I'm always surprised when people say that the LCMS is a rural denomination. It never has been. Today 77% of LCMS folk live in metropolitan areas of 100,000 or more, and somewhere around half live in metropolitan areas of 1,000,000 or more. And it's always been that way. Fifty years after the founding of the LCMS, Chicago alone accounted for 5% of the LCMS membership. Similar numbers could be found in Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, etc.--in fact, nearly every major city between the trapezoid formed by the Twin Cities, St. Louis, Baltimore, and NYC. Throw in the smaller cities such as Springfield, Peoria, Rockford, Elgin, and Aurora (to name some Illinois cities with old congregations) as well as the suburbs that were starting to sprout 120 years ago and the number swells even higher. Granted, most of the LCMS folk that live in urbanized areas tend to live in the suburbs rather than the central city. But they're not rural, not by a long shot.