LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2007, Page 41

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SYNOD REPORTS 41

* Western—Developing new missionaries through distance edu-
cation, with a goal of 200 new missionaries on the West Coast
within five years.

National Ministry also provides support to the Center for U.S.
Missions in Irvine, California, for the work of training church
planters who work in North America. The center expanded pro-
grams to include those for church growth and for laity and clergy to
receive coaching and teaching. They added the Advanced Mission
Planters training program and the Edge Gathering for networking
with other new church planters and their spouses. Through the cen-
ter, more than 250 developers for new missions were prepared in
basic and advanced Mission Planter Institutes.

Significant support is also given to the Ethnic Immigrant Insti-
tute of Theology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, for
distance education programs leading toward ordination for ethnic
church leaders. A missionary formation track at the seminaries for
training missionary pastors for work in North America was ex-
panded in the triennium, and a new distance education track is
being implemented with the seminaries.

There are now more than 50 Open Arms Lutheran Child Devel-
opment Centers, and at least 30 were the basis for new missions.
A new and critical partnership with Church Development Partners
developed, allowing for additional means and methods in procuring
new sites and properties for mission plants.

* Mission Affiliates include ethnic and specific mission work in
North America. Ablaze! reports for 2006 include:

Number | Congregations | People Mission Congregations
of Planted Trained Posts Revitalized
People Started
Reached
Immigrant
Indian
Fr a al
Immigrant
| Black | N/A__|
| _Blind | 1,238 |

5 417 1 N/A

7 U.S./Canada 28
and 75 U.S./Canada

overseas and 95
overseas

¢ National work/project totals for the triennium

2004/05 actual $2,912,865
2005/06 actual $3,308,523
2006/07 budget $3,000,140
TOTAL $9,221,528
3-year average $3,073,843

Scope of Current LCMS World Mission Ministry
to the Armed Forces Work

Ministry to the Armed Forces (MAF) believes about 12,000 to
15,000 LCMS members are serving on active duty. Serving at sea
and ashore with these active duty and reserve forces are dozens of
LCMS military chaplains. One important chaplain issue facing the
MAF is the mobilization of Reserve and Guard chaplains. Army
active duty chaplains are serving tours of 12 months in Iraq/
Afghanistan, seven to nine months for Navy/Marine Corps chap-
lains, and four to six months for Air Force chaplains. Army Re-
serve chaplains and National Guard chaplains are being mobilized
for 18 months on average. All chaplains, active and reserve, are
liable for second and third deployments to Iraq and Afghan-istan.

For Reserve and Guard chaplains, longer deployments bring se-
rious challenges to the parishes and families of the chaplains and
their parishes. In August 2006, MAF led a seminar to discuss re-
entry efforts, family therapy perspectives, and Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder definitions and therapy. The seminar group offered

several suggestions for a churchwide effort to support these chap-
lains, military personnel, and LCMS congregations with a vacancy
caused by their pastors’ mobilization. Recently, mobilized Reserve
chaplains and their spouses were invited to participate in the an-
nual West and East Coast Lutheran Chaplains Conferences to bet-
ter understand the stress of mobilization and re-entry. As a result,
MAF is moving quickly to set up a nationwide support system of
trained counselors to assist the pastor/chaplain, his family, and his
congregation before, during, and after mobilization.

MAF leadership continues to recruit actively at both seminaries
with personal visits and chaplain candidate training programs. To
date, there are approximately 30 candidates who desire to be mil-
itary chaplains from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, and 12 from
Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne. MAF is funded by
the direct support of generous contributions from the church-at-
large and has met its budgetary goals for the past three years.

Balanced Focus Plan—Partner Focus:

Kindle a common vision and mutual commitment to sharing
the Good News of Jesus with 100 million people by the 500th
anniversary of the Reformation in 2017.

The “partner focus” of the Balanced Focus Plan concentrates
on groups who are outside of the LCMS World Mission organiza-
tional structure. Partners include such entities as church bodies,
missionary alumni, auxiliaries, recognized service organizations,
mission societies, universities, seminaries and LCMS districts.
LCMS World Mission views partnership as an opportunity for sep-
arate entities to fully engage strategically in a common goal. The
success of the Ablaze! vision will be achieved when partners agree
that they share equally in the responsibility of achieving the goal.

Partnership Examples of New Work:

Mission Society—Apple of His Eye Mission Society, a recog-
nized service organization of LCMS World Mission, “exists to
boldly declare Y’shua as the Messiah and urgently equip God’s
people to do the same.” After expanding its Jewish outreach and
ministry to multiple sites in the United States, in 2004, AOHE in
partnership with LCMS World Mission in Russia named their first
overseas missionary in Moscow. The following November, AOHE
hosted their first AOHE Jewish Evangelism seminar in Moscow,
and in August 2006, their first international outreach in Russia
event was hosted by the AOHE Moscow leader and American
AOHE leader.

LCMS Districts—The United States and Mexico are separated
by a land border that covers 1,950 miles between the Pacific Ocean
and the Gulf of Mexico and includes four states within the U.S. and
six Mexican states. In the summer of 2006, LCMS World Mis-
sion’s Latin America regional director and staff met in Ciudad
Juarez, Mexico, where the district presidents from Texas District,
Rocky Mountain District, and Pacific Southwest District met with
the president of the Lutheran Synod of Mexico to discuss the
unique ministry challenges and opportunities in Mexico and the
Mexican-U-.S. border and how to best support them.

Partner Church Bodies

* In 2005, with a first-of-its-kind partnership, LCMS World Mission,
the Lutheran Church of Brazil, Bethesda Lutheran Homes and Ser-
vices, the Central American Lutheran Mission Society (CALMS),
St. Michael’s Lutheran Church (Fort Myers, Florida), Marco
Lutheran Church (Marco, Florida), LCMS World Relief/Human
Care placed two missionaries in the Dominican Republic. LCMS
missionary Danelle Putnam reaches out to the families of the devel-
opmentally disabled with training and the Gospel, and Brazilian
missionary Walter Ries Jr. focuses on providing theological educa-
tion and developing leaders. Together, their work is aimed to plant
three congregations in the capital of Santo Domingo; the second

2007 Convention Workbook