A native of Columbia, Missouri (Go Tigers!), Pastor Gerike (rhymes with "Cherokee," but he's all German) attended Concordia University Wisconsin (‘09), and then Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana. He served his vicarage in Plymouth, Indiana. After graduating from the Seminary in 2014, he spent a year serving as a graduate assistant and completed his coursework towards a Master of Sacred Theology in historical theology. He successfully defended his STM thesis, Cooperatores Sacrificii?: An Examination of Joseph Ratzinger’s Critique of Luther on the Sacrifice of the Mass in Light of the Influences of the Ressourcement and Liturgical Movement,” and graduated with that degree in 2019. 

He received his call into the Office of the Holy Ministry from Mount Calvary in 2015 and has served as pastor there since. From 2009 until its publication in 2022, he assisted with the research and production of the Lutheran Service Book: Companion to the Services and was a contributing author for that volume. He has presented at the annual Good Shepherd Institute at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, as well as at several local parish educational forums. Since 2022 he has taught the course on Holy Baptism for Concordia Theological Seminary’s SMP program. He has been married to his wife, Shayla, since 2010 and they have been blessed with six children.