raised Jesus from the dead.
“As a Christian, I believe we are called to daily remind ourselves and one another of how great a surprise that really was and is. It’s God’s Spirit that gives me the strength to live each day. It’s God’s Spirit that gives me the right words to say. It’s God’s Spirit that helps my faith to be active in love.”
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