By Mary Henrichs
“It’s becoming obvious to all of us who are in the older generation — parents and grandparents — that it is increasingly difficult for young people to meet each other and connect,” said the Rev. Bryan Wolfmueller, pastor at St. Paul Lutheran Church and Jesus Lutheran Church of the Deaf in Austin, Texas. Wolfmueller has done significant work sharing Lutheran theology online.
Singles in The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) looking to find their spouse within the church are often stymied because there are “just very few Lutheran singles that are concentrated in one spot,” he explained.
Many LCMS singles agree with his assessment. Matt Nitsch, 28, a technical support specialist in Sheboygan, Wis., concurred: “If you ask a lot of [young LCMS] people, [they will say] they’re the only person their age from their church.” In Nitsch’s congregation, he says, there are “maybe five people within my age range, and two of them are married to each other.”
With local LCMS dating pools seeming so small, many singles will try dating outside of the church, but without unity in faith, forming a lasting relationship can be difficult: “Certain things … you can debate with your significant other — you may like pasta, but then she doesn’t,” said Matt. “But when it comes to, say, abortion — you want to be aligned.”
Marica Turan, a 36-year-old who works in the corporate world near Akron, Ohio, hopes her future husband will share her faith: “[With] Christ in the middle, … everything else falls into place around that.”
‘A great place to start’
Seeing the need to help LCMS singles connect with one another, Wolfmueller and his wife, Keri, stepped in with an unconventional idea: a Lutheran singles cruise. In total, 138 singles ages 21 to 41, each endorsed by their pastor, set sail in August 2024, hoping to find love or, at the very least, enjoy a “vacation with fellow Lutherans,” as Gideon Baldwin put it.
As a “baseline,” agreed fellow cruise attendee Terrin Boozikee, “you’re surrounded by people who have common values, which is a great place to start.” She and Gideon, both 29 at the time of the cruise, hit it off during a round of mini-golf — which she won — after he helped her by moving a rock that had been blocking her shot’s path.
After the cruise ended, the pair continued talking, and Gideon, then based in San Antonio, Texas, made the leap and visited Terrin in Mankato, Minn., staying in her pastor’s guest room. After more visits and innumerable phone calls, the couple said “I do” in August of 2025, a year from the day they first met, and Terrin Boozikee became Terrin Baldwin.
Grayson Beckman didn’t want to put too much pressure on finding a spouse on the ship: “My mindset going in was, ‘Hey, if I just meet a bunch of other Lutherans, I’m happy.’”
Margaret Levell, whom he met on the cruise, came aboard with a similar view: “If something more comes out of it, that’d be great, but I was expecting more friendship.”
Prior to the cruise, neither had found it easy to meet someone who shared their faith. Margaret came from “the most de-churched state in the whole nation,” New Hampshire, and Grayson’s church in Georgia didn’t have many single women in the pews.
Margaret was excited to strike up a conversation with Grayson when she overheard him mention a card game she liked, and before they knew it, they were four hours deep in conversation. By the end of the cruise, the pair had spent over 20 hours talking, so they felt confident bringing the relationship off the ship. Margaret and Grayson, both 28 at this writing, married in January 2025 and have since welcomed their first child.
“I was thinking one wedding [to come from the cruise] would be a wild success,” said Wolfmueller. Incredibly, seven engagements resulted from the event, meaning that over 10% of cruise attendees found their spouse on board. At this writing, most of those weddings have already taken place, and three babies from those matches have made their way to the font.
Making a Lutheran connection
The cruise had a huge impact, introducing 14 people to their future spouse. LCMS Connections, a matchmaking service founded in 2024 by Faith Bellinghausen and Emily Solomon, strives to make the same kind of introduction, but on land.
Bellinghausen was first introduced to her husband, an LCMS pastor, at an Issues, Etc., conference by Lutheran friends who wanted to set them up. Witnessing other friends struggling to find their LCMS match “organically” — and knowing that without that first introduction she might not have met her husband, who, at the time of meeting, lived 800 miles away from her — she was inspired to team up with close friend Solomon to help more LCMS singles make that initial connection.
“We hear a lot of similar stories [from people who sign up] — they’re the only single person their age in their congregation, or everyone else in their age range is currently married,” said Bellinghausen and Solomon. Thanks to their growing digital rolodex of LCMS singles — now over 700 strong — they are able to offer a “zoomed-out view, where we can see that you may be the only single person in your congregation, but an hour up the road, there are more.”
LCMS Connections is much more personal than any swiping-based dating app: Marriage-minded LCMS singles fill out a detailed questionnaire and have a video call with the matchmakers. When a potential match is found, LCMS Connections checks with the woman before giving the man her contact details so that he can take the lead and begin their conversation. In the early stages of the match, LCMS Connections checks in with matches and offers additional support where needed.
When Mattias Gugel first heard about LCMS Connections while living in Madison, Wis., it was in a text from a co-worker who joked, “Could you imagine meeting your wife this way?”
But as someone who had found it difficult to meet a woman who shared his faith, he decided to give LCMS Connections a try and was introduced to Molly-Ann Wells, an LCMS kindergarten teacher in Wichita, Kan.
The rest is history. Following a couple of months of video calls, Mattias visited Molly-Ann in Kansas. After 13 more visits in both Kansas and Wisconsin, Mattias popped the question, and the pair married in December 2025.
“I think it’s going to be such a blessing for Molly and me as we go forward that we do share Lutheran doctrine, Lutheran values — that we share belief in forgiveness and the Gospel message,” Mattias said. “We automatically knew that we wanted to get married in the church, that we want our kids baptized in the faith.”
Living in New York City in her mid-20s, Esther Schulze (her maiden name) took a chance on LCMS Connections and was impressed by the thoroughness of their questionnaire, which really made her consider what she wanted in a husband — though she always knew she wanted to marry someone who shared her faith: “The most important thing in my life is my faith and my trust in the resurrection. … If my [future] children … get nothing else from my life, the most important thing that they see … is faith in Jesus and in the work that He did here for our eternal salvation.”
LCMS Connections introduced her to the Rev. Eli Voigt, an LCMS pastor serving outside of Chicago. After some preliminary emailing, texting and a phone call, their first FaceTime lasted five hours — on a Saturday night, no less, when he would have to get up to lead the Divine Service the next morning. The pair married at his parish near Chicago in September 2025.
In total, three weddings and three more engagements have resulted from LCMS Connections in only two years.
Reflecting on her unique route to meeting her husband, Esther (now Voigt) said, “God gives us the gifts of people around us in lots of different ways,” and she encourages other singles to “be open to how He will shape your life.”
Molly-Ann Gugel hopes any LCMS single with a desire for marriage will consider signing up for LCMS Connections: “What’s it going to hurt? It can only help,” she said. Even when a match doesn’t work out — like the one Mattias had before matching with Molly-Ann — “you gain experience of dating and getting to know someone [who shares your faith].”
“I would encourage people to not be afraid to lean into the resources God puts in front of them,” said LCMS Connections co-founder Solomon. “God has ordered your life. … Walk forward in faith and trust the Lord will guide your steps.”
The gift of friendship
The Wolfmuellers hope to organize a destination Lutheran singles retreat every three years or so, with plans in the works for a possible event in 2027 — but they are not alone in hosting events to help LCMS singles connect. Other grassroots efforts to connect LCMS singles with one another are springing up across the country, including several events happening this summer. Wolfmueller has created an online clearinghouse of both singles and young adult events, which can be found at wolfmueller.notion.site/yaevents.
Not every young adult event is meant to be a “singles” event, and certainly not everyone who attends a designated singles event walks away having met their spouse. At the very least, however, attendees can enjoy spending time with like-minded potential friends.
“What really got me through that single season that held on for so long — longer, way longer than I wanted — was my friends,” said Terrin Baldwin.
Wolfmueller encourages married parishioners and their families to reach out to the single people next to them in the pews: “There’s always a hesitancy to reach out and befriend people, because we think, ‘Oh, they don’t want me to bother them.’ … And we have to remember that everybody wants friends and connections as badly as we do.”
Solomon, too, emphasizes the beauty of the single life, to which Christ calls many: “The church has done a great job pushing back against secular culture and cultivating the desire for family life — but what if someone is called to the single life?” She hopes pastors will remind Lutheran singles that “no matter what shape their life takes, they are valued children of God.”
More information about LCMS Connections, including the option to sign up, can be found at lcms-connections.com.
Mary Henrichs (mary.henrichs@lcms.org) is a staff writer for LCMS Communications.
Posted May 11, 2026
