Vicar Jens was born in 1970 in Lübeck, Germany, where he grew up. In 1989 he joined the German Air Force as a cadet. After graduation from the German Air Force Academy and the University of the German Armed Forces, where he earned a Master’s Degree in Education, he served in the Air Force as a Platoon leader, as an instructor at the German Air Force NCO Academy, and as the vice head of a family support center. His last assignment led him to Potsdam, at the gates of Berlin, where he met his wife Agneta who worked as a teacher for children with special needs. They got married at St. Nikolai Evangelical Lutheran Church, which today is the partnership congregation of Saint Nicholas.

In 2000, Jens and Agneta immigrated to the United States, and moved to Annapolis, where Jens worked with the U.S. Naval Academy. At the Catholic University of Eichstätt, Germany, he worked on a Ph.D. about ethical education in the military which was completed in December 2003. During this work, Jens came to realize that God called him, not to be teacher of philosophy, but of the Gospel. Jesus’ words in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life“, led him into the candidacy process for the ordained ministry of the ELCA, and he enrolled at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. He served his one-year internship with Saint Nicholas from August 2003 through August 2004.

Jens was ordained into the ministry of Word and Sacrament on January 16, 2005 at Saint Martin's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Annapolis Maryland where he now serves as Associate Pastor.