Joshua Koelpin MLC ’19, WLS ’23 remembers sitting at an MLC Evangelism Day in spring 2016, when he was a first-year student at MLC, listening to Pastor Geoff Cortright MLC ’02, WLS ’08 talk about his missionary work in Vancouver.
“I’d love to be in a global city someday,” he thought to himself.
Little did he know that eight years later, he’d be planting a church in Boston. It’s quite a leap for this native of New Ulm, Minnesota, a quiet little college town of 14,000, to suddenly find himself serving a metropolitan area packed with 54 colleges and 5 million people.
“I think my wife, Katelyn, and I experienced just about every feeling,” Josh said, recalling Assignment Day at the seminary, “from happy and blessed to scared and overwhelmed. It’s a humbling experience. The Lord, through his church, has called me? Most of my life had been spent in a small town, and this is the city.”
The morning after his ordination at Fenway Community Center, outside Fenway Park, he turned to Katelyn and said, “What are we doing here?”
Being Your Authentic Self: Sunday morning church isn’t really part of the culture in Boston, and confessional Lutheranism is almost completely unknown. “Sometimes I joke that there are more confessional Lutherans in Lusaka, Zambia, than there are in Boston, Massachusetts,” Josh says. “But that makes this an ideal place to do mission work — 4.8 million people who need to hear the gospel!”
That reality shapes his approach. He can’t go door-to-door introducing himself, so he meets people in organic ways, leaning into the natural rhythms of Boston life — and his own interests. “You simply live your life,” he says, “and be your authentic self. Being yourself means, first, that you know you’re a justified child of God. And then it also means that you’re someone who likes to play tennis or coach soccer or whatever.”
Harbor Lutheran meets in an old warehouse in a heavily trafficked area of Boston. Right now, Pastor Josh’s lectern is a music stand. “As we start doing ministry out of this new space,” he says, “I just pray for opportunities to share Jesus with those in our community, and I ask that we would glorify God as we begin our task.”
In Boston, that’s just what Josh does. He plays tennis at the Tennis Club, coaches youth soccer, attends lectures at Harvard and MIT, plays in a basketball league, goes to an occasional Red Sox game, and grabs coffee at the popular local shops.
“As I sit at the desk at the Tennis Club, for example,” he explains, “someone will ask, ‘What do you do when you’re not here?’ and I’ll say, ‘I’m a pastor.’ And the conversation goes from there.”
Sometimes his words will be the start of a deep conversation — and then many deep conversations. Other times they’ll be met with indifference. It doesn’t matter. He’s just being his authentic self: a child of God, a Lutheran pastor.
“So much of ministry is being who you are. Relational ministry is so important. Spend time with people, do things you enjoy, do things they enjoy, share Jesus when you can. Rejoice that your name is written in heaven and that the Holy Spirit will do his work.”
Learning the Rhythms of City Ministry: Since Boston/ Cambridge is a global city, Josh has gospel conversations with immigrants and doctors, students and millionaires. Each encounter can become a little mission field.
For instance, he met a computer science professor from MIT playing tennis. They struck up a friendship, and now they play tennis together every week. The professor, who’s Jewish, is amazed that Josh knows Hebrew and that he attended college for eight years before ordination. (“I didn’t know you had to have so much school to be a minister,” he said.)
He regularly asks Josh what he’s preaching and especially enjoys talking about the Old Testament readings. Where will it lead? Josh isn’t sure, but he’s grateful to be having the conversations.
Josh also instructed and baptized the girlfriend — now wife — of a WELS gentleman employed in the tech industry. They later moved to Ireland and then to Michigan. “So, a little church in Massachusetts has now had an impact in three different places,” Josh says.
“One of the reasons we’re in the city is to reach populations that WELS has historically had hard times reaching. In the city, those populations are in front of us all the time.”
Reaching people isn’t a quick process. “Sharing the gospel is like riding a snail,” he says. “It takes persistence and time.”
At his first Easter, seven months into his ministry, four people attended. His second Easter service — last April — was attended by 30 people from five different people groups: Chinese, Korean, Azerbaijani, African American, and white.
Since they began holding services, about 100 different people have attended. Numbers aren’t the goal, but they do tell a story of quiet, steady, Spirit-generated growth.
Finding Safe Harbor: Recently they’ve taken a big step and rented their own space. This new congregation meets in an old warehouse off of Massachusetts Avenue, between Harvard and MIT, near the famous nightclub, The Middle East. It’s a commonly known and heavily trafficked thoroughfare — a great place for a new church.
They call themselves “Harbor Lutheran”— for Boston Harbor, of course, and also because of the comfort they find in this passage: “He calmed the storm to a whisper and stilled the waves. What a blessing was that stillness as he brought them safely into harbor!” (Psalm 107:29-30, NLT)
That name fits Josh’s journey too. If you’d told 18-year-old Josh at his first Evangelism Day in 2016 that someday he’d leave New Ulm and settle in Boston, amid 5 million people of different nationalities, experiences, and life goals — if you’d told him he’d find a safe harbor there — he might not have believed you.
Josh Koelpin remembers his first Evangelism Day at MLC in 2016. Ten years later, he spoke at Evangelism Day 2025, telling college students about planting a church in a global city.
But that’s the adventure of ministry. God may ask you to do something you’d never imagine.
“I sometimes hear from people that it must be daunting to start a church in the city,” he says. “It has its moments, sure . . . but you have the tools to do it. The Word works. I think of Isaiah 55 a lot —the whole chapter, but mainly 55:11: “So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.’”
Evangelism Day: Last November, Josh spoke at MLC’s Evangelism Day himself, exploring the day’s theme “That We Might Save Some” (1 Corinthians 9:22). He recalled the first Evangelism Day he’d attended — 10 years ago —and reflected on where God has brought him.
To those college students listening to him at Evangelism Day, he said, “Don’t ever say, ‘I grew up in a small town so I can’t go be a pastor in a big city.’ You can — because you know who you are in Christ. You just have to be your authentic self.
“And you can cultivate this authenticity here at MLC. You’re a Knight! Study the Word and do the things you like to do.”
