John Mehl

The Rev. Dr. John Mehl was raised in the Concordia, Missouri area. He attended St. Paul’s College in Concordia, and Concordia University, Ann Arbor, Michigan. He received a Master of Divinity degree and a Doctor of Ministry degree with a concentration in Missional Leadership from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis.

John served eight years as a parish pastor at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Lincoln, Kansas before being called by the LCMS Board for Mission Services to serve as a church planter in Moscow, Russia in 1993. During his 11 years in Russia, he served as the pastor of two congregations in Moscow and established and supervised the “Moscow Seminars,” an ongoing theological education program for Russian Lutheran pastors. He also served as a guest instructor at the Ingrian Lutheran Seminary near St. Petersburg. From 2000 to 2003 he served as the Area Director for LCMS World mission in the CIS—the countries of the former Soviet Union.

In 2004 John became the Regional Director for Eurasia with LCMS World Mission, and he and his family moved from Moscow to Frankfurt, Germany. While in this position, he continued support for missionaries and for outreach in Europe and the former Soviet Union. He also served the LCMS as the church relations representative with partner churches in the region and investigated new opportunities for mission activities, including survey work for possible outreach in Kosovo.

In 2006 John and his family moved to Hong Kong, where he served as the LCMS World Mission’s Regional Director for Asia until 2013. While in Asia he served on the leadership team that established Concordia International School in Hanoi. He led a missionary team of 28 career missionaries and as many as 68 long-term GEO missionaries and served as the church relations representative to partner churches in 11 Asian countries.

At the end of 2013, Dr. Mehl and his family returned to the US, and from 2014 to 2016 he served as the Director of Mission Partnerships and Church Relations at Concordia University, Nebraska (CUNE), also teaching mission classes as an adjunct instructor.

Since January of 2017, John has been serving as the Executive Director of Mission of Christ Network (MCN), an organization that focuses on intentional Gospel proclamation through training, sending, and supporting missionaries, including both professional church workers and the members of the laity, in international and cross-cultural mission. He continues to teach mission classes as an adjunct instructor at CUNE.

John is married to Susan nee Lange and together they have three grown children Katrina (Isaac) Dahlke, Louisa (Andrew) Lehenbauer, and Theodore, and three grandchildren.