The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod is primarily a suburban and rural church body. We're also 95% white. We've failed to gain much traction in urban ministry in the last few decades.
Of course, this was not always the case.
Many of you know that we used to have very large urban congregations, especially in the upper Midwest cities of Milwaukee, Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis. Our own Concordia was in the city, too. But times have changed. As German Lutherans moved out of the city, the churches and schools went with them. Those who remained in the city struggled to reach the African American, Hispanic, and other immigrant groups that moved in.
None of this is news to you.
The question is, does it matter? Should we continue to focus on our suburban and rural ministries and cede our cities to other denominations and religious groups? I don't think so, and there are a growing number of people in our Synod who don't think so either. And I'm grateful to God for that.
Consider this: in the last dozen years, all of our congregations in Milwaukee that are primarily white have declined, and some have closed. In fact, in a statistical study of those churches I found a 50% decrease in worship attendance in those 12 years (2002-2014).
