Bishop Craig Johnson's announcement yesterday he's taking over as interim senior pastor at Mount Olivet church is big news in the Lutheran world.
Johnson, bishop of the Minneapolis Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, will resign so he can lead the Minneapolis church, which has close to 13,500 members.
In fact, he'll be going from one significant post to another: Johnson, who leads the largest ELCA synod in the country, will now be chief religious leader of the largest ELCA congregation in the country following the unexpected death of Mount Olivet's senior pastor, the Rev. Paul Youngdahl, last week.
Youngdahl, 73, was a senior pastor at the church nearly four decades.
Based on a letter Johnson released yesterday addressed to Minneapolis Area Synod members, Mount Olivet church leaders approached him about the job not long after Youngdahl passed away June 20.
