Pat Keifert died suddenly last week. It was a shock and we are stunned. He was a brilliant scholar and a professor at Luther Seminary for many years.
I would like to honor his memory by sharing the story of how I knew him and how he impacted my theology and ministry.
I share this personal story because Pat taught me that this kind of first-person, thick description around the particularities of lived experience is the core of our theological work.
I first encountered Pat long before I knew anything of the ELCA or had a hint that I would become an ELCA pastor and professor at Luther Seminary.
This story begins in 2006 when I was leading a network of house churches in Las Vegas, NV. I was soaking in the works of Brian McLaren, Richard Rohr, Leonard Sweet, Spencer Burke, et al., and listening faithfully to the Emergent Village podcast with Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt.
McLaren’s book A Generous Orthodoxy was hot off the presses and I saw an advertisement for a conference titled “Ministry in a Postmodern Context” hosted by Allelon. It was to be held in Eagle, Idaho and featured Brian McLaren.
Sign me up.
It was my first venture into the world of the Emerging Church crowd in real time. I had been reading the literature and lurking in the shadows, doing some artwork for the Ooze, but never venturing into real interaction.
Little did I know that this conference was actually a Pat Keifert and Alan Roxburgh conference that used McLaren as bait. I had no idea who Pat and Alan were.
Pat Keifert led the 250 attendees through Dwelling in the Word at the beginning of each session. This was the first time I had heard of the practice. I enjoyed it very much.
So, that was my first encounter with Pat.
To be honest…I didn’t like him very much. He was brilliant, of that there was no doubt. However, he managed to offend the entire crowd. I thought he was gruff and a bit arrogant.
Sorry, that was how I felt.
Regardless, I enjoyed the conference very much. I returned home and drew this illustration to commemorate the conference (remember I was making a living as an illustrator at the time).
The conference was impactful. It was like sitting at the feet of Jedi masters. I wanted to learn the ways of the force they called the Missional Church.
Little did I know…
Pat, Brian, and Alan helped to destroy my church. The fact that I was listening to these voices, and the other heretics that I mentioned earlier, is part of the reason the house church network we started blew apart. One faction of our network saw that I was resonating with these voices and publicly denounced me as a moral relativist. Another faction publicly declared that I was demon-possessed and they could no longer follow my leadership.
2006 marked the painful death of our beloved house church, and Pat Keifert had some part to play in that.
God love him.
Pat was teaching me the Theology of the Cross before he was ever my official teacher.
My ministry world collapsed. I was broken and vowed to never be a pastor again. God told me to move back to Minnesota, to be near my parents, and to get a PhD.
We obeyed, packed up four kids, a dog, all our belongings, and moved to Minnesota with no idea what would happen next.
Three years passed. I struggled to make a living as a freelance illustrator/animator.
I had given up on the idea of a PhD.
My Dad introduced me to an ELCA pastor down the street and we became friends. God worked through Pastor Mark to bring me back into ministry, into the ELCA and to Dr. Craig Van Gelder at Luther Seminary. Craig invited me into the PhD program in Congregational Mission and Leadership. That was 2010.
Guess who one of my professors was going to be.
You guessed it…Pat Keifert.
“Oh no!” I thought, “I don’t want to take a class from that guy.”
I was so averse to him that I opted out of one of the recommended courses that he taught and took an independent study with another professor.
Then the inevitable day came. I had to take The Congregation with Pat Keifert. There were only five students in the class, so there was no hiding.
It didn’t get off to a great start. He didn’t like me at first. He pushed back and was not satisfied with my reasons for leaving Evangelicalism. He pushed me hard and tested me.
I learned later that he was speaking his love language to me.
My life was dramatically transformed through that class and Pat’s teaching. He blew my mind and opened my theological imagination to how God works in the world and the church in ways that changed the trajectory of my ministry.
I did a 180 degree turn on how I felt about him by the end of that course. I admired him very much. He taught me how sociological methodology can be a deeply theological and spiritual practice.
I was so taken by him as a professor that I asked him to be one of the readers on my dissertation panel, along with Gary Simpson. He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he took me on a long walk around the St. Anthony Park neighborhood. He asked deep questions and listened intently. Something happened in that conversation and he said, “Yes!”
My dissertation defense was in June, 2015, which meant I had 11 months to wait before the commencement ceremony in May, 2016. I was technically still a student during that time, so Pat invited me to be a TA for his Law and Gospel class that Fall. He was team-teaching with Rolf Jacobson.
Yep, I met Rolf because of Pat.
Rolf and I had an instant connection and he invited me to be part of the Vibrant Congregations Project Part II. We also worked together at Easter Lutheran Church for a while. Now Rolf is my Dean at Luther.
All thanks to Pat.
I did some artwork for Pat at Church Innovations and dabbled in those waters for a while. Then things fell silent.
I was busy working in the local congregation.
Pat was changing the world.
We didn’t interact much after 2016, but the five years I spent in his orbit were life-changing.
That is my story of how Pat Keifert was a channel through which God did deep transformational work in my life and ministry.
Thanks be to God for Pat.
