Strong Coffee, SteadyFaith
MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: St. Paul Lutheran Church
For more than seventy years, St. Paul Lutheran Church has quietly served Annapolis; now, three years into Pastor John Holyer’s tenure, it’s ready to know more of its neighbors.
Ask Pastor John Holyer how he powers his day and the answer doubles as a small sermon. “Coffee. And I want it as God intended: black, with no additives,” he says. How strong? “If it can take the paint off my car, that’s about how I like it,” he joked. For John, the cup is more than a habit. It is a picture of how he wants to live and preach: strong, full, nothing watered down.
Seventy years on Rowe Boulevard
St. Paul Lutheran Church of Annapolis was founded in 1953 as an outreach effort by St. Paul Lutheran Church in Glen Burnie, aimed originally at reaching out to the midshipmen of the Naval Academy. More than seventy years on, a firm ministry to the academy has proven a hard nut to crack, but the church still reaches out, welcoming midshipmen and students from nearby St. John’s College. At its heart is a core of neighbors, some of whom have been members for decades. Sitting close to government and the military means constant turnover, John notes, yet new faces keep coming through the door.
Pastor John Holyer
The trip that sealed it
John did not always picture himself serving the church. Growing up, his own pastor and a few others told him he should think about ministry, and he laughed it off as the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. Then, after his sophomore year of college, his pastor’s brother, a missionary, invited him to come overseas and see the work firsthand. The trip took him to Russia, where he stayed with Lutheran missionaries for a couple of weeks.
Two decades of ministry have followed. John grew up in Virginia, and his wife is from the Midwest, where he served churches in northwest Ohio and just south of Chicago before answering the call to Annapolis three years ago this month. He credits travel with widening his view, at church and everywhere else. Even Lutherans, he learned, do things a little differently from one town to the next, which taught him that faith “doesn’t have to be exactly my way or exactly the way I grew up with.”
“When I came back, that was it. I was sold on what I wanted to do.”
What success really looks like
Ask John how he measures success and he will admit it is hard to measure at all. A full pew and a balanced budget might look like winning, but only in a superficial way. What matters more is whether the church stays true to what it believes and connects with, in his words, “people who need to hear about the forgiveness of Christ.” Sometimes that means walking with someone through a hard season and watching them come out the other side. Sometimes it is simply a friendly conversation where two people disagree and walk away friends anyway. Much of it, he knows, is planting seeds he may never see grow. The same is true of a Sunday sermon: you write the truth as best you can, and you don’t always know how it will land. There is one misconception he would love to bust along the way. Too many Christians, he says, have gone a little over the top and given everyone a reputation for being judgmental, even jerks. “I would just love for people to know that we’re not.”
Full measure, full proof
Come back to the coffee and you find John’s whole approach in a single cup. More than caffeine, it is a metaphor he keeps close, a reminder of how he wants to speak the truth to people, plainly and in love.
“You want the full measure, you want the full proof. The whole thing. You don’t want it diluted.”
Ready to meet the neighbors
After more than seven decades in Annapolis, St. Paul is stepping out to become a more active part of the community. Remarkably, it was only last year that the church first connected with the business association. Now John is looking to grow those ties, one strong cup and one good conversation at a time.
Find St. Paul Lutheran Church
Pastor John Holyer
31 Rowe Boulevard, Annapolis, MD • Sunday worship 9:30 a.m. (followed by Bible study); office hours Mon–Thu 9:30–2:30
