Saint Paul Lutheran Church
Staff & Leaders

Andrew Carlson

Rev. Andrew J. Carlson, Sr. M.Div., B.A., A.A. Pastor Carlson grew up with twenty-two other siblings in a log cabin in the back woods of Alaska (120 miles from the Arctic Circle). It was a multi-ethnic family with adopted brothers and sisters from Japan, India, Korea, an Eskimo sister/brother and two African-American brothers. He is married to Dana Carlson and they have two grown children: Andrew Jr. and Kristin. He graduated from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis in 1997. He served two churches (dual parish) in South Dakota for two years (1997-1999). He then served on active duty with the Navy for five years (1999-2004). He served on the USS Camden AOE-2 as command chaplain for two years, serving a tour in the Persian Gulf, where he was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal for service to the sailors of the USS Cole, after their bombing in Aden, Yemen. He also served two Navy chapels in the Puget Sound for three years. He resigned from the Navy in 2004 and took a call to serve a triple parish: Grace (Correctionville, IA), Trinity (Anthon, IA), and St. Paul (rural Battle Creek, Iowa), where he served from 2004-2011. In 2011 he accepted a call to serve St. Paul’s in Ireton, where he has served until now. He was elected circuit counselor in 2012.