LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2023, Page 12

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12

OFFICER, BOARD, AND COMMISSION REPORTS

A.8.a. Soldiers of the Cross
Soldiers of the Cross provides assistance to rostered church
workers facing specific financial challenges. The program was
quickly mobilized with an enhanced programmatic function in
March 2020 to meet the needs of church workers impacted by the
COVID-19 pandemic. The ongoing Soldiers of the Cross program
continued simultaneously alongside the pandemic efforts. Over the
past triennium, care and financial support was given to 95 rostered
church workers. ONM provided $150,049 as of Jan. 31, 2023, with
districts offering matching funds.

•

Train the trainer resources: As the LERT program has
grown from just a few to hundreds of congregations, a
formalizing of processes was required. We’ve established
regular protocols for the raising up of trainers in our active districts. The result has been an exponential growth
in the number of LERT trainers. We have 57 LERT trainers, a 10-fold increase from five years ago.

•

After years of requests from our volunteers, we were able
to produce a formal training curriculum for chainsaw
use in the LERT program. To date, we have certified 14
trainers from various districts.

•

As a result of the additional trainers, our staff has been
able to shift their focus to more strategic training. Rather
than providing LERT trainings for congregations, we’ve
been able to lead a number of districts (staff and circuit
visitors) through the training, coupled with strategic conversation to help each district identify methods of communication before and after disasters and to encourage
district-wide participation in disaster preparedness and
response.

A.8.b. Veterans of the Cross
Veterans of the Cross provides assistance to retired rostered
church workers facing specific financial challenges. Over the past
triennium, financial support of $712,587 as of Jan. 31, 2023 was
provided by ONM via Concordia Plan Services administration.

B. Congregations and Districts
The Congregations and Districts ministry area of the ONM is
focused on providing resources and support to congregations and
districts as they preach Christ crucified.

B.1. Disaster Training
LCMS Disaster Training seeks to provide guidance, counsel,
and resources to congregations, districts, and RSOs through a variety of ways. We have engaged in a number of projects to formalize
the Synod’s training processes and volunteer coordination. These
include the following:
•

•

•

Conferences: We hosted National Disaster Response
Conferences in St. Louis (2019, 2021) and Fort Wayne
(2022), with an average of 80 participants and over 20
districts represented at each event. They covered a variety of topics and best practices, including practical sessions, case studies, and encouragement. We also engaged
leaders for smaller leadership training exercises in firstaid/trauma and specialized chainsaw training.
In light of the many challenges that COVID-19 presented for many in-person volunteer agencies, we took the
opportunity to build a volunteer management platform:
LCMS-LERT.org. Interested volunteers receive automatic notifications about trainings and deployment opportunities; the platform allows them to register to participate,
tracks their responses, and runs background checks for
certain types of deployments. Since the rollout of this
software in fall 2020, we have registered nearly 6,500 users, run 209 trainings and deployments, and logged over
29,500 hours. This tool is multiplying our capacity and
integrates our volunteer efforts with others in ONM as
well, including Youth, Life Ministry, and Campus Ministry.
In spring 2022, we purchased an enclosed trailer and outfitted it with basic disaster-response supplies and equipment. This trailer serves as a sign of the work our volunteers engage in as they serve their neighbor and share
the Gospel. It was displayed at the 2022 Youth Gathering, highlighting our change to open Lutheran Early
Response Teams (LERT) to high school–age youth. We
will use it as a display for future gatherings as well. It
is available for districts and congregations to use on a
short-term basis.

2023 Convention Workbook

Future focuses for LCMS Disaster Training will be the support
of regional practicum gatherings for our volunteers.
A final goal for our program is to help our congregations and
districts engender a robust desire among their members to love and
serve the neighbor in both body and soul. LERT teams have an
incredible capacity in between disasters to perform works of mercy
and connect their churches with their respective communities.

B.2. Disaster Response
In the last four years, we responded to five major hurricanes
(Category 4 or 5). We set up multiple disaster-response camps in
the Southern District and the Florida/Georgia District. LERT volunteers prepared and distributed meals, “mucked out” flooded homes,
and did significant amounts of chainsaw work with the assistance of
skid steers and aerial lifts (provided via grants from LCMS Disaster
Response). We facilitated responses to numerous tornadoes across
Alabama, Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois, and other states; we also
responded to floods, house fires, and a significant derecho in Iowa.
Between July 1, 2019, and Dec. 1, 2022, we awarded
$1,950,489.70 in 75 domestic grants for the work of response and
building capacity. We are currently engaged in mapping equipment,
available for use within the LCMS.
Major responses:
•

2019 Hurricane Dorian was the most intense tropical
cyclone on record to strike the Bahamas. We gave a grant
to help run a food pantry for the underserved community
on Nassau Island and collaborated with the Florida/Georgia District in rebuilding homes.

•

2020 Hurricane Laura was a deadly and destructive
Category 4 hurricane. We set up disaster-response centers
in Sulphur and Lake Charles, La. Our volunteer response
assisted 2 LCMS Churches, 169 homes, and 1 pastor’s
home. We cut up 515 trees and moved them to the street.
Our volunteers worked 2,900 hours.

•

2020 Hurricane Sally led us to set up a disaster-response
center at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Fairhope, Ala.
We assisted 6 LCMS churches, worked in 189 homes,