My dad asked me the other day how we find Lutheran congregations to worship at around the world, and I thought the answer might be useful to other Christian travelers. In my dad’s day it would have probably involved asking his pastor to reach out by phone or letter to the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) headquarters. His pastor would eventually be routed to someone who would supply the address of a church or mission in that part of the world. The pastor would then correspond with them and if everything seemed agreeable he would supply the traveler with some kind of letter of reference to take with him to show to the identified Lutheran pastor in whatever country, identifying him as also Lutheran. Waiting for all these letters and phone calls back and forth would take weeks or months to complete. That is now how I do things in the 21st century, though one probably could.
As with all of our travel research, this is done primarily online and a little bit by word of mouth. I will share some specific places that I search which are specific to my own church body, the LCMS, but your own church body may have similar resources available to you.
If we are traveling within the United States, the LCMS has an online tool (https://lcms.org/findachurch) to allow you to search for congregations in or near the city you search for. They usually list the worship times, the name of the pastor, and contact information. (I usually do try to contact the pastor/congregation ahead of time both to verify the worship schedule and to introduce myself, let them know when we plan to visit, and ask about receiving communion.)
If we are traveling internationally, it requires a little more digging. There is an organization called the International Lutheran Council (https://ilcouncil.org/members/) that connects Lutheran church bodies around the world who have what is called “altar and pulpit fellowship.” This gives me a website/whatsapp number for a lutheran headquarters in that country. Often the website will list their congregations by region/city and I can then directly contact the pastor of that congregation. If not, I may need to ask the headquarters office if there is a congregation in the area we’re hoping to visit. Other places I might check include Lutheran Hour Ministries (https://lhm.org), which works in some areas that the ILC might not have established connections with, or possibly people I know through my former job at the LCMS headquarters.
If there’s someplace we really want to go that has no obvious Lutheran connections, I will head to google maps and search for “English-speaking Christian church.” Although we often, in these situations, will stream worship services from our home congregation in the U.S., worshipping online isn’t the same as worshipping in-person with other believers. We found English-speaking congregations in both Turkey and in Vietnam this way.
You might be worried about language barriers. We have, thankfully, often been able to find congregations that offered English-language or at least bilingual services, especially in cities with a lot of tourists or expats. I didn’t worry about this in Mexico or Spain since we have a decent level of Spanish comprehension, and it was definitely needed there. Oh, to be multi-lingual! Language can be an obstacle, but don’t let it stop you from trying — you may be surprised how much you understand just from the familiar patterns and context.
Maybe this will be helpful to someone. The more we travel around the world, the more often we meet other Christians who love to travel, too! There is no need to abstain from your worship practices while away from home. There are other Christians around the world who will welcome you with open arms, even if you stumble with each others’ languages!
