Pastor Ehlers comes from a family of WELS pastors. His father is now retired, but his brother Tim serves Christ Lutheran in Oakley, Michigan.Right out of the Seminary, Pastor John Ehlers was assigned to serve Crandon. In Crandon God gave him plenty of experience with building and buying projects. It was during his ministry that Builders for Christ built the new St. Paul church in 2000. And in Hiles, the congregation of Christ purchased St. Michael's Catholic Church, when the Green Bay diocese could no longer afford to maintain a priest there. This new church was quite advantageous because it had INDOOR PLUMBING!
Though indoor plumbing is adiaphoron (neither commanded nor prohibited by God), it certainly is wise Christian stewardship.
God had plans for Pastor Ehlers. He was honing him for his next place of service: St. Luke in Jackson, Michigan. On June 21, 2003, after canvassing the neighborhood for Vacation Bible School, he returned to find firemen fighting a fire that had engulfed the fellowship hall of his church. Once again he worked with Builders for Christ to restore the church for worship.
Also of interest:
As the synod was beginning to experience budgetary problems in 2002, the Albanian mission field seemed to be ripe for harvest. Since the missionaries in Bulgaria were serving Albania from afar, they encouraged their stateside committee to take the funds allocated for a Bulgarian missionary and use them to call a resident missionary to Albania. (Two of the Bulgarian missionaries had recently accepted calls to return to stateside ministries.) The reallocated funds led to the calling of Rev. Bruce Ahlers to serve in Albania.
Pastor Ahlers, in accepting the call, thereby vacated the parish at Jackson, MI. Meanwhile in December of 2003, Missionary Vertein was notified that because of budgetary cuts, his call to Bulgaria would be ending. In that same month Pastor Ehlers accepted a call to serve in Jackson, MI. Two months later, St. Paul and Christ extended a call to Missionary Vertein, completing the triangle:
Jackson, MI --> Albania / Bulgaria
Crandon / Hiles --> Jackson, MI
Albania / Bulgaria --> Crandon / Hiles
The Lord works in wonderful and mysterious ways!
