# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_2016_S36 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) 36 OFFICER, BOARD, AND COMMISSION REPORTS the Himalayas. There will be more to come as Asian church bodies decide to leave the LWF. The LCMS can and should continue to position itself to be a friend to such church bodies. Our greatest asset is our confessional teaching, which is exactly what these partners want. Let us unite with and behind our international partners, supporting them with our prayers, teaching, and resources. God’s Word will not return void. Amen. • Latin America and the Caribbean Region—Rev. Ted Krey, Regional Director • • • Latin America Caribbean (LAC) Region Strategy Statement: By the power of the Spirit, work in pastoral formation, strengthen the pastorate, and plant Lutheran missions that lead to Lutheran churches which are merciful and give witness to Christ through Word and Sacrament. The strategic plan for LAC is organized around the six priorities for the work of the LCMS. 1. Plant, sustain, and revitalize Lutheran churches. Strategic Direction: Enable church planting by supporting church planting efforts of national church bodies and by directly engaging in church planting activities through deployed missionaries (NSM and Alliance). LAC will support direct church planting activities in Belize, Caymans, Chile, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, and Uruguay. LAC indirectly supports church planting in Colombia, Paraguay, and Jamaica. Positive Impact of Doubling the Number of Missionaries: LAC missionaries have grown from six missionaries (five years ago) to 31 career, three Alliance, and five GEO missionaries (20 spouses, 46 children, and missionaries account for a total of 104 people who are supported). The encouragement by the Synod to double the number of missionaries has had a positive impact in allowing LAC to do the following: • • • • • To expand church planting from three to ten countries To provide professors to raise up an indigenous clergy in our new church plants and sister churches The LCMS has supported and grown in her support of Network Support Missionaries. Districts, RSOs, and congregations directly partner with LAC in church planting in seven countries with three more to be added this year. Our capacity to show mercy has grown as we place mercy houses alongside our churches. Adding missionaries means more monies are needed for projects. This need has been met by creating partnerships (“FOROs”—Forums) which allow us to support continued and expanded work. These FOROs exist in seven countries and an additional three planned in 2016. • Create a “circle of support and platform” through FOROs around each church plant. Each FORO: o Engages LCMS districts to provide financial support and human resources (seven currently engaged) o Engages congregations and short-term teams o RSOs are engaged to bring resources and capacity to the work. o Lutheran Hour Ministries will be engaged to provide media and other support. Future Growth: Working in these fields alone, without further expansion to new fields, requires an additional 45 missionaries, lay and ordained. A projected 15 missionaries per year for the next three years are needed to fulfill these needs. This will allow us to do the following: • • • • Have multiple Lutheran churches planted and establish mercy houses that serve people in their body Strengthen sister churches in their witness of Christ and Him crucified Strengthen and establish new Lutheran schools Provide professors for partner churches Recommendations: 2016 Convention Workbook • Challenge the LCMS to support the doubling of missionaries again so that the preaching of the Word might be furthered and Christ’s gifts offered in ever more places. Challenge the LCMS to affirm and support the OIM as the only sending arm of the LCMS. Celebrate that one of our daughter churches, IELB-Brazil, has reached across the ocean and planted her first foreign church in Angola, Africa, by ordaining her first pastors in July 2015. Give thanks that in three years, the Lord of the Church has permitted us to more than double the number of LAC missionaries and that He has moved the LCMS to support this effort. Give thanks for the faithfulness of families of the LCMS who have been called and commit to pray and support them in our efforts throughout the world. 2. Support and expand theological education. Strategic Direction: Regional seminaries need to be started or capacity built to train pastors to plant churches and to properly serve existing congregations. A clear route to ordination needs to be articulated in the LAC region in order to provide indigenous pastors for the planting and for serving congregations. Positive Impact of LAC Support of Seminaries: Currently, 135 Spanishspeaking pastors serve throughout Latin America. Some 750 Brazilian pastors serve in Brazil. With enrollment in Concordia Seminary Argentina at 65, the opportunity exists to double the number of pastors in our sister churches in Latin America in the next five years. A waiting list of 15 students exists for admitting men to residential education. LAC supports 20 scholarships and one professor at the seminary. She provides five missionary pastors to be theological mentors to the online FPH pastoral program as well. For the first time in our Lutheran history, pastoral formation through seminaries and online is offered throughout the entirety of LAC. This means that we are providing pastors to plant new churches and those to tell the next generation. Seminaries: • • • • Argentina—currently serving Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia, Guatemala, Peru, Spain, Paraguay, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Colombia, and Venezuela. She has a total of 35 men in residence (at capacity) and an additional 30 studying online in her joint FPH certificate program with CTSFW. Brazil—serving Brazil and Angola in Africa (building $300,000 facility in Angola through own funding and ordained first class 2015) and has 100+ men in residence program. Nicaragua—(Lutheran Church—Canada)—serving Honduras, Costa Rica. OIM Missionary Rev. Ed and Deaconess Cherie Auger supervise the mission as per three-way protocol document. Dominican Republic—Slated to open with pastoral formation in 2017. Currently a deaconate seminary. Continued and Future Impact by LAC on our partner churches: • • • • Luther Academy—Continuing Education for the Ministerium—LAC has provided financial support for Luther Academy in the past five years and provided more than 50 courses in five countries. She has also had 10 international theological conferences. VDMA—provide all pastors, seminarians, and deaconesses with access to Lutheran theology (books etc.) through online technology. Five Lutheran books per year for five years. Hymnal Project—due to be released in 2017. Luther Academy Funding—emphasis on liturgy in 2016 with classes in Pastoral Care Companion (pastoral practice), Heaven on Earth (theology of worship), and hymnal (congregational worship). Recommendations: • • That the LCMS give thanks to the Lord for Concordia Seminary Argentina that provides pastors for 14 countries and is at capacity. That the LCMS give support for the establishing of a new seminary in the Dominican Republic to meet the waiting list of students who want residential education.