Pastor Carl Johansson believed his pastoral role was to serve, support, and enable lay ministry by empowering and encouraging the laity to serve locally and internationally. His goal was to form the laity as ambassadors of grace to this broken world. Pastor Johansson accomplished exponentially more empowering and encouraging others than he could have accomplished on his own.
Under Pastor Johansson’s guidance, Trinity Lutheran Minnehaha became a significant missionary-sending church with many members serving internationally. He also encouraged the congregation to engage locally through volunteer service and evangelism, believing that gospel proclamation required a responsible laity, living the gospel in the world, both in word and deed.
He influenced, supported, and encouraged the congregation to undertake an innovative vision that merged healthcare delivery with local church fellowship. Through his empowering leadership, the church constructed—within its building—a fully operational medical and counseling clinic. This demonstrated to the surrounding community the inseparable bond between the gospel and health. The healthcare clinic was found within the church and the church was found within the clinic. This reciprocity demonstrated the gospel’s relevance to the spiritual, psychological, and physical dimensions of human life, recognizing the importance of the “whole-person” in health care. Trinity Health modeled itself after Jesus’ ministry, healing both the physically sick and the wounded soul.
This reciprocity demonstrated the gospel’s relevance to the spiritual, psychological, and physical dimensions of human life, recognizing the importance of the “whole-person” in health care.
Dr. James Struve, Trinity Health’s founding physician states, “It is impossible to remember Pastor Carl Johansson without recalling the immeasurable: his clear thinking, mentorship, and ability to envision (beyond our imagination) the Gospel’s intention for what a parish community can accomplish. Without his purposeful leadership, the feasibility, planning, funding, and construction of our health and healing clinic would not have come to fruition. It was way ahead of its time, the new form of “health” that the clinic founded is something that is still missing in our world. We presented to our community this simple social fact: daily faith and moral decisions that we make in life are an inseparable part of what it means to be healthy. In fact, these are essential to what health includes in the terms of the Gospel.”
Mark N. Johansson, PhD
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 141007, Minneapolis, MN 55414
Office Phone: 612-378-1935
