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- Robert Keller (left), Robert Hofstad and David Steen pose in the early 1980s in identical stoles made by the quilters at Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Olympia, Wash. Between 1977 and 1983, the three were co-pastors of Good Shepherd.
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- Robert Keller (left), Robert Hofstad and David Steen remain friends today. They gathered June 20, 2024, in Steilacoom, Wash.
Decades before “teams” were popular in the workplace, a highly unusual one comprising three co-pastors was going strong at Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Olympia, Wash.
Between 1977 and 1983, Robert Keller, David Steen and Robert Hofstad were absolute equal partners in leading this fast-growing congregation of state workers and their young families in this leafy suburb below Mount Rainier.
That was about as opposed as you could get to the hierarchical type of leadership customary then. “You don’t know how many times, how much we heard, ‘Your model isn’t going to work,” said Steen, 88, of Lacey, Wash.
Worshipers would choose favorites. There would be backstabbing, undercutting, bullying and resentments, the young pastors were warned.
Not so.
Good Shepherd’s co-pastor model started when Keller, then on his own, desperately needed help. Families were pouring into Good Shepherd, located near a large high school. He got that help in 1972 and 1977 when Steen and Hofstad signed on.
Three equal co-pastors would be a better fit for Good Shepherd, they thought. Each would relinquish the traditional leadership style with one pastor having final decision-making authority.
“They had to iron out some things. It probably was rough at times.”
At their weekly staff meeting, they divvied up assignments. One would take hospital visits, one youth, one the sermon. All three were in charge; no one was in charge. The worshipers came around to the idea.
“People will support you,” said Keller, 91, of Olympia.
“If you’re honest and genuine with them,” added Hofstad, 77, of Steilacoom, Wash.
Integrity, commitment to the co-pastor model and a high level of trust between them made it work. “Everything is subservient to that,” Steen said.
It wasn’t easy all the time. “They had to iron out some things,” said Ken Halvorson of Tacoma, one of the council presidents then. “It probably was rough at times.”
“Of course we had disagreements,” Hofstad said, but they were resolved in the staff room.
The relationship was put to the test when church funds ran short. Since Hofstad was the last to arrive, it looked like he would be the first to go. Keller and Steen told the council, “If one of us [has] to leave, we all leave,” Hofstad remembered.
It was a courageous stand. Keller and his wife had six children; Steen and his wife five; and Hofstad and his wife two.
The council president at the time paused the meeting. A fundraising campaign to support all three took place. Sufficient money rolled in. The meeting resumed and the crisis ended.
“We had always been great friends with each other.”
On a lesser note, it was a challenge for all three to sign birthday cards to Good Shepherd members, which was the practice then. One might have to sign in the second or third spot without the others being there. In the end, “All three of us tried to sign the birthday cards,” Hofstad said.
There were plusses too. “It was wonderful to be able to take your family on vacation and not get a call,” Hofstad said.
The unusual pastoral triumvirate at Good Shepherd lasted six years.
Two went on to become bishops’ assistants and then bishops, each for a dozen years. Keller was bishop of what is now the Northwest Intermountain Synod through 1999; Hofstad of the Southwestern Washington Synod through most of 2013. Steen continued on as pastor of Good Shepherd. He became a regent at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash., and a prominent backer of environmental education there. He was also a police chaplain.
Their ambition, however, was to preach. “Pastor is kind of the beginning and end of your ministry,” Steen said.
Before the three worked together at Good Shepherd, Keller had served congregations in Washington, and Steen in Minnesota and Washington. Hofstad had served in Illinois.
The three were friends. “We had always been great friends with each other,” Steen said.
“It was that way right from the start,” Keller added.
They regularly get together now. In their conversations, they recall, by name, individual young people who were at Good Shepherd.
Even after so many years—co-preachers, at heart.
