Pastor Peter Speckhard was born and raised in Valparaiso, Indiana, the fourth of five children in the family of Gerald and Johanna (nee Neuhaus) Speckhard and part of a rich heritage of Lutheran pastors and educators. He graduated from Valparaiso University in 1992 and married Heidi (nee Klett), also of Valparaiso. They moved to Euclid, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, where Heidi taught Latin at Laurel School (a girls prep school) and Peter was a graduate teaching assistant in the department of English at Case Western Reserve University, but quickly decided to change career paths. He enrolled at Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, Indiana in 1993 and transferred to Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri in 1994, where Heidi was able to teach at John Burroughs School, another prestigious prep school. Peter completed his vicarage internship year at Messiah Lutheran Church in St. Louis and graduated from seminary in 1997, the same year their first child, Samuel was born. He was ordained at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Valparaiso in June of 1997. His first call was to the Northern Illinois District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod to found a new congregation in Spring Grove, Illinois. The mission start-up Community of Faith Lutheran Church formally joined the LCMS in 1999, the same year daughter Ella was born. In 2000 Pastor Speckhard took a call to be associate pastor of Faith Lutheran Church in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and became senior pastor in 2002. In their time in Green Bay the couple was blessed with five additional children, Eva (stillborn in 2001), Anna, Rachel, Johanna, and Stephen. In 2014 Pastor Speckhard was called to St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Munster, Indiana and has served at senior pastor ever since.
Pastor Speckhard earned his Doctor of Ministry degree from Concordia Theological Seminary in 2018. He is also a veteran of the U.S. Army Reserves (1989-95) in which he was trained in Artillery and also Psychological Operations. He was a Fellow in the Pastor-Theologian Program of the Center for Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey, and since 2007 has served as associate editor of Forum Letter, a publication of the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau. He has led several tours of Israel with Educational Opportunities. Over the years he has served on many boards and offices at the circuit and district level, especially at Lutheran schools and in the pro-life cause, and has published articles in a variety of periodicals related to theology and culture. Since 2018 the Speckhards have also been a licensed foster home. When not focused exclusively on the vocations of church and family, Pastor Speckhard enjoys Green Bay Packer football, poetry, long walks, the sort of movies nobody else wants to watch, and fires out back or in the fireplace.
Pastor Speckhard earned his Doctor of Ministry degree from Concordia Theological Seminary in 2018. He is also a veteran of the U.S. Army Reserves (1989-95) in which he was trained in Artillery and also Psychological Operations. He was a Fellow in the Pastor-Theologian Program of the Center for Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey, and since 2007 has served as associate editor of Forum Letter, a publication of the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau. He has led several tours of Israel with Educational Opportunities. Over the years he has served on many boards and offices at the circuit and district level, especially at Lutheran schools and in the pro-life cause, and has published articles in a variety of periodicals related to theology and culture. Since 2018 the Speckhards have also been a licensed foster home. When not focused exclusively on the vocations of church and family, Pastor Speckhard enjoys Green Bay Packer football, poetry, long walks, the sort of movies nobody else wants to watch, and fires out back or in the fireplace.