By Mary Henrichs
PHOENIX — As we say goodbye to the 69th Regular Convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS), get to know five of the delegates who represented their home districts in Phoenix. There were 1,329 delegates — both advisory and voting — registered to serve. Here are a few of their stories.
Isabelle Cooper-Browne
Eastern District, Voting Lay Delegate
Lutheran Church of Our Savior, Buffalo, N.Y.
Isabelle Cooper-Browne is first lady of the Lutheran Church of Our Savior in Buffalo, N.Y., where her husband, the Rev. Christopher Browne, serves as pastor. The pair have been married for 39 years and have two adult children, one of whom is adopted. Her husband came to convention as a page so that he could help Cooper-Browne get around — she is legally blind and uses a wheelchair.
“He’s a good man. He’s been taking good care of me for so many years, and we appreciate each other,” said Cooper-Browne. “We have forgiveness — Christ-centered — in our marriage.”
Cooper-Browne loves to draw and is a published cartoonist — she has seven works in her coloring book series, “Wiggles and Friends.”
What do you love about the LCMS?
“I’ve been a Lutheran since I was 4-1/2 years old. I got baptized, and I believe in Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. He is in my heart. Lutheranism has been in me for a long, long time, and I love it. I love the liturgy, I love the songs, the hymns — I just love it all. I love when you come into church in the morning time for Confession and Absolution and get that — boom, right away.”
Cara Jeffords
Southeastern District, Voting Lay Delegate
Incarnate Word Lutheran Church, Florence, S.C.
Cara Jeffords has had a busy two decades of homeschooling her six children, ages 10–21. Yet in the midst of the busyness of schooling and family life, she has found the time not only to serve as a delegate in Phoenix, but also to serve on Floor Committee 3, which helped to develop resolutions related to mercy.
After spending two years at Concordia University Chicago (CUC) — then named Concordia University, River Forest — where she “did a lot of theology classes, because that was my passion,” Jeffords followed her husband to Fort Wayne, Ind.
“We had a wonderful time at the seminary in Fort Wayne,” she said, calling those seminary years “formative” not just for her husband, Matthew, but for her and the whole family.
As a homeschooling parent, Jeffords finds herself teaching math and finance almost every year, although this year, she is also teaching history.
Her congregation in Florence, S.C., may be small, but children make up almost a third of the parish. She’s very grateful for the involved members of her parish who care about the wellness of her family and do so much to make the ministry a joy.
What do you love about the LCMS?
“The theology — I mean, how else can you answer that question? But truly, I do love to see the people and the mission work that’s being done.
“When you come to something like this, you see how much bigger it is — not just people-wise, but it’s bigger than us. … Congregations are doing a lot of that groundwork, but to see all the framework that’s above that — the mission field extends far beyond anything we can fully comprehend. It’s been wonderful, wonderful and wonderful to be here.”
Rev. Jason Kaspar
Texas District, Voting Ordained Delegate
Mount Calvary Lutheran Church, La Grange, Texas
Self-described “old man, baby pastor,” the Rev. Jason Kaspar is 50 years old and has served as a pastor since 2019. After a few years at Concordia University Ann Arbor (CUAA) in the ’90s, Kaspar worked in restaurant and bar management, trucking and manufacturing, and in oil fields in western Colorado, where he met and married wife Mandy before moving to San Antonio. When Kaspar was laid off, because “that’s how brutal [the oil industry] is,” he had a chance to consider his path forward.
“I actually intended to be a pastor most of my life,” said Kaspar, whose family has a rich history of church work. His grandfather served as a pastor, and his father plus several aunts and uncles served as Lutheran school teachers.
“Mandy and I had a conversation after a Bible class on one Sunday when we were studying the call of Abraham out of the land of his father, and she suggested that perhaps I should look at the seminary,” Kaspar recalled. “I filled out the application that night, and within three months we were at ‘The Fort’ [Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne].”
As a fifth-generation Texan, he now serves in La Grange, in a circuit that is “sparse in population, but dense in Lutheranism.” Kaspar notes that St. Paul Lutheran Church, Serbin, Texas, is in his circuit — “the 1854 origin point where the Ben Nevis immigrants came and opened up Wendish immigration into Texas.”
What do you love about the LCMS?
“I love our confession. We have the clearest, most concise and most precise confession of faith relative to what the Scriptures say. We have a tool that allows us to express what God has told us in His Word, and we hold to it. We don’t just mishmash around and say, ‘Well, you know, I think maybe this is true insofar as … .’ No. We say it is quia — it is true because this is what the Word of God says. We hold to that confession, and we hold each other to that confession, and it makes us better as Christians … better equipped to minister to the world around us.”
Rev. Jared Melius
Rocky Mountain District, Ordained Voting Delegate
Mount Zion Lutheran Church, Denver, Colo.
The Rev. Jared Melius is grateful to have his wife, Jan, along with him at convention this year: “She keeps me loaded up with coffee and sunflower seeds so that I can make it through the day.”
The pair — who have nine children, including three who are adopted — have been foster parents for around 10 years. Melius also serves as first vice-president of the LCMS Rocky Mountain District and has been serving at Mount Zion Lutheran Church in Denver, Colo., for 20 years.
The Meliuses are currently “working together to build our own house.” Said Melius of their home project, “I’m an amateur at a lot of different things, which makes me dangerous.” He’s had to work with contractors, city officials and designers to make it happen.
What do you love about the LCMS?
“I love that no matter what kinds of conflicts that we might have … that the people here, whatever their positions on our issues might be, love the Lord Jesus and particularly love the Lord’s Gospel, which grants unto us the comfort of the forgiveness of our sins.”
Lukas Sollberger
Wyoming District, Advisory Commissioned Delegate
Trinity Lutheran Church, Cheyenne, Wyo.
Since graduating from Concordia University, Nebraska (CUNE), in 2022, Lukas Sollberger has served for four years as a teacher at Trinity Lutheran Church and School in Cheyenne, Wyo. It’s a small school, so Sollberger teaches many subjects, including high school history, literature, rhetoric, art and geometry.
“I went to school for art, but history has kind of also been one of my biggest hobbies, and so I got into historical tailoring and making my own clothes,” said Sollberger. “I do own modern clothes, but the majority of my wardrobe is the stuff that I make, so my students are used to seeing me like this.
“I also have a replica of an 1870s high wheel bicycle — one of those ones with a really big wheel and tiny back wheel. … I had a modern bicycle, but it was stolen some years ago, so now [the historic bike] is my daily rider.” Sollberger takes the old-timey bike on regular weekend rides of about 15 miles.
As for his impressions of convention, Sollberger said, “Seeing so many people here was intimidating at first, but then realizing that everyone here is Lutheran — it’s been really good to see this many people from around the nation who share a similar faith mindset, and from around the world as well.”
What do you love about the LCMS?
“I’m glad that we’ve remained so faithful and true to the original doctrine of what Lutherans historically believe, more so than some other Lutheran church bodies throughout the U.S. I’m proud to be part of the LCMS.”
2026 LCMS Convention
Under the theme “Christ Is Risen Indeed,” the 69th Regular Convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod met July 18–23, 2026, at the Phoenix Convention Center in downtown Phoenix.
There are several ways to get convention news, including:
Web
• lcms.org/convention/national
Video
• lcms.org/convention/national/livestream
Audio
• kfuo.org
Social media
Posted July 22, 2026
