Rev. Dr. Robert Kasper Retires5 min read

God’s call into the ministry isn’t always a clear-cut moment or a lightning strike. Sometimes it just gets unveiled as one takes a step of faith, then the next step, then the next.

Beginnings

Rob Kasper grew up at a farm in Wisconsin. He didn’t like to read and did not do well in school, but he wanted to do God’s will, even though he didn’t know what that was. He DID know that God’s will was found in the Scriptures—and that he wasn’t going to read through the Bible unless someone made him. So, he asked his pastor where he could go for that to happen. The answer was to go to one of the Concordias.

Kasper ended up being accepted at Concordia St. Paul, Minn. (CSP). A first-generation student, he knew nothing of how colleges were structured. When he got to the school and was asked what program he was enrolling in, he had no idea. He then learned there were only three programs available: education, DCE, and pre-seminary. Not a fan of anything related to education, he defaulted to pre-sem.

At CSP, Rob met his future wife, Deb. They got married in 1979 after Rob’s graduation and moved to St. Louis so he could attend the seminary. Deb also graduated from CSP as a teacher. In 1980, their first child, Rebekah, was born. The following year they moved to Las Vegas, Nev., for vicarage. There, Rob had the opportunity to do about 50 evangelism calls per month—simply by visiting people who had visited the church: “Crazy stories, crazy city, but wonderful opportunity to share the Gospel with people who had lost everything with gambling. They already knew the Law; we just needed to be there to catch them.”

Early Ministry

Shortly before returning to St. Louis for the final year of seminary, they found out Rebekah was deaf and started their journey with the Central Institute for the Deaf (CID) in St. Louis, which immensely helped them. The circumstances led Rob to request that his first placement out of seminary be in the general area of one of five cities in the country that had good Deaf education—a total flip of their initial plans: “We had always planned that we would be missionaries in another country, but the Lord said, ‘No, you’re going to be missionaries where I send you, and you need to be good stewards of your kids.’”

Rob’s first call (1983–1989) was to Webster Gardens Lutheran Church in Webster Groves, Mo., in the St. Louis area. Their second child, Jacob, was also born deaf, and he and his sister were both able to attend CID, even after Rob took another call to Our Savior, Fenton, Mo. (also in the St. Louis area), where he served from 1989–1993. (Rebekah is now a social worker at Texas School for the Deaf after graduating from Rochester Institute of Technology; and Jacob holds an M.A. in Educational Leadership and works in the Dean of Students Office at Michigan State University). Two other children, Gabriel (Rev. Gabe Kasper, ULC, Ann Arbor) and Anna (a Lutheran teacher in Ohio), were born in those years in Missouri.

Our Savior was the place where Rob experienced his most exciting day in ministry: 16 Baptisms in one worship service—and only five of them were children. It was also there that Rob finished the coursework for his doctoral degree. The dissertation would be completed at his next call, at St. Peter, Macomb (1993–2011).

Ministry in Michigan

At a District Convention during his time at St. Peter, Rob was elected to the Michigan District Board of Directors, where he served for a while. He also served on the Board of the Lutheran High School Association of Greater Detroit. It was also at St. Peter that Rob and the church staff made a point of encouraging young people to consider church work careers by means of individual interviews with confirmands and by honoring the congregation’s existing church workers. “We set a specific goal of 25 full-time church workers raised from 1997 to 2007. By God’s grace, we had 41 instead.”

In 2011, Kasper joined the Michigan District staff and took up tasks such as working with larger churches and mission starts. He became one of the Congregational Mission and Ministry Facilitators (CMMF) and later, under President Davis, the Director Leadership Development. President Davis shares, “I am grateful for the yeoman’s work that Rob Kasper has provided to the Michigan District, first as a pastor and these last many years as a lead staff member in the District Office. His analytical thinking, mission focus, and no-nonsense approach to ministry have been great blessings to many. And to me.”

When asked about his greatest joy found while working in the District, Rob said, “Outside of great people to work with, my greatest joy has been … raising up deacons and identifying men of character to be raised up in that way, many of whom now are SMP pastors, or they’ve gone through some measure of our training and said, ‘You know, I think I want to be a pastor’ and so they either went through seminary or are at the seminary now. To see that kind of growth … for women too as Ministry Assistants. Generally speaking, just watching people grow and mature through shared experiences and learning in ministry.”

Looking Into the Future

Kasper concludes: “We’re all going to die. Who is going to take your place? If you’re a leader in God’s family, replace yourself at least four times. Because until Jesus comes, we have a lot of work to do.”

As far as plans for retirement, Rob is aiming for six months of self-care followed by repurposing. “I’ll be doing something, but for six months I just want to lean into some new rhythms and reset.” He and Deb have some travel plans as well, and they also hope to finally learn sign language. The Kaspers have four grown children and ten grandchildren.

Rob’s last day of work at the District will be December 31, 2025. A farewell party in his honor will take place on Saturday, January 3, in Fenton, Mich. All are welcome to attend. Cost is $50/person. For more information and to register, click here.

_{Photos by Adele Werner/Michigan District, LCMS. Headshot by Elisa Schulz/Michigan District, LCMS.}