Luther Prep has new president
By Teresa Stowell of the Daily Times staff
Friday, April 4, 2008 1:00 PM CDT
The Rev. Matthew Crass has accepted a call as the new president of Luther Preparatory School in Watertown. He succeeds former president Rev. Mark Schroeder, who accepted a call in August as president of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the third largest Lutheran church body in the United States.
Crass has served as dean of students at Luther Preparatory School for the past 10 years.
“I will miss the day-to-day contact with the students and the interaction with the dorm staff,” Crass said. “With any call I spent I lot of time in thought and prayed about it. Many brothers or fellow pastors from throughout the country gave me advice. As president I'm looking forward to overseeing the faculty, finances and staff of Luther Prep.”
Crass grew up in Beloit and graduated in 1978 from the former Northwestern College which was part of the campus that now has Luther Prep. He went on to the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in Mequon after graduation. Prior to his years as dean of students, Crass served as a parish pastor for eight years at a church in Weyauwega.
As president Crass said he plans to continue working toward the purpose of the school set forth years ago when it first began.
“Luther Prep has been here since 1865. That's 143 years that we have had the purpose of preparing and encouraging young men and women to work full time in the ministry and go on to school at Martin Luther College in New Ulm, Minn.,” Crass said. “By God's grace and the encouragement of our faculty Luther Prep School continues to fulfill that purpose with over half of our students going on to be pastors or teachers.”
Crass said he plans to continue that focus and in doing so hopes to find a way to increase the school's enrollment.
“At one point we had about 550 students and now we're down to about 325 students,” Crass said. “With enrollment decreasing in the past few years, we plan to keep enrollment in the forefront and focus on increasing numbers.”
Crass and his wife, Kathy, have four children, Isaac, a junior at Martin Luther College who is studying to be a pastor; Sam, a junior at Luther Prep; Johannah, a sophomore at Luther Prep; and Betsy, a seventh-grader at Trinity-St. Luke's Lutheran School.
An installation service for Crass will be Sunday, May 4, at 7:30 p.m., in the Luther Preparatory School auditorium.
Doctrinally conservative, WELS is headquartered in Milwaukee and has more than 1,200 congregations and pastors nationwide. The synod conducts mission outreach or assists in worker training in 23 countries on five continents. The only two larger Lutheran church bodies are the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.
Popular Searches
