Pastor Brendan Wiechert

Brendan grew up in Lawrence, Kansas as the middle child, and only boy, in a family of five. His family attended the Episcopal church and he was active in acolyting and the youth group.

He attended the University of Kansas, where he earned degrees in Business Administration and Economics. While at KU, he served as a youth director with his old church.

During college, Brendan worked four summers at Philmont Scout Ranch in the Sangre de Christo Mountains of New Mexico, relishing and sharing his love for God’s creation. In his last summer there, he met his wife, Debbie. Debbie is from Omaha, Nebraska and that is where Brendan began his career in commercial banking and Debbie in social work. Brendan and Debbie were married in the Catholic Church of her youth in 1994.

From Omaha, Brendan and Debbie moved back to the mountain west in Salt Lake City, Utah, where both continued in their careers and Brendan earned an MBA at the University of Utah. Go Utes!

Emma was born in 2000 and after five years in Utah, the Wiecherts began looking for a place they wanted to raise kids, and found Mead, Washington. They moved to Mead in 2001 and have lived in their current home since 2002. Calen, their son, was born in Spokane in 2003. Both kids were raised on camping in the Colville N.F. and skiing at 49 Degrees North. After initially attending St David’s Episcopal in Spokane, they joined St Luke Lutheran in 2008.

Brendan’s career was primarily at U.S. Bank/AmericanWest Bank where he led commercial banking teams since 2006 and ended at STCU where he was the Director of the Commercial Banking. Brendan took every advantage to develop team leadership and

strategic planning skills in those roles, ultimately graduating from the Pacific Coast Banking School. Brendan likes to note that in his banking career, he emphasized to himself and his teams acting in trust of customer deposits and community resources.

Brendan has served on boards for Lutherhaven Ministries, Second Harvest Food Bank, Downtown Spokane Partnership, and the (Spokane) Business Improvement District. He graduated from Leadership Spokane in 2004.

Debbie has now worked as a school social worker for the Mead School District for 19 years! Emma is now finishing her second year of law school at Gonzaga University and Calen is in his first year teaching math at Timberline High School in Boise, Idaho.

Throughout his life, Brendan has been active in the church: education, social participation, service, and leadership positions. He has helped lead three youth mission trips to the Dominican Republic (2015, 2017, 2019) and joined a “pilgrimage” to Israel in 2019. It is hard to pinpoint where the call to Word and Sacrament ministry first began in his life because the Holy Spirit has always been there.

In 2020 (in the middle of Covid), Brendan began exploring what life might be like outside of banking. With the encouragement of his pastor and St Luke Lutheran, he began exploring seminaries and landed on Luther Seminary in St Paul, Minnesota.

In June of the next year, the synod approved him for candidacy and in July, with a decision looming how to balance the load of working full-time and attending seminary, Bob Baker from Lutherhaven called to say the ministry was looking for a new part-time Finance Director, “if he knew someone.” He did! And until last September (for 4 1/2 years), he worked for Lutherhaven while attending school.

Seminary has brought many wonderful new friends and opportunities, including Christian leadership development at Salem Lutheran, pastoral education at Riverview Retirement Center, and internship at Advent Lutheran. He has also participated in independent study

trips to a Lutheran World Federation ecumenical council in Strasbourg, France, following the “Footsteps of Paul” in Turkey/Greece, and visiting Martin Luther sites in Germany.

Brendan is excited to bring his love of pastoral care and developing new relationships, real world/life experience, and continuing a life long interest in developing faith and religious education to American Lutheran. He looks forward to learning together and working with the congregation and leadership to discover and live out what is next for American Lutheran Church.