MINNESOTA
Park Rapids Enterprises
In part two of a series about former pastor Darwin Schauer, who is jailed in Hubbard County on 15 charges of criminal sexual conduct, the Enterprise outlines how he returned to serving at a church after previously being sentenced for sex crimes. The first part of the series appeared in the March 31 Enterprise.
BY Sarah Smith
ssmith@parkrapidsenterprise.com
Darwin Schauer reached out to the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod’s South District. He told a sympathetic minister he wanted to continue to serve the church.
The reverend helped get him accepted at Concordia in Mequon, Wis., after advising him that becoming an ordained minister was not possible with his history. Why not the lay ministry program?
Concordia Mequon’s registrar said Schauer was admitted in the winter of 1989 and by summer, was able to be certified as a lay minister. Because of his previous four-year degree, Schauer had completed the two-year program in less than six months.
“A lay minister program is a separate program,” explained Rev. Don Fondow, current president of the Synod’s North District. “If a person enters and already may have a degree, or if they have college credits, that is applied to how many courses they have to take because it’s a set certification so when you’re done you don’t necessarily receive a degree but you work towards certification and that’s what the situation was. He would have been certified, completed the program that would allow him to be certified as a lay minister. The (Concordia) faculty basically certified and then he’s available for placement in a position.”
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