St. Paul Lutheran Church is one of three churches in Lakota, accompanying the First Presbyterian Church of Lakota and the Community Chapel.

If everyone in Lakota, Iowa belonged to a church, and actually went to church, and the churches were of equal size, St. Paul Lutheran Church of Lakota would have about 90 members.

Of course, we know that not everyone goes to church in any town. According to a recent survey of religious behavior, only between 50 and 55% of Iowans say they go to church with any frequency at all.

On Facebook, St. Paul Lutheran Church in Lakota has 96 fans, but many of those people no longer live in Lakota, much less attend church services there. Karen Wagenaar, for example, went to high school in Lakota, but she now lives in Sheldon, Iowa, two counties to the West of Lakota. Rusti Hesstig lives over in Rochester, Minnesota now.

Others, like Kelly Lord, seem simply to know people who attend St. Paul Lutheran Church. Lord lives all the way across the state in Mount Pleasant. Liking a church on Facebook doesn’t make you a member. Most of the time, church attendance at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Lakota seems to range between 15 and 30 people, including the children, from just a handful of families.

Small places matter, but when it comes to votes cast in the US presidential election, being a board member for an organization with less than 30 regularly active adult members isn’t going to carry a lot of weight… unless the presidential campaign you’re thinking of is that of Donald Trump in 2024.

Trump has proudly bragged of having Jordan Valvick on his Iowa Faith Leader Coalition, as responsibility that involves Valvick signing his name on a form at a Trump rally one day, and not much else.

There are plenty of people from the Valvick family that attend St. Paul Lutheran Church in Lakota. The farmer Arlyn Valvick goes there sometimes. So does Annette Valvick, who the Trump campaign calls a “small group leader”. Can you imagine what being a small group leader at a church with so few people is like?

The Trump campaign has boasted about the endorsements of Annette and Arlyn and Jordan Valvick, as members of his Iowa Faith Leader Coalition.

All voters matter.

Still, when three of the members of Donald Trump’s Iowa Faith Leader Coalition come from one family at one tiny church, and not one of them is pastor of that church, that tells you something about the puffery behind the production of the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition.