Wittenberg President Christian M. M. Brady has announced that Rev. Dr. Nathan Esala, longtime global missionary with Lutheran Bible Translators, coordinator of strategic alliances with Seed Company, and current pastor of Rockway Lutheran Church in Springfield, will serve as Wittenberg’s new Matevia University Pastor. Esala will begin his new duties on August 17, 2026.

“Pastor Nathan understands the impact, interconnectedness, and importance of campus ministry at Wittenberg,” Brady said. “His innovative, creative pedagogies for teaching biblical and translation studies to diverse student populations as a missionary, pastor, and scholar, and his interactive approach to preaching will benefit our students and community. I am grateful that he accepted the call to serve here. With his arrival, Wittenberg will now establish a new Office of Campus Ministries, fulfilling objective two, goal five of our strategic plan, which speaks to cross-campus partnering in the development of an exemplar program for supporting student discernment. I also look forward to having Pastor Nathan’s insight and perspective on the senior leadership team as we implement a new vision for Wittenberg.”

The Rev. Suzanne Dillahunt, Bishop of the Southern Ohio Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and a member of the University’s Board of Directors, concurs.

"I have had the privilege of witnessing Rev. Esala's ministry firsthand,” she said, adding that “he brings an exceptional combination of pastoral care, theological integrity, and scholarly depth that will make him a transformative presence at Wittenberg. Pastor Esala is grounded in theological formation and is authentic in daily life, which is what Wittenberg deserves in this call as Pastor to the University."

For 10 years starting in 2002, Esala and his wife Sarah served as missionaries in northern Ghana through Lutheran Bible Translators, a global nonprofit that “partners with local leaders to create translation programs for the many communities who do not have access to God’s Word in their native language,” notes the organization’s website. Serving among the Komba people, Esala said, showed him the “art of living in community and navigating differences despite challenges.” In 2014 Esala took the lead as translation coordinator for Lutheran Bible Translators, and in 2016 he became a member of the Scholars Seminar in the Network of Biblical Storytellers. In the same year, he joined a steering committee for networking scholars interested in Biblical Performance Criticism at the Society of Biblical Literature’s Annual Meeting.

By 2021, Esala earned a Ph.D. in biblical studies from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. A year later, he began parish ministry as the congregational pastor to Rockway Lutheran Church in Springfield, while teaching as an adjunct professor of religion and Bible at Capital University from 2021-2023. In that time, he also began Clinical Pastoral Education, where he learned to translate cross-cultural skills to serve diverse populations across the United States, and joined Seed Company, a partner with Lutheran Bible Translators, to “work with Lutheran church bodies (and others) who want to pursue Bible translation as a ministry of the church,” as per the organization’s website.

In reflecting on his experience to date and in considering the Matevia University Pastor position, Esala began to see where he could use his gift of translating and facilitating pastoral care across differences at this crucial and transitional time in Wittenberg’s history. Today’s students, he shared, “live in a world where the collective spirit of caring has been deeply wounded,” so the opportunity to help students discern their light, while passing it on to others through the development of relevant practices of care in community stood out to him.

“The Lutheran tradition grounds community and vocation in the love that God has demonstrated for each person and all of creation,” he said. “In these challenging times, Wittenberg’s diverse groups of students can foster community across differences by translating spiritual and theological practices through the liberating arts. I also trust that what started out as a spark of interest for me has now become a light that the Wittenberg community will see in me – a light that I can share with the campus and wider world.”

Along with his doctorate, Esala holds a Master of Divinity from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, a B.A. in speech communication from Concordia University in Mequon, Wisconsin, and a Certificate in Applied Linguistics from Dallas International University. He and Sarah, now Lutheran Bible Translators’ regional director for East Africa and Pacific, currently reside in Dublin, Ohio, and are the proud parents of five children.

An installation service for Esala is being planned for this fall, more details about which will be forthcoming.