The Concordia Story: A Fifty-Year History of Concordia Lutheran Church 1951-2001

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Above: Great Churches of Today,
published by the Billy Graham
Association put Concordia on the map
as a true MegaChurch.
Below: Dr. and Mrs. Merkens are
joined by Dr. J.A.O. Preuss, president
of Synod, and his wife, at the
dedication of the enlarged sanctuary
in 1968.
singing in between. Art would talk and I would
talk, all on the basis of the book. We’d have stories
and illustrations. We used some films and
later videos. It incorporated a lot of flash, as
they say in the ad business. Nobody ever left or
got bored, even though the whole seminar lasted
about four hours.
“One time we had a Saturday afternoon
meeting in the summer where ALC (American
Lutheran Church) people came to the Terrace
Motel in Austin and broke the record for attendance.
Two thousand people sat in a square hall,
no slope to the room, on folding chairs. Nobody
left from one to five o’clock.”
“The seminar had a lot of humor in it, a lot of
up and down prayer and singing and all the
power that God’s Spirit could put in us to present
the motivation, as well as the substance.
That was exciting.”
Merkens said the response from attendees
was amazing. They reported that new congregations
were planted, attendance grew, Bible classes
grew, and offerings grew.
At one point Merkens said an audio recording
was made on “Loyalty Sunday As Presented
by Living Lutheran Leadership” and reproduced
as a 33 1/3 rpm record. Accompanying the
record were printed materials about Loyalty
Sunday, which could be copied and used. These
were sent out on request to pastors throughout
the U.S.
“We followed up on these. And of the first
one thousand pastors who responded, the average
increase in the free will giving in one year
was 18.7 percent. Now, that’s rural, urban,
small, big. But it’s an enormous increase for any
church. That was a very tangible evidence of
God’s Spirit at work.”
An article in the LLL newspaper during the
late 1960’s included this observation from a
female attendee about her experience at Living
Lutheran Leadership: “What an unexpected,
exciting day this turned out to be. I feel as if I
had absorbed the full, explosive energy of a
hydrogen bomb, participated in a 4th of July
celebration, the coronation of a monarch, and a
presidential inauguration all in the space of a
few hours.”
Living Lutheran Leadership continued from
1965 to 1969, with Merkens and Samuel crisscrossing
the country. In 1968 Merkens published
another book titled Loving Lutheran
Leadership, incorporating new ideas and the
Loyalty Sunday plan. Merkens continued to
offer church growth seminars throughout his
years at Concordia, culminating in the book and
seminar series Creative Church Management in
the 1980’s.
This tireless sharing of ideas and inspiration
touched thousands of Lutheran and non-
Lutheran churches through three decades.
During that time seminars were held in 49 states
and 14 foreign countries and included several
hundred thousand participants.
As Merkens became well-known as an up and
coming Missouri Synod church leader, he received
increasing numbers of calls to become pastor of
26 ✦ THE CONCORDIA STORY