LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2016, Page 108

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108

OFFICER, BOARD, AND COMMISSION REPORTS

Nebraska District congregations and schools continue to be moved
by the Holy Spirit to a strong commitment for personalized mission.
We are encouraged both to being missionaries and sending missionaries in daily witness, mission servant events, and international mission
fields. Nebraska District pastors who serve as military chaplains have
been deployed to war zones and disaster sites. The Orphan Grain
Train, based in Norfolk, Nebraska, continues its worldwide humancare ministry. We enjoy our partnership with Iowa District West to
involve congregational members and church workers in personal mission, prayer, financial support, and servant events through the work
of Mission Awareness Developer Gary Thies and Mission Central in
Mapleton, Iowa.
The Nebraska District continues to work together with the
Nebraska Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to
offer children services, behavioral health care, and immigration-resettlement services through Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska.
The four district vice-presidents and 23 circuit visitors assist the
district president in regular visitation of our workers and congregations in order to encourage and strengthen outreach, witness, and
service. The district also provides church-worker care to its ordained
and commissioned professional church workers through a network
of rostered, state-licensed mental health professionals.
The LCMS Foundation and Lutheran Church Extension Fund are
special blessings in the Nebraska District, assisting congregations,
laity, and church workers in funding and living out the Lord’s mission. Christian stewardship involving all of life and life’s resources
continues to receive emphasis around the district. The district mission
executive also has two teams of dedicated volunteers: one focused on
planting new ministries and the other working on helping rural and
small-town ministries see the harvest field all around them.
Our district continues to seek new ways to help train lay leaders and congregational members for special service in assisting their
pastors, teachers, and directors of Christian education. We facilitate
courses to those men who are preparing to enter into the Synod’s
Specific Ministry Pastor (SMP) program.
Our two LWML districts and the LLL continue to find ways to
support ministry and outreach within and beyond our borders. The district continues in its desire to assist the Evangelical Lutheran Church
in Sudan/South Sudan (ELCS/SS) to emerge as a strong confessional
Lutheran Church, although in the midst of the current civil unrest it is
hard to see where this might take us in the near future.
At the end of November 2015, in compliance with 2013 Synod
Res. 7-04A, the district board of directors and circuit visitors were
surveyed to evaluate the Nebraska District’s viability. Thirty-one
responses were returned in early December and evaluated by the district president and vice-presidents, who submit the following report:
As of December 2015, the Nebraska District LCMS consists of 246
congregations and includes all but the panhandle of the state. The number and variety of congregations and the miles in between are both a
challenge to and blessing and strength of the district in its work together.
Those responding to the survey overwhelmingly support the size and
work of the district as a group of congregations and the district staff that
serves those congregations. We are challenged to gather the resources
needed to support the mission efforts of the district and staff, but those
challenges are engaged. District leadership is seen as adaptive and responsive to the needs of congregations, schools, and workers and to new
mission challenges.
The greatest challenges are visitation, support, and ecclesial supervision. Beleaguered workers and conflicted congregations and schools
challenge clear solutions. District staff, vice-presidents, and circuit
visitors continue to engage those challenges, much as pastors face those
challenges within their own congregations. In a sinful world, it is a constant pursuit, and fulfilling that task is seen positively on the whole and
is well supported by our congregations. The overwhelming responses of
those surveyed make clear the viability of the Nebraska District.

2016 Convention Workbook

Our task is clear and our focus is on the future. As we live out life
together, mercy, and witness, we focus on strengthening the faith of
believers in their connection with Christ and, in Christ, growing in
our connection with one another. We need to wrestle with our differences and find our common confession that in our deeds we might
continue to show the compassion of our Lord and in our witness proclaim the truth, the way, and the life.
Richard Snow, President
R36

New England District
It is my privilege to be in my second term as President of the
New England District. If you will indulge me, it is with all my heart
before my Savior that I personally affirm New England to be the finest district in The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Our pastors
are wonderful gifts to the church, plus the numerous church workers, rostered and otherwise, are nothing but blessings to our part of
Christ’s harvest field. It is my privilege to serve in this role, and I pray
with humility before our Lord that He makes me worthy of such a
responsibility.
This report will outline the major wonders that the Lord has done
among us in the last triennium. It will also include, as requested of all
districts, our answer to the request to “evaluate the District through
its officers, board of directors, and congregations” in terms of viability. Evaluations were given to every member of the New England
District board of directors, every member of the staff of the district,
the praesidium of the district, and other leaders and workers. These
evaluations included standard questions regarding viability and were
completed in January 2016. As president, I compiled the significant
findings, which I will summarize in this report.
The Lord in the last triennium focused our ability to provide care
for the church worker and the worker’s family. The New England
District extended a divine call to Deaconess Tiffany Manor, and she
accepted. After evaluation during the last triennium, it was determined
to seek to make this position, namely “Deaconess for Human Care,”
a full-time position and to budget resources accordingly. It was also,
in January 2016, made a tenured call. Deaconess Manor has done a
marvelous job of reaching out to our church workers and the families of the same, especially with a focus on pastors’ wives. She has
been readily accepted by the pastors and church workers. Her office
is under my own supervision as district president, and we have regular reports; but the district has insured that confidentiality is always
to be maintained in her work.
The Lord, in the last triennium, also focused our ability to provide care for the congregations. The New England District has now
called a District Revitalizer, the Rev. Eric Sahlberg, who is a church
planter and expert in church revitalization. He has traveled extensively
throughout New England, engaging pastors and church leaders in the
area of church revitalization. With New England sadly leading the
way in the secularization of our society, with five of our six states in
the top ten states for rejecting traditional Christian views and experiencing the decline of the church, this area is much needed and has
received great support.
The district, in foreign missions, also continues to support ministry in Kenya and Liberia. It also supports local human-care ministries,
including a successful “Hands of Grace” outreach to northwest
Connecticut out of one of our district congregations. Other congregations engage in similar ministries.
As a rule, the New England District—perhaps because we are
indeed an outpost of the Synod in the northeast corner of the United
States, and with many of our congregations living with a “mission/
outpost” mentality—New England District is remarkably free of