The Concordia Publishing House team recently took a field trip to Perry County, Missouri. This place is as much the original home of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (the LCMS, our parent church body) as is St. Louis, Missouri, though not as well known.
Settling in Perry County
In its simplest form, it’s a story of about seven hundred German Lutherans who immigrated to the United States, bound for St. Louis. The year was 1838, but it’s a long sailing trip, so partly 1839. After arriving in St. Louis, the group purchased a plot of land in Perry County and established several Lutheran communities there. Today you can still visit Altenburg and Frohna, like we did. Those are two of the original LCMS congregations.
But no story is that simple. There was hardship, failure, and sin. Their leader turned out to be a shameless tyrant, unfit for the spiritual care responsibility he had claimed for himself. He was expelled from the community, no doubt the right move. But once they lost their confidence in him, they also lost their confidence in all the things they had done at his urging. And they discovered sins in their own recent past.
In their faithful willingness to endure hardship for the Gospel, they’d also given up responsibilities placed on them by God. The immigrants had abandoned families and congregations in Germany when they left. They had placed their trust in a man instead of in God and now found themselves a world away from their homes, destitute, and fraught with guilt and anger.
This is starting to sound like a real story, the kind you only survive by the grace of God. And they did. God was gracious. Guilty consciences were taught and comforted by the Word of God. Past sins which could no longer be undone were handed over to the only one who could bear them and assure their forgiveness—Jesus Christ.
The settlers’ commitment to the inerrancy of the Bible and the biblical teaching of the Lutheran Confessions (about Christ, justification, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, especially) was detached from their ill-advised allegiance to a man. The truth of the Lutheran Confessions was upheld though, and it became the foundation for the American church body they would form a few years later, the LCMS.
That church formed a publishing house in St. Louis, and—about 160 years later—we all came down to visit.
Seeing Perry County as Our Own Story
What’s the lesson? This story is our story. A few of the people on our field trip were descendants of those original immigrants. But the rest are adopted in. It’s a piece of our Lutheran identity—a story that forms who we are and what we treat as our shared past. And it still influences what we do today.
Like most of us, you’re probably not a sixth-generation Altenburg Lutheran. But if you’ve joined this church, or your parents did, or your grandparents—you’ve been adopted in, and this can be part of your story, your Lutheran identity.
It’s an identity of sin and forgiveness. It’s one of insistent adherence to God’s Word. It’s one of absolute trust in the promises of God, absolute confidence that His forgiveness is big enough for you. It’s one that doesn’t wonder where to find that forgiveness but knows to look to your own Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and the word of forgiveness in the Gospel whenever it’s needed.
What’s fascinating about this—something especially “Lutheran” about this Lutheran identity—is that it’s wrapped up in actual lives of actual people. We don’t look just for the spiritual but instead look for God to do spiritual work with physical things, because we know that God works in our actual lives. That might be Sunday’s trip to the communion rail to receive Christ’s body and blood, or it might be claiming these Germans as our ancestors. In both cases, an earthly reality takes on spiritual meaning for us, and we recognize the work of God in it.
If you take one step back, you realize that this adoption into the LCMS story follows a larger model. You weren’t born as a member of God’s family, but you were adopted in. Things that aren’t yours by nature are yours by Holy Baptism, because God makes them yours: the Holy Scriptures, the Holy Spirit, and the promises of forgiveness and eternal life. And all of these things are not just appendages. They’re your identity. They’re who you are as a baptized, adopted child of God.
Some Takeaways
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Perry County is a good trip. There are other ones you could make (maybe particular to your own church’s history). And you should—God’s story of redemption is big and broad, and He wants us to know it well. You can read about the Lutherans of Perry County who started the Missouri Synod in J. F. Koestering’s The Emigration of the Saxon Lutherans in the Year 1838 and Their Settlement in Perry County, Missouri and Walter Forster’s Zion on the Mississippi: The Settlement of the Saxon Lutherans in Missouri, 1839–1841.
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Don’t be afraid to cross community lines to be part of a church. You might be neither German like these Lutherans or Luther himself nor Jewish like Paul and Jesus, but God is in the business of grafting people in. I had to make this trip to realize that I claim the Perry County Lutherans as my Lutheran ancestors, even though I don’t have any biological connection to them at all. It seems odd, but it’s also completely right.
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Remember old stories, and tell them, and do it like a Lutheran: Remember the bad with the good. The Holy Spirit always works in the midst of sinners and despite their sin. If you get used to seeing things that way, you’ll begin to see it in your own life too.
Read More Lutheran Stories
Uncover inspiring stories and characters from church history with whom you share an identity in Gene Edward Veith Jr.’s Embracing Your Lutheran Identity. This book follows the Holy Spirit’s work from the early church, through the Reformation, and into Lutheranism today through engaging accounts, modern parallels, and thought-provoking questions throughout. Dive into your heritage individually or in a group study.
Learn more about the history of American Lutheranism with At Home in the House of My Fathers, a collection of presidential sermons, essays, letters, and addresses from German-speaking presidents of the LCMS. Featuring historical notes and context from the Synod president Matthew C. Harrison, this resource offers unique insight into the evangelical Lutheran theology and practice of the early leaders in the LCMS, which is still applicable today.
Take a look at a lesser-known reformer, Matthias Flacius Illyricus, in Life Under the Cross. This short biography sheds light on the life and legacy of Flacius—“one of the most significant and polarizing figures in Protestant history” (p. 3)—whose texts on hermeneutics, church history, and other writings played a significant part in Lutheranism, Protestantism, and Christianity as a whole.
Discover a mostly unknown champion of Luther’s Reformation—a close friend and contemporary of Luther himself—Nikolaus von Amsdorf. In this book, Robert Kolb opens the life and work of Amsdorf, which were centered on the radically simple and clear Gospel. See how Amsdorf, one of the first Evangelical bishops, made significant contributions during the theological controversies after Luther’s death and helped set the future of Lutheran theology on its course.
Finally, if you’re looking for a family resource on Lutheranism, look no further than Martin Luther: A Man Who Changed the World. This 2005 Gold Medallion Christian Book Award finalist teaches children and families about Luther’s fascinating life, influence, and teachings through a captivating narrative format and beautiful illustrations.
Dig deeper into your Lutheran identity. Browse a variety of Lutheran resources on cph.org.
