In the Field

Featuring the Rev. Brian Hamer, 
Pastor at Christ the King Lutheran Church, 
Riverview, Fla.

by Pam Knepper
Managing Editor, For the Life of the World

Shepherding a Confessing Congregation

The Rev. Brian Hamer spent most of his youth in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father attended Concordia Theological Seminary (CTS) and now serves St. Paul's Lutheran Church.

"While my father was a seminary student I had the opportunity to go to chapel and to attend classes with him," he remembered. "One class, Homiletics,was very interesting to me because it taught how a text becomes a sermon. As a fourth-grader, I didn't understand everything in a Master of Divinity level class. But I knew that the life-long study of Christian doctrine was the most noble pursuit to occupy the mind."

Hamer contrasts this approach with the popular protestant method, "I guess my parents could have exposed me to the latest baby-booming gimmicks and entertainment and called it 'church.' But they knew that the Gospel knows no age boundaries."

Graduating in the spring of 1991 with a degree in music education from Concordia College in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Rev. Hamer describes a situation shortly after college graduation that greatly influenced him.

"I, along with three other friends from college, had agreed to provide the music for a friend's wedding at a small Lutheran parish in a rural section of northeast Indiana," he explained. "Arriving early at the church to practice, we could not access the sanctuary because the pastor was holding individual confession and absolution in the Holy of Holies. Frustrated and tired, we decided to wait outside on the church steps."

"It was a theological education in itself to watch local farmers, grade school children, and others arrive by car, tractor, or foot so that they could confess their sins and receive absolution from the pastor," Rev. Hamer recalled. "Confession and absolution was offered in this congregation as its own service, not just a prelude to the Divine Service on Sunday morning. For the first time, I fully realized the church was a spiritual hospital, where dying sinners receive the healing balm of forgiveness in Christ. Sitting on those church steps on a hot summer afternoon was the best course in 'practical' theology I ever received!"

That fall, Rev. Hamer began classes at CTS. "My time at CTS was very edifying," remembered Rev. Hamer. "Since I had a strong interest in worship and church music, I especially appreciated how the rhythm of the worship life at Kramer Chapel taught the historic offices like Matins and Morning Prayer, the sermons were on the appointed lessons for the day, and the hymns were carefully chosen to reinforce the theme of the day and the season of the church year."

In 1995, Rev. Hamer was called to serve at his present congregation, Christ the King Lutheran Church in Riverview, Florida, a suburb of Tampa.

Like many mission congregations, Christ the King did not have their own space until October of 1999 when they dedicated their new sanctuary.

"When you don't have your own building, it forces you to think about the true definition of the Church, a very pertinent issue for Lutherans on American soil," explained Rev. Hamer. "The church is not a building, but the place where Christ is present to fully and freely forgive sins in the waters of baptism, the words of the Gospel, and the feast of His true body and blood."

As a "confessing congregation," Rev. Hamer likes to use the story of Jesus and His disciples in the boat during a storm to illustrate the Church Militant.

"The narrative of Jesus calming the storm (St. Mark 4:35-41) shows a strong and able Christ in contrast to weak and frail men. That's a perfect snapshot of the church-strong Christ, weak men (not vice versa!). In fact, even the word 'nave' for our sanctuary comes from the Latin word for 'boat.' So also 'navy'-the ones in the boat. As we pray in one hymn, 'See round your ark (boat!) the hungry billows curling' (LW #301.2). In our neck of the woods, the waves of Unionism, Biblicism, and pop-protestant Evangelicalism are blowing very strong and they threaten to tear our little boat asunder. But Christ is with us in the boat: 'Lord, you can help when earthly armor fails us' (LW #301.3). The storm rages on, but the church with the entire Christ and His sacramental gifts cannot fail," Hamer explained. "At Christ The King, the Gospel drives the boat for mission, not the urgency of countable numbers or the Pandora's Box of clever methods and techniques to make the church grow. Everything in our boat is carefully ordered according to the preaching of the Gospel and the real presence of the crucified and risen Christ in His sacraments. And against that, the gates of hell shall not prevail."

Rev. Hamer and his wife Jennifer live in Brandon, Florida. She teaches at a Lutheran Junior High School in the nearby community of Brandon.