Guest Post

Ministry with the Overnighters

One key challenge for churches in the North Dakota oil boom is how to respond to the needs of many new residents. Jay Reinke, pastor of Concordia Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, runs a program out of his church called the Overnighters

On a bitter night two years ago, a man came to Pastor Reinke’s office asking for a bus ticket out of town. He was about to start a new job—but he had nowhere to stay for the night and it was too cold to sleep outside. He had had it with the instability of his situation. “Why don’t you just spend the night here?” Reinke said, with a spontaneity that he attributes to the movement of the Holy Spirit. Inadvertently, the Overnighters program was born.

Reinke is an affable and passionate man, with both a scholar’s seriousness and a pastoral warmth. He is as comfortable protesting for causes he believes in—he is passionately anti-abortion and pro-gun—as he is discussing theology. He loves to spend evenings with the “Overnighters” talking about doctrine and Christian meaning.