March 12, 2025

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. - Ephesians 1:3

On MLC Day 2025, we will celebrate the blessings God has gifted to our WELS ministries - through the pastors, teachers, and staff ministers who faithfully proclaim his Word and through the individuals and families who support this work.

On May 7, we encourage you to . . .

• PRAY - Celebrate blessings at your churches and schools through prayers of thanks for the work of pastors, teachers, staff ministers, and ministry leaders.
• SHARE - Join friends of MLC across the globe in sharing photos and videos that express thankfulness for our Lord's blessings. We especially invite everyone to post short selfie shout-out videos. Watch MLC’s Facebook and Instagram for video-sharing details.
• GIVE - Give to our Congregational Partner Grant Program to honor those who have blessed you through their public or private ministry.

With your gifts, we hope to add another $130,000 to the Congregational Partner Grant Program matching fund so that more students will receive financial assistance for their journey to the public ministry.

Read more about MLC Day.

The MLC College Choir’s spring tour is planned for March 15-23, 2025. Concerts are scheduled in Missouri, Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

Two special joint concerts with the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary Chorus are planned as part of our efforts to thank the Lord for 175 years of blessings on the WELS and 160 years of WELS ministerial education.

• March 20 - St. John’s Hillside-Milwaukee
• March 29 - Martin Luther College

A separate MLC spring tour homecoming concert will be at MLC on Sunday, March 23, at 4:00 pm. We pray you can join us for a concert near you.

Visit our website for more information.

MLC hosted 100 high school students from 20 WELS high schools for a wonderful weekend of music and fellowship at the 2025 WELS National Band Festival.

The March 7-9 festival’s theme, “Instruments of Praise,” encouraged the young musicians to use their musical gifts in service to God. And they spent the weekend doing just that! Friday and Saturday were filled with sectionals and group rehearsals led by the two festival clinicians, MLC’s own Dr. Miles Wurster and also Mr. Wes Schmandt DMLC ’90 of Kettle Moraine LHS.

Sunday’s concert was the culmination of those many hours of rehearsal and an opportunity for everyone in attendance to reflect on the Christian’s role as an instrument of praise to our God.

Watch the concert stream on MLC’s YouTube channel.

March brought exciting All-Conference awards to the Knights!

Women’s Basketball:

• UMAC Coach of the Year: Head coach Professor Dan Gawrisch (pictured), who led the Knights to the UMAC tournament
• First Team All-UMAC: Mya Morris (Crosspoint Alliance-Perham MN)
• Honorable Mention: Emma Dorn (St. John-Redwood Falls MN), who became MLC’s all-time leading rebounder and joined the 1,000 Point Club

Men’s Basketball

• UMAC Rookie of the Year: Adam Loberger (Mt. Olive-Appleton WI)
• Defensive All-UMAC Team: Ben Pearson (St. Paul-New Ulm MN)

Men’s Indoor Track & Field

• The team took second at the UMAC Indoor Championships.
• All-UMAC:
• Arthur Robinson (St. Paul-New Ulm MN)
• Lucas Holtz (St. Paul-Appleton WI)
• Matthew Hillmer (St. Matthew-Oconomowoc WI)
• Stephen Wietzke (Crown of Life-Pueblo West CO)
• Samuel Plocher (Holy Trinity-Des Moines WA)
• Jeremiah Stanton (Redemption-Milwaukee)
• Daniel Ertman (Bethany-Fort Atkinson WI)
• R.J. Perry (Our Savior-Brookings SD)
• Robinson led the Knights with six top-4 finishes at the meet.
• Robinson, Holtz, Hillmer, and Wietzke broke the UMAC record in the 4x200-meter relay.

MLC Forum’s production of Ask Any Girl was a delight. With the classic tension and warmth of the rom-com genre, the show drew audiences into its story and connected them to the characters driving it.

Bethany Spike (St. Paul-New Ulm MN, pictured in pink blouse), who played Ruby, felt that the cast’s chemistry made that connection possible. “Everyone got along super well, so practice was always so much fun!” she said.

And working with others training for ministry gave her a taste of the future. “This is very similar to what we will be doing in our ministries someday when we, through our individual responsibilities, work together to share the gospel,” said Bethany. “If anything, this experience just made me more excited to work with my colleagues in my future ministry.”

For 15 years, the MLC Ladies’ Auxiliary has hosted one of our students’ favorite campus events: Bingo Night. And it gets bigger and better every year!

Bingo Night 2025 saw the highest student attendance and largest prize totals yet, with 370 students playing and almost $4,000 given out in cash and gift cards. As always, blankets and quilts were the favorite prize, with 208 awarded!

The night was a fun-filled way for students to see the support of Ladies’ Auxiliary members from around the country. Thank you to all who donated to make this event a success!

Pictured: Anna Busch (St. Paul-Rapid City SD) holds her winning Bingo card and new handmade blanket.

Our spring issue is out now!

Meet some of our international students and read about our new associate degree, future pastors getting preaching practice, and how our future teachers get “book smart.”

Read online.

In the February MLC Update, we incorrectly stated that UMAC had established a scholarship in the name of Coach Jim Unke. The UMAC established the Jim Unke Legacy Award, which will be awarded annually to an individual for exemplary service to the UMAC. We apologize for the mistake.

The Jim Unke Legacy Award, as the article correctly stated, is just one part of the UMAC’s honors for Jim. The conference also named Jim as the founding member of the new UMAC Hall of Fame and the only inductee for its first year, and the conference committed to making regular contributions to the Jim Unke Memorial Scholarship at MLC.