LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2010, Page 28

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SYNOD REPORTS
2. Plant 2,000 new missions in the U.S. (and work with our partners toward another 3,000 in Africa, Asia, Eurasia, and Latin
America).*
3. Assist 2,000 LCMS congregations in mission revitalization.*
Celebrating Highlights of the Last Triennium

Partner Focus: Walking together in grace on the adventure of being
partners in the Gospel

We intentionally concentrate on engaging and working with
groups who are outside of the LCMS World Mission organizational
structure. Partners include such entities as church bodies, missionary alumni, auxiliaries, Recognized Service Organizations, mission
societies, LCMS districts, congregations, universities, and seminaries,
as well as government agencies and nongovernmental organizations
worldwide.
Outreach
Relationship-Building through English-as-a-ForeignLanguage Teaching: GEO (globally engaged in outreach) long-term
missionaries, international educators, and short-term individual and
team efforts continue to expand as a vital component in working on
the “green growing edge” of the church. As Christians are sent to
teach people seeking English skills to advance their opportunities in
the world, missionaries and teachers are able to engage people oneon-one. In time, mutual trust and relationships build, while students
repeatedly see Christ’s love in the lives of these missionary teachers and hear about Christ in the classroom, a Bible study, a small
group, and/or sharing casual social interaction. The partner churches
and mission fields continue to increase their requests for missionaries and teachers. While many requests are filled, an ever-increasing
number go unfilled and opportunities for relationship building and
Gospel sharing go unmet. For example, the Asia region currently has
51 GEO long-term missionaries and has requested 75 for 2011, but
in truth the region could easily benefit from 125 GEO missionaries!
Congregation Connect: Many LCMS members of all ages have
expressed a desire to serve alongside the people who live in the mission
field they are supporting. The Congregation Connect program was developed in partnership with Salem Lutheran Church, Tomball, Texas, to help
provide congregations with a unique opportunity to link up with a mission need overseas for five years, focusing on mission, partnership, teams,
relationships, and lay leadership. You can think of it as short-term teams
with a long-term commitment. These mission relationships lead to faithsharing opportunities.

Church Planting and Revitalization*
[*For updates on the Ablaze! Covenant Congregations and the
Transforming Churches Network, see the National Mission section
of this report.]
Rural and Small Town Mission: This new and expanded initiative is positioning to assist more intentionally the professional and lay
leaders serving in rural and small town congregations—nearly half of
all 6,000-plus LCMS congregations—in leading their congregation
members in engaging their communities for Christ. A new missionary/catalyst will work in collaboration with Saint Paul Institute for
Education, LCMS districts, the RSTM Task Force, the Transforming
Churches Network, The 72—Partners on the Road, and many other
resources in creating new training resource modules, offering leadership modules, and providing workshops in districts for outreach,
revitalization, and church planting.

Sri Lanka Probationers: This program of church-planting vicars is not new in India and Sri Lanka, but God continues to bless and
expand this church-planting vision of our partners, assisted in part
by financial support from LCMS World Mission through the Jesus
Is Lord Mission Society. In February 2008, 12 seminary students
received their ordination from the informal seminary of the Lanka
Lutheran Church. Since 2006, they had been serving their three-year
“probation” as church planters in the most remote and needy parts
of the central Sri Lanka mountains on the tea plantations. The Lord
blessed their efforts, and they are starting new churches. In 2009,
through Fan into Flame funds, the Lanka Lutheran Church is purchasing and constructing the first of eight mission stations that are
needed for the current probationers to be ordained and reside in their
pastorates.
Leadership Development
Uganda and Sudan Pastoral Leadership Training: Missionary
Rev. Claude Houge of East Africa reports, “The missionaries are
doing well and working hard with the Lutheran Church Mission in
Uganda (LCMU) in training local leaders. Meeting with the LCMU
leadership, we are always impressed at how this young church is
growing because the leaders are so focused on outreach. We were
joined by interim Assistant Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church of Sudan, Rev. Jacob Bisi. He wanted to get to know the
LCMU leadership. These two fairly young churches have much in
common, and they can be supportive of one another. The overwhelming request from both churches is help with training! It’s hard to plant
new churches without enough pastors or trained lay leaders. LCMS
is funding several projects to help with this big need.” In late 2009,
three graduates from the Leadership Training School were ordained
as pastors in the LCMU. This brings the total number of ordained
pastors to four!
The Ethnic Immigrant Institute of Theology (EIIT) and Lutheran
Association of Missionaries and Pilots U.S.: The third class of students in the EIIT program graduated in December 2009, including David
Sternbeck, the first Native American student to graduate from the program. He was ordained Dec. 13 at Makah Lutheran Church in Neah Bay,
WA, where he is serving while planning to expand the ministry outreach
of LAMP-U.S. (the Native American National Mission Affiliate) to other
Native American communities on the Olympic Peninsula. As immigrant
and ethnic populations continue to increase in the United States, this cutting-edge effort of training ethnic leaders for the various ethnic ministries
within our church body is vital. This distance-education pastoral and deaconess training program is sponsored by Concordia Seminary, St. Louis,
with support from LCMS World Mission.

Lay Leadership Training in the Philippines: In spring 2008,
Rev. Dr. Steven Oliver (missionary in Taiwan) and Rev. Carl Hanson
(missionary in East Asia) taught a three-day lay training seminar for
67 participants in Baguio City. These elders, deacons, and evangelists
of the Lutheran Church in the Philippines (LCP) gather twice a year as
a large group, as well as weekly or monthly with their local supervisors, for ongoing Theological Education by Extension. Hanson wrote,
“It was truly moving to meet these men who travel great distances on
foot to remote villages and communities with the Gospel of God’s
love and grace in Jesus Christ. The LCP has 92 churches, many of
which are mission stations, and 26 ordained pastors. They have an
Ablaze! goal to establish 100 new churches by the 500th anniversary
of the Reformation in 2017! The LCP’s rich history and experience
in training lay leaders has already expanded beyond the Philippines
as they have joined LCMS World Mission work in Cambodia to offer
similar training there. As the church continues to grow in Asia, this

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