Rev. Paul Hagedorn

The Tabernacle Church family has been truly blessed by the presence of the Rev. Paul Hagedorn and his wife Fern.

Born in Philadelphia, Paul has served as an interim pastor in eight congregations across both urban and rural settings. Through the seminary’s urban internship program, he mentored numerous leaders, among them the Rev. Dr. James Echols, the Rev. Dr. Charles Leonard, the Rev. Dr. Richard Perry, and many other pastors including the Rev. Gordon Simmons, the Rev. Heidi Neumark, and the Rev. Cibele Kuss—a Brazilian pastor who now leads a social justice organization within the Lutheran Church in Brazil.

Paul’s gifts for leadership and vision were widely recognized throughout the Church. SEPA Synod Bishop William Janson appointed him to chair the launch of the Lutheran World Hunger Appeal. Bishop Stephen Bouman of the Metropolitan New York Synod invited him to develop a comprehensive strategy for urban ministry. In the New Jersey Synod, Paul served as Mission Director, a role that later evolved into the Director of Evangelical Mission. He was also asked by then–Presiding Bishop, the Rev. Dr. James Crumley, to consider serving as director of world mission.

His commitment to global ministry led him on three international mission trips to study how the Church carried out its work across Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. One of these journeys—a sabbatical focused on urban ministry—took him to Brazil, East Germany, India, Norway, and major U.S. cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles. His resulting paper emphasized the concept of “Parish as Place.”

Paul eventually resigned from his synodical role in New Jersey to serve a declining Norwegian‑German congregation in Hoboken, NJ. There he launched bilingual Bible studies in English and Spanish, and the congregation partnered with a synagogue, local churches, and community organizations to feed and shelter people experiencing homelessness. Paul also emerged as a leading advocate for housing justice during a period when arson and displacement were rampant as landlords sought to accelerate gentrification.

In Newark—the largest city in New Jersey—Paul persuaded the ELCA of the urgent need for ministry in the Ironbound neighborhood. Once home to forty Lutheran congregations, Newark today has only one ELCA congregation, the one Paul helped establish.

Earlier in his ministry, Paul served for eleven years at Grace Lutheran Church in Mantua, West Philadelphia, during a turbulent era marked by the civil rights movement, gang violence, and the early stages of urban renewal and gentrification.

In 2016, he began serving as interim pastor at St. Michael’s in Kensington. Witnessing the significant needs of many Philadelphia congregations inspired him to collaborate with the Rev. Carlton Rodgers of Tabernacle Lutheran Church. Together, they advanced the “Fortifying Urban Ministries” resolution, which was adopted by both the 2022 SEPA Synod Assembly and the ELCA Churchwide Assembly.