2007-present President Mark G. Schroeder

Mark G. Schroeder

was born on September 5, 1954, the youngest of eight children, all of whom became pastors or teachers. The son of Professor Erwin M. Schroeder and Selma nee Diersen, President Schroeder grew up on the Watertown campus where his father had served for many years as Latin professor and librarian at Northwestern College. A graduate of Northwestern Preparatory School and Northwestern College he matriculated to Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary and was graduated in 1981. He married Andrea Kuester on July 23, 1977. The Lord blessed them with four children: Aaron (Katy), Lindsay (Jonathan Bauer), Zachary (Ashley), and Lucas (Taylor).

Upon his graduation from the seminary Schroeder was assigned to serve Faith Lutheran Church in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, in 1981. During his years in Fond du Lac he also served as the chairman of the Northern Wisconsin District Commission on Parish Services. He accepted the call to King of Kings in Maitland, Florida, in 1987 and the call to be president of Northwestern Prep in Watertown in 1989. When Martin Luther Preparatory School was amalgamated with Northwestern Prep to form Luther Preparatory School on the Watertown campus in 1995, Schroeder was called to be president of the combined school.

He was elected to succeed President Gurgel in 2007. Schroeder had a reputation for being a good administrator and having a good understanding of budgets and financial matters, gifts that were necessary to address the synod’s continuing financial challenges.

During his administration those challenges received priority. The Financial Stabilization Fund was established to receive and hold funds from all non-Congregation Mission Offering (CMO) sources and distribute them in subsequent years as needed. The fund has prevented the kind of problems which previously had arisen when expected support from non-CMO sources did not materialize or decreased suddenly without adequate time for planning. In addition, the synod’s capital debt of $22.4 million at the start of Schroeder’s tenure was eliminated three years ahead of schedule with the final payment made in December of 2016.

There were other significant developments during these years. The Board for Parish Services upon recommendation of the Ad Hoc Commission was placed under the Conference of Presidents (COP) with the administrators of the commissions of Parish Services called by the COP, in consultation with the appropriate commissions. Because the COP is responsible for doctrine and practice and the spiritual health of congregations, the work of Parish Services fit logically with the duties of the COP. The board was renamed Congregational Services. It consists of six commissions: Congregational Counseling, Discipleship, Evangelism, Lutheran Schools, Special Ministries, and Worship.

World mission efforts mushroomed with the development of alternative mission strategies. In 2019 the Board for World Missions reported:

There are efforts to plant churches underway in Argentina, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Venezuela, Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, and among the Roma people in Europe as well as the Navajo, Sioux, and Mescalero Native American tribes. God’s grace has opened doors to an unprecedented mission opportunity in communist Vietnam. WELS has been invited by the government to work with the Hmong in Vietnam.

The work in Vietnam resulted in the Wisconsin Synod erecting a seminary building in Hanoi which Schroeder helped to dedicate in 2023.

As part of its 175th anniversary celebration the Wisconsin Synod set a goal of establishing 100 new missions and 75 enhancements throughout North America over ten years beginning on July 1, 2023. The goal nearly doubled the number of enhancements and new missions started in the preceding ten years.

These years also included formal doctrinal discussions with the Church of the Lutheran Confession and ongoing informal discussions with the leadership of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. An informal doctrinal discussion is one that addresses matters of doctrine and practice but does not imply that doctrinal agreement and a restoration of fellowship is imminent. The discussions with the CLC ended when the CLC introduced conditions for continued discussion that the ELS and WELS committee members could not accept.

Although WELS membership continued the slow decline begun in the early 1990s, the Schroeder administration has been marked by financial stability, relative tranquility, and efforts to stem the decline.