| Return |

He Preached Mornings and She Preached Nights

An Interview with Martha Klaus

WIM: Please tell our readers about your call to ministry.

Klaus: I got saved in a revival meeting inmy town during my junior year in high school. In my senior year, I remember playing by the family stove in the winter when I felt a call to ministry. I was only 16 when I graduated from high school, so I helped around in various churches. When I was 18, I was credentialed in 1937 in the Nebraska district. Then I traveled and held revivals and vacation Bible schools in South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, and Wyoming — wherever there was an opening. I also went up and down the coast of California and held revivals and vacation Bible schools.

WIM: How did you meet your husband, Arthur?

Klaus: We knew each other as teenagers. Arthur was my cousin’s best friend, so we saw each other on and off. He lived about 100 miles away. Then he was in the service for over five years. We didn’t get really serious until he was in the service and after he got home. He was discharged in October 1945, and we were married in April 1946.

WIM: When you married, how did ministry involvement change for you?

Klaus: There was a rule in the Assemblies of God that women had to be 25-years old before they were ordained. At the district council before we married, I applied for ordination and Arthur applied for credentials. They wouldn’t ordain me because they said it’s not good to ordain a woman before her husband is ordained.

We pastored in North Dakota for 10 years and built a church there. Eventually, we transferred to the German district and ministered primarily to German people in North Dakota. We were both ordained around 1948 or 1949. Then we went to Chicago, and ministered there 23-1/2 years at a German church. During the war, a lot of German refugees came to the U.S. We basically ministered among German people in Chicago. My husband preached in German in the morning, and I preached in English in the evening.

When Arthur didn’t want to preach full time anymore, we went to San Jose, California, to a little German church. We were there five years, and then Arthur passed away. The church wanted me to stay on and pastor, which seemed to be a natural thing to do, but I couldn’t do it. I needed to go somewhere where I could heal before I could help other people. I attended Bethel AG where Charles Crabtree pastored, and really felt healing there. Then in 1987, I went to Germany on a MAPS trip and ministered at a military chapel for about four months when the pastor returned to the U.S. for surgery. About three years later, at around 80-years of age, I went on a three-week MAPS trip to help establish a church in Austria. I helped in the services and preached once in German.

WIM: Looking back, how did becoming a mother affect your ministry?

Klaus: In that era, the church came first. I’m glad that era has changed and there is more emphasis on family: God first, and family second instead of last. I think that has been the cry in our movement. There were times I reminded my husband, “Your children are your parishioners too.” It was difficult.

At times I pushed Byron’s bassinette with my foot while I studied. But I had to curtail, especially after we moved to Chicago. When we went to the hospital, we’d set Byron in the waiting room to read and we’d go do the visitation. I remember one time Byron said, “I’m going to take my own magazines to read. Their magazines are all old!” When my second son was born, I couldn’t go with Arthur on visitation. He wanted me to go, but I couldn’t when I had the children to look after.

WIM: You graduated from Southeastern Bible College when you were 79-years old, the oldest graduate of Southeastern! Tell our readers how you pursued your education through the years.

Klaus: Two years after my husband died, I’d gone through all the stages of denial and acceptance. I thought, Now what do I do? Loneliness welled up inside. One day I was reading the Pentecostal Evangel and saw that Southeastern was the first to offer an external degree program. If you had earned half of your credits, you could apply there. As a young woman, I studied one year at Central Bible College. Then I took a lot of classes at Moody when we lived in Chicago. I was pursuing a degree in chorale conducting as well as taking Bible courses. I also took some general education courses at a community college in California. Then I finished up and finally had enough to get my degree. We had plans for the whole family to travel to Florida for my graduation, and then I had a heart attack. I was able to participate in ceremonies at Southern California College [now Vanguard University]. After the ceremony, Bryon said a lot of the women came up and said they were encouraged by my example.

WIM: How have you been involved in ministry in recent years?

Klaus: For awhile I was active at Foothills Christian Center in California. I went there for 20 years. For a couple of years, I was on the staff as minister of pastoral visitation. Then I had another heart problem. After that, I taught Sunday school and led a prayer group. Occasionally, I would preach when the pastor would ask me when he went on vacation. I was basically a mentor to people in the church. That was my goal for about 20 years.

Health problems have kept me from doing a lot of things I’ve wanted to do. But I’ve said, “Lord, if there’s anything I can do here, show me.”

I’ve heard so many stories of women who were called to preach, and then got married and didn’t finish their call. That was one of the things that I didn’t want to happen in my life.

WIM: What words of encouragement would you give to young women today?

Klaus: I think the most important thing is to have a genuine call from the Lord. If you know the call is definitely from the Lord, then don’t let anything deter you from that goal. You must have a confrontation with God’s presence overwhelming you so nothing else deters you. That’s my experience. To me that’s the most important thing.

• home
• about us
• resources
• women in ministry
• faq
• past themes
• contact us