Paul Krueger and the Newest Church Plant in Idaho Falls

 

This is Charles’ interview of Paul Krueger, Pastor of Christ Alone Lutheran Church, November 10, 2025

Charles: Tell me just a little about growing up in Michigan. Were you brought up in a Christian home?

Paul:  I was born into a Christian family. Both of my parents were members of our Lutheran Church in Midland, Michigan. It was called Good Shepherd Lutheran Church.  My grandparents on both sides weren't born Lutheran, but had come into the Lutheran church, either because where they moved, that was the church that was in their town, or through whatever other ways were God's design. So I've grown up within the Lutheran church and since a school, kindergarten through eighth grade, was attached to the church, I attended school there. About a half hour from home, in Saginaw, Michigan, was one of our church preparatory high schools and seminaries. It’s called Michigan Lutheran seminary. So I had Lutheran education from kindergarten through high school, college and then four years of seminary.

Charles: So when did you first sense a call to ministry?

Paul: I was blessed in that my pastor, at some point when I was in early elementary school, accepted a call to be the president of our district, which is a big administrative role. And so what they would do at that time was have recent graduates from the seminary come to fill in as a kind of associate pastor, each for a two year period.  So for about 12 or 13 years, we had a new pastor every two years. But then we also had our original pastor who was there the entire time. So I got to meet a lot of guys who were fresh out of seminary. I think that helped to burst the bubble of me thinking that a pastor has to be whatever your pastor is like.  Knowing all these different guys with their different personalities and their different passions made we realize that there's a lot of different kinds of people that can be pastors. And a few of them along the way, maybe, encouraged me in some form or another.

My dad was a chemical engineer, so that was something that I thought about and thought that might be a nice way to go. We lived comfortably enough, and I could see that he was able on the one hand, to provide for the family, but on the other hand, be very involved in our congregation too.

But then I went to the Preparatory High School, and they were really big on every professor telling you, “Hey, you should think about becoming a pastor or a teacher.” They'd help identify gifts that you had. I think I wasn't really convinced about my calling until my final year of high school. That year we had a program called Taste of Ministry, where senior students were paired up with a pastor for a weekend, to shadow them. I got to go to my aunt's church in Lansing, Michigan. The pastor there was Norm Berger. On that Saturday they had a concert with the chorus from the seminary. I got to sit with Norm and all those guys in the seminary chorus, and the pastor told them, “Yeah, he's thinking about being a pastor.”

That was kind of the first interesting aspect of that weekend. But then on Sunday, there were two ladies who randomly decided to go to that church after neither of them had been to church in probably 30 or 40 years. After the service, as they're shaking the pastor's hand on the way out, they said that there were a couple things they would like to ask him about that he had talked about in the service. So he invited the ladies to his office and asked if it was okay if I came along. They had all kinds of questions, but he basically was able to walk them through God's great exchange, how Christ took our sins on Himself and has clothed us in His righteousness and that heaven is God's gift to us. There's nothing more that we need to do to receive that gift.

And they started crying. They just broke down, and they were weeping. And I'm sitting there, an 18-year-old kid, and I was like, “So this is what it's like to be a pastor. You get to just walk people through the gospel and see salvation take hold.” And that was a pretty moving experience. I thought that would be that would be worth seeing again. So I thought I'd give it a shot, and I went to our College of Ministry, and there wasn't really anything along the way where I was like, I don't think this is it. All of a sudden, there I was at my first parish, and now here I am, 10 years later.

Charles: What did you enjoy most during your first two pastorates?

Paul:  My first congregation was a small church that was a younger congregation. It was only about 17 years old when I got there. They weren't under mission status; they were self-supporting at that time. It was called Shepherd of the Hills and was in Winchester, Virginia.  I think we had maybe 40 members who come from about 2700 square miles around that corner of the state of Virginia. A lot them were thankful to have a place where they could come and worship with people who believed the same thing that they did. We had people coming from an hour or two hours away and in just about every direction, and there were some really awesome and amazing people. That was my first church, so my first experience, and I was the solo pastor, leading in worship and Bible study and getting to know God's people. And, yeah, it was a wonderful opportunity to be able to be there and be their pastor for four years.

Then I got a call to a slightly larger congregation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Mount Lebanon. It was a church, but they also had a school, another kindergarten through eighth grade school, which they operated using the Wisconsin choice school voucher system. The school was open not just to members of the congregation, but to any member of the community. And they had about 250 kids in the school. And maybe 10% of them went to the church, Mount Lebanon. So the other 90% were just this ripe mission field of families that were willing to send their kids to our school, and some of them were unchurched. Some were Muslim or other faiths.

So had 10 years to be able to teach the kids about the Savior, Jesus, and 10 years also to reach out and get to know the families and see if we could invite them to be a part of the church family, as well as being a part of the school family.

The church and school had two pastors, a lead pastor for the congregation, and a school pastor which is what I was.  I worked on outreach and led devotions in the classrooms and things like that. What drew me there was the opportunity to work with young people, to be able to be involved in in the formation years of children, teaching them about Jesus.  I don't know that the outreach side of it was what first drew me. But I learned to love that, although that was hard as it involved a cross cultural kind of ministry.

Charles: How did you try to get these families to want to be members at your church?

Paul: We tried a lot of different things, brainstorming and coming up with different strategies that we thought might work. And it's incredible. I look back at the prayer requests that I see from that church now and see names of people from that school family that I'm really excited to see have become a part of the church and are seemingly regularly worshipping there now.  I'm grateful for that. I was comfortable knowing that that would be the case, right?  That God had a good thing going there, and that now we have an opportunity here in the Idaho Falls area for more good things to happen.

It was really hard for my wife and me to leave Milwaukee.  Our two sons were born there, there were a lot of young families that we'd grown to love and were felt a sense of community. And it felt like moving away from our family when we came out here. But I thought, if we can, if we can grow that in some way for people in this area who are looking for it, what a blessing that would be.

Charles: So were you basically asked to come here?

Paul: Yeah. In the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the way that we operate is, when I first graduated from the seminary, the district presidents and the faculty of the seminary talk together and look at what congregations need a pastor, and what men they have to fill the positions. And then they tell you, “We're going to send you to this church, and you've got a four-year grace period there, where nobody else is allowed to bug you and ask you to come to be their pastor.” But after four years, you become eligible to receive a call. And when that call comes, it's up to you to deliberate. Do I?  Do I want to stay where I'm at? Or would I like to go and serve this new place that's calling me to come to be their pastor. So I got the call from Milwaukee and went there. And then from Milwaukee, I received a call to come and start a new mission church in the Idaho Falls area. The closest Wisconsin Synod church is in Bozeman, and also there is one in Layton, Utah.  Then there are a handful over in Boise and Nampa, but we didn't have any anywhere close to Idaho Falls.

Charles: Is that the primary reason that WELS wanted to plant one here, that there weren't any in the area?

Paul: Yeah, I think they saw that there was a pretty big area where we didn't have anything, and anyone moving from one of our congregations out to this area might say, “Why don't we have a church here?” So it was kind of on their radar.  But there were a few families that did that, that moved out here during the time of COVID in 2020 and 2021.  These families talked with the Mission Board, and they responded, “Maybe here's our opportunity, if we have a nucleus of a few families, to put something together.” There were three families - one that moved here from Denver, one that moved from Boise, and then a couple that came out from Michigan, specifically looking to help a Mission Church get started once that ball had really started rolling.  My wife Heather and I were the fourth family to come to Idaho Falls.

There were a few more, really, that were already planning on coming before we even got out here. And so we doubled in size pretty quick at the beginning.  I didn't have anything to do with that, but the Lord, I think, knew this is a good thing and gave us some people.  

Charles: When you came here, you talked to a lot of people in the community, right?

Paul:  Yeah, I did between 30 and 40 interviews.  I have a mission counselor who works with a lot of our missionary pastors. He had suggested doing this as a great practice to get to know the area and get to know the community. And I asked him who I should interview and he said, “You could talk to just about anybody.” He gave me a few categories - local pastors, city council people, firefighters, police officers, small business owners, real estate agents, school board members. Anyone who really has a little bit more of a pulse on how the community works than your average Joe Citizen. It was really eye opening. And I enjoyed every one of those interviews, just getting to know different people in the community. I talked with a number of leaders of nonprofit organizations, too, trying to get an idea for the needs of our community, where in town to try to launch a new church, and what a small congregation could do to help in the community and serve the community.

These interviews helped us land on Ammon. The Mission Board, none of whom really were from around here or knew the area that well, had said, “Well, maybe the downtown area of Idaho Falls might be where you want to start.” But there's a decent concentration of churches in that area already, while Ammon is pretty light on Christian churches, and so we were happy to be able to tap into a fairly untapped pool of people out here.

Charles: So have you had much interaction with members of the Latter Day Saints since you've been here?

Paul: I really didn't know much about the Church of Jesus, Christ of Latter Day Saints at all when I first came out here. I think we had a small chapter on the Mormon Church in a world religions course that I took my freshman year of college, but I had never sat down with LDS missionaries, or really lived in a place that near a Mormon church. And so in January of last year, before we moved out here, I went on a mission trip with a group that's affiliated with our church called Truth and Love Ministries. They're based in Nampa, Idaho, and they've got a lot of excellent resources, helping Christians to reach out in love and share the truth with friends or family members within the Mormon Church. So I went on that mission trip, and then another one that they did later that year, in Logan, Utah.  And then we actually hosted them in Idaho Falls for their summer mission trip. Also one of our members has been a great resource in helping us understand how to be a good neighbor in an LDS community and meet people and talk to them.

Charles: You had your official launch in August. Do you see any common reason the people that have come have joined your fellowship?  Were they looking for a new church? Were they looking for a young church, or for any anything else that you've noticed?

Paul: Yeah, there have been a few people joining who found us who were looking for a church to join. We're going out, kind of hitting the pavement, maybe a little more than some more established churches, looking for people who might be looking for a church. So God in His grace has just connected us with some families that are searching right now. There have been a few that have stopped by who are excited to see a church on this end of town. We've got a gentleman who lives just down the street from you (off of 17^th on Ross Avenue), and he can't really drive much anymore, but he said he could get to our service easy enough on Sunday mornings. So location has been one great thing, although that's something I'm a little apprehensive about because we're not going to be able to keep our little space that we're renting forever. And when we do need to upsize, I want to make sure that we've got just as key of a location then too. But also I want us to use the one we're in now as best we can and meet the folks in this neighborhood.

Charles: What do you see as your greatest challenge moving forward, or just any challenge moving forward?

Paul: We have been tremendously blessed so far, and as this is my first time starting a church, I don't really know, other than books I've read and other guys I've talked to, how it's supposed to go. At this time we've got a group of 50-some people who are coming on a pretty regular basis, after just a year and a half. And that to me seems like a pretty blessed start. I think a couple of the challenges are that we want to keep up the passion of our group to be reaching out into the community in love and getting to know people in their neighborhoods, getting to know people at work, just emphasizing relationship building, so that through those relationships, we can identify opportunities to bring the love of Christ into people's lives.  And then if we get to invite them to church, that’s great. But I think it starts with just seeing people through the lens of the cross and having an openness and willingness to start conversations with people and get to know them better. So that's part of the culture that I want to be able to help grow.

And then there's an element of church planning that has to do with finances, right?  So you want to bring in enough families that that you've got a group that's going to be able to be financially stable and support a ministry that will keep going. We've got some great help from our Synod, our national church body, towards that end. But we want to become self-supporting as quickly as possible, and contribute to efforts to start churches elsewhere. So continuing to grow people for the kingdom is our number one concern, obviously, but growing financially secure is another challenge that we'll look forward to meeting along the way. I haven't really given that one a whole lot of thought yet, because it's just it's really not the priority need right now.

Charles: Is there anything else that you'd like to share about how you have seen the Lord working in your life or your family or the community since you’ve been here?

Paul: We are just we're excited to be here. We've absolutely loved being able to be a part of this Idaho Falls community and get to know this place and start to call it home. We just bought our first house back in March after renting for a year here, and we're excited to call Ammon and Idaho Falls home, and to be able to start a church that hopefully other people will be able to look at as a home as well. There are so many people in this community that need the true gospel and need a relationship with Jesus where they understand that the salvation he offers is theirs for the taking, that He's won it for them already.

We've got our work cut out for us, and I'm glad we're not the only church here. I'm excited to keep getting to know other pastors and other churches in the area. May God bless the work that His church is doing here.