Meet Pastor Emmons
From Pastor Emmons:
“My wife Lisa and I were born and raised in Massachusetts. I met Lisa through my brother and we were married August 22, 1988. She was LCMS at the time, and I was, well nominally not much of anything. My family had it roots in the Augustana Synod until the merger into the LCA. Then it was everything and anything, but never “coming to the knowledge of the truth.” I remember going to folk masses, and visiting rolling-in-the-aisles Pentecostal meetings. Yet, I can say to this day that until I heard a Lutheran Law-Gospel sermon, I never clearly understood what the blessed Gospel was.
I had interest in writing and literature, and thought about teaching English. My father was a teacher, but it was he who talked me into going into the new and up-coming thing: computers. I worked for various companies that led me eventually to Minnesota.
As my first grade teacher told everyone at my ordination (June 18, 2006), I had actually said to her class that I wanted to be a pastor when I grew up. I don’t remember that, but I do remember it as something I was always interested in. This mostly, I think, because I never had real answers amid a fragmented religious upbringing.
In 1989, I was offered a job in the FDIC, regionally headquartered near Princeton, New Jersey. It was there that we joined a WELS congregation. After about 3 years, things were improving in the banking industry, so many in our department were about to be transferred to Irvine, CA. Instead I asked for a position in the Minnesota office. This partly because we had family there, and also because our pastor recommended Bethany Seminary if I were at all serious about becoming a pastor. The WELS did not really accommodate second-career pastors at that time.
I was not able to get a transfer but ended up working for Southern Minnesota Office Machines in Mankato. I was able to take Greek and Hebrew at Bethany in the morning before work. This was 1991-92 school year. Things still did not work out. I had financial aid issues and we were blessed with the news that we were going to begin a family, so we decided to move back east, near grandparents. We again joined our old LCMS congregation.
After 12 years, 2 houses, and a growing family, the “dot-com bubble” burst and I was laid off, January 2002. I thought again about becoming a teacher, but also seminary. My home congregation was willing to support me substantially, if I went to seminary. So I applied and was accepted at Concordia Theo. Seminary in Ft Wayne, IN. I began summer Greek in May, 2002. I vicared in Norwalk, Connecticut in 2005.
We requested to be placed in Minnesota or Wisconsin. My first call was to a dual parish in North-west Wisconsin: Zion, Turtle Lake, and Immanuel, Clayton, WI. I served them, plus various vacancies, for almost nine years–2006 until December 31, 20014 (Zion) and April 12, 20015 (Immanuel). The whole time, however, I still kept “one foot” in, or at least near, the WELS/ELS. I maintained contacts with pastors and friends there.
The difference between what I was taught at the LCMS seminary and what was practiced began to get further and further apart. I was asked (pressured) to give up what I swore to uphold, teach, confess and practice. This all came to a head in 2014, with a splitting of the dual parish. I decided it was time see if I could colloquy to the ELS. With great joy this was accomplished in April of 2015. I was blessed with the call to The Five Point Parish on May 12, 2015 until February 2023. I had to temporarily leave the ministry for health benefit needs. Thanks be to our most merciful and gracious God, I am able to once again work in His fields as a pastor with a call to St. Timothy.“