When I started serving in the Ohio District I quickly learned that our area of responsibility included West Virginia and a good portion of Kentucky. Lutheran churches were few and far between so this had to be a potential area for the starting of new congregations. But when one drove through the area there were churches all over the place. The question to be answered asked about the need for Lutheran churches.

Visiting with the pastors of the then three LCMS congregations in West Virginia an answer was quickly evident. Peter Reetz, the pastor of Our Redeemer in Huntington, told me of the orientation of new clergy to the culture of Appalachia in a workshop held annually in Morgantown. One of the teachers at that orientation was a Ph.D. psychologist from Chicago who grew up in one of those small Appalachian churches. Her lecture was an eye-opener.

As I recall the audio-tape, congregations stayed small because they continually split. The separations really had nothing to do with doctrine but an awful lot about not being enough jobs in the congregation for people who aspired to those positions. It seems that you were deemed important if you were the pastor, the song leader, led the prayers, or served as an elder or deacon. Once you got the position, you held on to it for all you were worth – for that guaranteed your worth or importance in the congregation. If you were blocked from those positions, you gathered some others who were also blocked and started your own church.

In other words, what people did made them worthy or important. Do you catch the Reformation connection? Even more so, this is a pretty good reason for mission in Appalachia, or in any other place where the Gospel has not been heard freeing people from striving to earn a place in the kingdom of God.

We are justified by his grace as a gift. He justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. A person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. These are verses from Romans 3, the second reading for Reformation Sunday.