Found on Mercy Journeys:
And among all the Lutheran bodies there is perhaps none that makes so much of the office of the ministry as the Missouri Synod, in which the individual congregation so definitely stands at the center of all ecclesiastical thinking. The office of the ministry and the congregation are like inter-communicating channels. The life of the one is also the life of the other. As the office of the ministry fails, so also the congregation, and vice versa.
There have been several other articles there recently that are excellent reading, including but not limited to:
A Very Interesting History of My Favorite Prayer: The Litany