LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2016, Page 21

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OFFICER, BOARD, AND COMMISSION REPORTS
The first module of re:Vitality is now available. Connect to
Disciple introduces key elements of re:Vitality that guide and equip
congregational leaders in developing an outreach strategy, evaluating
the congregation’s outreach approach, identifying effective outreach
activities, and mapping pathways for moving people from connections to disciples.
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Designed for the leaders of a single congregation (12–18 participants)
6–7 hours in duration (90 minutes of instruction with the balance
of time spent in activities centered on the congregation’s actual
circumstances)
Each participant receives a workbook for use during the workshop and
for future reference.
No cost to the congregation.

Church Planting—Rev. Steve Schave, Director

Through our districts, the LCMS is here to support church-planting efforts through mother congregations, sponsoring circuits, or
church-planting networks that may simply need support to get things
started. We also wish to develop formal partnerships between struggling congregations in the inner city with healthy congregations who
wish to help them restart. In urban settings, there are large groups of
international immigrants, multiethnic neighborhoods, extreme poverty, and the like. For campus missions, the transient nature of the
congregation and lack of mature giving create similar challenges.
Those who serve in the midst of these complex and challenging mission fields are worthy of our support, including financially. Funding is
needed to ensure that there are adequately trained workers in the field
along with the resources needed to reach out to their communities.
These missions will not be limited to our cities, but it will be a focus.
The stark reality is that we are losing our footprint in cities and on our
campuses, and once our ministries are lost, it is virtually impossible
to get them back. Therefore, we need a quick and lasting response.
Through an initiative named Mission Field: USA, Church Planting
will offer the following services to support church-planting efforts
throughout the Synod. There will be technical support for those
who are interested in a Witness, Mercy, Life Together church planting framework. We will equip them in planting distinctly Lutheran
churches, based on Luther’s marks of the church. For community
development, we have a variety of resources to assist church plants
in engaging their communities. Through Gospel Seeds, Everyone
a Witness, Lutheran Housing Support, and Denarius (a new social
enterprise program), we can equip new starts to play a vital role in
community development. There are church-planting grants in which
seed money can be requested through a grant for planting a Mission
Field: USA church. These funds will be used to get the essentials
needed to start the church. We will support collaboration as well.
Some of these missions in struggling communities simply need some
support from healthy congregations. Healthy partners can pray, give,
and go (via mission trips) to help a mission that is actively engaged
in their communities, but lack the needed resources.
Rural and Small Town Mission—Rev. Todd Kollbaum, Director

Rural and Small Town Mission (RSTM) exists to support and
encourage rural and small town congregations in engaging their communities and growing together in Christ through Word and Sacrament.
Rural and small town congregations, those located in communities
of 15,000 or less in population, make up more than half of the congregations and over half of the membership of the LCMS. With
approximately 3,200 congregations, it is a foregone conclusion that
while some are strong and vibrant, many suffer from a lack of hope,
dwindling resources, and a lack of access to training and ministry
assistance. While there is certainly no “one size fits all” solution
to the unique challenges rural and small town congregations face,
RSTM seeks to provide training and resources which train and equip

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these congregations to assess their community and their ministry, and
look for opportunities to revitalize and engage those around them in
a robust way.
To that end, RSTM partners with the districts of the LCMS in
order to provide support for these rural and small town congregations.
This is so they are supplied with the necessary resources to carry out
mission and ministry in their specific context. In order to provide that
support, training, and equipping, RSTM provides several resources.
Our primary training vehicle is our Engaging Your Community
Events (EYC). The day-long, interactive seminars encourage congregational leaders to examine their communities and demographics,
consider ways in which they can serve the unique needs of those
communities, identify the assets with which their congregation has
been blessed, and make a plan to utilize those resources to actively
engage their community. Herein, RSTM assists those congregations
in attendance to utilize practical approaches to develop an action plan
to engage their community with the Gospel. During the past triennium, RSTM has partnered with 19 districts to host over 25 events.
These EYC’s assisted more than 700 participants representing nearly
250 congregations.
While the EYC is our primary event, RSTM also takes advantage of invitations to provide training through other events such as
pastors conferences at the district and circuit level, congregations’
mission festivals, and LWML and LLL events such as zone and district rallies. We have even conducted the worship service twice at the
Missouri State Fair in partnership with the Missouri District LLL,
and have hosted a National Mission Festival in Concordia, Missouri.
Another way RSTM provides rural and small town specific training, support, and resources for our congregations is through our
annual National Rural and Small Town Mission Festival. Held in
November each year, the National Mission Conference has hosted
nearly 500 participants representing dozens of congregations and
districts. Through these events, participants have grown and been
encouraged through exploring the themes of “Planting in a Changing
World,” “Small Places, Big Mission,” and “Standing in the Harvest
Fields.” These conferences bring together best practices and practitioners in a broad range of ministry areas and then shares and
connects with rural and small town congregations, so that professional church workers and lay leaders in these settings will be trained
to understand their role in rural culture, help trigger surface changes
that lead to productive outreach ministry, and, most important, lead
dynamic change by being in God’s Word.
A new initiative to support church workers was kicked off in 2015
at the first National Worker-Priest Respite Retreat. In partnership with
Grace Place Wellness Ministries, RSTM hosted a bi-vocational pastors retreat for pastors and their families who are currently engaged in
that unique type of ministry. Because bi-vocational pastors and their
families are seldom supported in the very unique challenges of that
type of ministry model, RSTM sought to provide for them a time of
rest and retreat. The inaugural event hosted five bi-vocational pastors
and their families for three days at our offices in Concordia, Missouri.
This event was made possible through grants funding by two LWML
Districts in Nebraska and South Dakota.
In order to provide a consistent stream of practical ideas and
resources to rural and small town congregations, RSTM hosts
monthly live webinars on timely and important topics as well as provides the opportunity for people to view the archived webinars from
the RSTM website. Congregations have reported they use the archives
for things such as elder training and Bible study. There have been a
wide range of topics covered that have reached people from coast to
coast. These webinars have covered topics which range from how to
best put together congregational publications, to assimilating new
members, to care for church workers and their families.
2016 Convention Workbook