Pastor Phillip Fischaber was ordained and installed at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Walnut, IL on January 3, 2021 by President Buss. The sermon was by Pr. Pablo Dominguez of Cristo Rey (Christ the King) Lutheran Church in East Moline, IL with whom Pr. Fischaber worked extensively on his vicarage.
Pastor Fischaber hails from Enid, OK where he grew up on a farm. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Tulsa in Tulsa, OK with majors in history and religion and a minor in economics. He is a 2017 graduate of Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft. Wayne, IN. He served as a domestic missionary vicar doing Latino ministry and also serving the English-speaking congregation at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Beardstown, IL. Following seminary, he went to Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, OH to pursue a Ph.D. in the field of Old Testament. He completed comprehensive exams in November 2020 and will receive his M.Phil. with honors in May 2021 with a major in history of biblical interpretation. He is currently working on his dissertation which will be in the field of exegesis and philology in the age of Lutheran Orthodoxy.
While in graduate school Pastor Fischaber met his wife, Sierra. They were married on August 2, 2019 at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Cincinnati, OH by his vicarage supervisor. They have an eight-month-old son, George, and another child due in June. In his free time Pastor Fischaber enjoys reading, carpentry (especially making children’s toys), music, and gardening. Though not from Muskogee, this Okie still considers leather boots in style for manly footwear, and you will find him wearing his grandfather’s.
