Lutheran Pastor Retiring

    Over the past four decades, he’s  spent 11 years as a parochial school teacher and 30 years as a pastor.
    Robert Lindau, who is formally retiring this week as pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Glenwood, has served his church well over the past four decades and is ready to move on to the next chapter of his life.

    “As I was growing up, I always knew I was going to be a pastor,” Lindau said during a recent interview. “It’s what the Lord had planned for me.”
    Lindau didn’t become a pastor until the age of 36. A native of Crown Point, Ind., he was ordained in 1981 at St. John Lutheran Church in New Fane, Wis. Before becoming a man of the cloth, Lindau earned his undergraduate degree at Concordia Teacher’s College in Seward, Neb.  He would spend the next 11 years as a Lutheran school teacher (eight at the elementary level in Michigan and three as a theology instructor and choir directior at a high school in Wisconsin). While teaching, he earned a master’s degree in music from Central Michigan University.
    “My years of teaching helped me as a pastor,” he said.
    Lindau was ordained after attending a Lutheran seminary in Fort Wayne, Ind. The vast majority of his time as a pastor was spent in Wisconsin in predominately German communities. His last calling in Wisconsin came at Trinity Lutheran Church of Mequon (the oldest Lutheran church in the state of Wisconsin), He served as the senior pastor of the church, located in the Freistadt area of Mequon for nearly 10 years. The area was the first German settlement in the state.
    When Lindau accepted the call four years ago to come to Trinity Lutheran Church in Glenwood, it marked the first time he’d become the pastor of a church that had no ethnic roots.
    When Lindau received the call from the congregation in Glenwood to become pastor of their church, he prayed for two weeks, hoping for direction from his Lord.
    “In the Lutheran Church, a pastor receives a call to become the shepherd of the congregation,” Lindau said. “The Lord led me to the decision to come to Glenwood.”
    Lindau said he and his wife, Christine, enjoy living in Glenwood and intend to remain in the community following his retirement. He believes he was brought to Glenwood for a purpose.
    “I would just hope now that there’s faith in the office of the pastor here (Trinity Lutheran Church),” Lindau said.  “I think the Lord sent me here to help lay the ground work for the future of this church.”
    Lindau’s replacement as pastor at Trinity Lutheran will be Seth Kaiser, who is currently serving as the church’s vicar, a position in the church described by Lindau as a “pastor in training.”
    Kaiser has been the vicar for the past year and was called by the congregation to become the church’s new pastor. Lindau expects a smooth transition.
    “He’s spent the last year learning the ropes of what it’s like to be a pastor,” Lindau said.
    Although he’s officially entering retirement, Lindau has agreed to fill a temporary pastoral vacancy at Mount Calvary Lutheran Church in Omaha. He and his wife also plan to  spend considerable time traveling, one of their favorite pastimes. The Lindaus have visited numerous countries, including Egypt, Israel, China and Spain.
    Before the pastor’s  retirement, members of the Trinity Lutheran congregation took the time earlier this month to formally thank Lindau for his service to their church at a special retirement reception.
    “I was overwhelmed,” Lindau said. “I didn’t expect anything like what they did and the number of people that were here,” he said.
    The pastor and his wife have four children and four grandchildren (with a fifth on the way) spread out across the country.