Photo courtesy of The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod International Center.

Concordia Seminary, St. Louis is pleased to welcome Dr. Jon Vieker to its faculty effective Aug. 16 as associate professor of Practical Theology and dean of chapel.

Vieker’s areas of academic expertise include the study of hymns, hymn writers and hymnals, especially as viewed through the history of American Lutheranism and the wider American ecclesial context.

“We are thrilled to have Dr. Vieker joining our faculty. With his years of pastoral ministry, his background in the history of Lutheran worship and hymnody, and his broad familiarity with our church body and its current discussions on worship, Jon is a strong addition to our team,” said Concordia Seminary President Dr. Thomas J. Egger. “My prayer is that he will lead our students and our Seminary community to fix our eyes upon Jesus and to rejoice in receiving Jesus’ gifts and spending time together in Jesus’ presence.”

Before coming to the Seminary, Vieker served as senior assistant to LCMS President Dr. Matthew C. Harrison (2010-21).

From 1998 to 2010, Vieker served as assistant director for the LCMS Commission on Worship, and was involved with all aspects of research, development, editing and production of the seminal Lutheran Service Book and its core companion volumes.

Before his service with the LCMS Commission on Worship, Vieker was a parish pastor for nine years at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in West Bloomfield, Mich., and has served as organist and choir director in a variety of settings.

Vieker served as co-editor of the two-volume Lutheran Service Book: Companion to the Hymns (Concordia Publishing House [CPH], 2019) and was lead editor in a translation of Friedrich Lochner’s The Chief Service of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church (CPH, 2020).

An accomplished musician, Vieker also is a composer, with choral settings and organ preludes published by CPH and Liturgy Solutions. He is a member of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, The Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Internationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Hymnologie. He also is a member of Concordia Historical Institute.

Vieker earned a Doctor of Philosophy, Master of Sacred Theology and Master of Divinity from Concordia Seminary (2004, 1990, 1987). He received a Bachelor of Arts in music from California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks, Calif. (1983).

Vieker and his wife, Kim, live on campus and are members of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Des Peres, Mo., where they sing in the parish choral ensembles. They have two adult children and two grandchildren.

About Concordia Seminary

Concordia Seminary, St. Louis provides Gospel-centered graduate-level theological education for pastors, missionaries, deaconesses, scholars and other leaders in the name of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS). To learn more, visit csl.edu.