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He has been a ringmaster for 4-year-olds at a pre-school graduation circus.
Since 2002, he has been pastor at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in La Crescent, Minn., a congregation of 1,550 baptized members.
And on Saturday, he became the bishop-elect of the La Crosse Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
“I voted for him to be my bishop because he inspires me,” said the Rev. Mike Woods, associate pastor at Prince of Peace, after the election at the annual synod assembly at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.
Arends was one of five candidates for bishop.
With 155 votes, he beat out the Rev. Brian King in the fifth round of ballots. A simple majority of the votes was needed, and King, from Bethany Lutheran Church in Iowa Falls, Iowa, had 113 votes.
Arends said he felt overwhelmed when the results were announced, but that his tradition believes God works through the election process.
“So when the votes start coming, it’s also a holy kind of thing inside you,” he said.
Arends, 57, grew up in northern Minnesota, the oldest of five children and the only son of a Lutheran mother and Baptist father. He was dedicated as an infant at a Baptist altar and was baptized a Lutheran at the age of 13.
Being Lutheran in the tradition of the ELCA means living in paradox, Arends said in an interview after being elected.
“We talk about being saint and sinner at the same time,” he said. “We live in paradox, which is difficult for our world, (which) likes things to be black and white.”
Woods said he’s never had so much fun working with someone as he has with Arends, who is known for his humor. “He’s so conversational in sermons that people find themselves answering his rhetorical questions out loud,” Woods said. “He’s a good communicator.”
Arends has been married to his wife, Lynn, for 35 years, and the two have four adult children — three sons and a daughter — with one son in seminary.
Since college, Arends said, Jesus’ words in Matthew 25 — in which Jesus explains that when people fed the hungry, clothed the naked, invited the stranger and visited those in prison, they fed, clothed, invited and visited him — have motivated him.
Among other work, he works with a team that does spiritual retreats at a federal medical penitentiary in Rochester, Minn.
Bishop April Ulring Larson, at her final synod assembly as bishop, said she has seen Arends’ gifts to be a bishop for a long time. Before she invited him to pastor in her synod, he’d been a runner-up for bishop in the Southeastern Minnesota Synod.
Arends will begin his work as bishop Oct. 1.
During speeches by the five bishop candidates on Friday, Arends told the representatives from the 81 congregations of the synod gathered that one thing a bishop is called to do is cast a vision.
He then told a story about how he was one day getting his shoes shined while staying in Ethiopia for three months in 2005 to help train pastors there.
The man shining his shoes, Arends said, accused him of not being a very good Christian.
“You had a different jacket on yesterday than you have on today,” Arends recalled the man telling him. “If you know your scriptures and you’re with my people who have so little, then why do you have two jackets?”
Every few months, Arends said, he still receives e-mails from the man, who signs them “Kidus under the tree.”
“I really grow from hearing the story of others,” Arends said. “What people often believe we’re about, we don’t model so well. ... We’re always challenged to evaluate our wealth, our gifts, our blessings.”
Joe Orso can be reached at (608) 791-8429 or jorso@lacrossetribune.com.
