FLBC Director of Discipleship Jeremy Larson has experienced year after year of waiting for God’s timing…and prayers answered the next day. He has battled the ravages of chronic disease…followed by a few short months of God’s miraculous healing. Patience and a commitment to obedience have characterized Larson’s life through it all.
Larson, who is also a Free Lutheran Seminary student, first heard God’s call to become a pastor during one of the most difficult periods of his over a decade-long Lyme disease battle which occurred during his career as an engineer for John Deere from 1998-2021.
“I’d really come to a place where I was primal: food, clothing, shelter; don’t get fired;” Larson said. “I was very, very, very, sick.”
Even while he was deeply physically hurting, Larson understood he was called to eventually attend seminary, and to be a minister to sheep without a shepherd, something that has characterized each of his ministry callings thereafter. Larson felt that the Apostle Peter’s command to feed the sheep was also part of his calling. Today, he lives this calling through intentional discipleship of FLBC students, and all those he interacts with.
When Larson first felt the call to become a pastor, He was so sick he could not act on it immediately. But in God’s wisdom, this was not a setback. God used Larson’s years of sickness to teach him how to do discipleship. Today, the fruit of God’s preparation in Larson is seen at FLBC where he teaches students a life-long habit of spiritually investing in others.
Larson was in his 30s when he was struck with Lyme disease. Because the Holy Spirt had put on his heart during his illness to go to seminary, each year of his poor health renewed the question in Larson’s mind, “Is now the time to attend?” However, the severity of his symptoms strained him to the point where he was simply trying to survive day to day.
During one of Larson’s worst years of Lyme disease, a young hockey player for the Fargo Force came into his life and was interested in being discipled. The pair went through the book, “Discipleship Essentials” by Greg Ogden, which Larson continues to use for the FLBC discipleship program. They also had a regular movie night with a larger group of young men, going through Del Tackett’s “Truth Project” videos. Some of these young men were there for the spiritual knowledge, some to simply experience time in a home with a family.
A pattern developed. Each year, more young men, many of them from the same hockey program, were being discipled.
“You can invest for a year or two in somebody, and it can be dramatic changes that can happen in those two years if you have somebody who wants to grow and learn,” Larson said.
Some of the men were already saved when they began being discipled and some were not, but all were eager to learn about the Bible and find a sense of belonging with Larson and his family. God’s Spirit used these relationships to change spiritual destinies.
“As we went through it, we just explained the gospel to them,” Larson said. “I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere in that, they went from death to life.”
In the spring of 2021, a ministry opportunity opened as his congregation. St. Paul’s Free Lutheran Church, in Fargo, North Dakota, was looking for an associate pastor. Larson reached out to the call committee with a plan to combine serving with online seminary. His plan fell through because Free Lutheran Seminary classes are all in person. He withdrew his name and thought he was done with the idea. God did not.
“As we went through it, we just explained the gospel to them. I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere in that, they went from death to life.”
At John Deere, things were going downhill. Restructuring and mass layoffs left a bitter workforce. By that fall, Larson began reconsidering the associate pastor position. This time, he accidentally asked God for a sign: “Maybe I’ll pray about it if the call committee was to reach out to me again.”
The next day, God answered through a chance encounter with a call committee member. Further confirmation came in the words of Larson’s pastor, Micah Hjermstad: “After COVID, we feel like people are just a little scattered. We need someone to shepherd the sheep.”
Larson and his wife agreed that God had given them clarity, and obedience was the next step. But then the world counteroffered. That week, Larson received an excellent engineering job offer, and other engineering opportunities followed. Undeterred, Larson moved forward with taking the associate pastor position.
“I called the church call committee and said, ‘I don’t know if the job is part time or full time. I don’t know the pay. I don’t know the job responsibilities. But if you want to call us, we would probably say yes.’”
After he accepted the call, Larson’s Lyme disease symptoms strangely began to go away. The sickness, for which years of focused hard work had given only limited relief, faded in two months under God’s healing hand. Today, he feels 80-90% better, and has no explanation except God.
The fulfillments of Larson’s call to become a pastor continued after his time as a lay pastor at St. Paul’s. In 2023, God brought Larson to seminary and provided him a job at FLBC launching a focused discipleship program. The call was God’s supernatural fit for Larson’s giftings and passion for discipleship
At FLBC, Larson is using the model he learned in Fargo—pairing two or three young people with a more mature adult—to develop a rigorous discipleship program for the school. These three-person micro groups bring friendship and encouragement while they spend time in God’s Word. The group size fosters the relational closeness essential to helping each other apply biblical truths to their lives. Members take turns leading the group’s round-table style meetings. Larson believes this method is approachable for most believers.
“There’s (only) a few people in the world that God has gifted to talk to thousands of people,” Larson said. “There are (a few) more people that God has gifted to lead a discipleship group of 15 people in their church. (However) I think most people God has given a gift to speak with two people for two years.”
The aim of FLBC’s discipleship program is for graduates to cultivate new micro-discipleship groups after they leave. The 2026-2027 school year marks the fourth year of the program Larson started, and he is entering his final year of seminary. Together, these two aspects of his life are a testament to the endurance of God’s call which transcends human timing and the priceless impact of obedience even when it comes at personal cost.
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