NUrturing Faith

Sharing Stories from LCMNU

December 2025

Listening To And Living Our Faith: Richard Lee

Richard Lee joined Lutheran Campus Ministry at Northwestern University in 1972 while he was a graduate student studying industrial engineering and after earning his bachelor's degree from Wartburg College in Iowa. Pastor “Mac” McCormick was the campus pastor at the Lutheran Center, and Dick especially remembered “Mac”s essays in the faith regarding the church.

The lessons of the day “forced us out of our inwardness, my church parochialism, and required [us] to hear what our faith says about who we are, who he is, and how we are all related.” Dick said. ”This is what Mac aimed to leave us with, to go out in the world and live this faith. As someone who has lived in Evanston ever since, I have met many of the subsequent pastors and generations of students at LCMNU, and I know they are living that faith."

Although Dick switched his graduate education from engineering to finance and graduated from the University of Chicago with an MBA, he lived in Evanston during those graduate school years and served in the student ministry as an organist. He was also a charter member of the student congregation formed at University Lutheran Church and was the first single “house parent” in the third floor apartment at the Lutheran Center. He was later joined by his wife Heidi afer their marriage in 1978.

Heidi, too, found a home within the campus ministry while she was a student. After their graduate studies, Dick and Heidi moved to Wilmette Lutheran and then to Trinity Lutheran in Evanston, both congregations being strong supporters of LCMNU over the years. Dick and Heidi have two sons, Andrew and Christian, and a daughter, Rebekah. Rebekah and her husband, Joe Lahout, have two children: Henry (4) and Ryan (2). Sadly, Heidi passed away in May 2016 from ALS. Dick retired from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission after previously working at the Chicago Board of Trade as director of regulatory and administrative systems.

Over the years, Dick and Heidi continued their service to LCMNU. As Dick said, “My latest volunteer effort has been working with Laura Roth and Toni Schramm on organizing the archives at the center. The records document the long history of the Lutheran Campus Ministry at Northwestern and in the Chicago area.” They complement the extensive Lutheran Campus Ministry archives in the Northwestern University Library Special Collections Department.

True to what he learned at LCMNU, Dick has listened to and lived his faith. Your continued support of our ministry allows countless other students to do the same and to benefit their communities.