LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2007, Page 42

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42 SYNOD REPORTS

largest city, Santiago; and Palmar Arriba, a rural town outside of
Santiago. More than a dozen men have stepped forward to study
Lutheran theology. These men are also interested in starting a
Lutheran Church and being a part of its leadership.

* A new partnership between the Lutheran Church of Nigeria
(LCN), LCMS World Mission, and St. Andrews Lutheran Church
in Kingston, Jamaica, is moving forward. For the last 15 years,
LCMS World Mission has been sending missionaries to Jamaica.
At this time, discussions between LCMS World Mission and the
church in Jamaica led to a change of strategy and a request came
to the Lutheran Church of Nigeria for a Nigerian pastor who
could serve as missionary in Jamaica. (The vast majority of Ja-
maicans today are descendants of African slaves, many from
Nigeria.) The president of the LCN visited Jamaica in January
2007. He and the LCN have committed to send one missionary
from Nigeria to Jamaica in 2007 and are considering sending an-
other missionary in 2008 to work with the congregation in out-
reach and evangelism.

Balanced Focus Plan—Mission Responders Focus:

Educate, encourage, and equip LCMS individuals, congregations,
districts, and other entities to actively build the capacity of the LCMS
to be a partner in reaching 100 million people.

Through Ablaze!, LCMS World Mission is inviting every mem-
ber of every LCMS congregation to be personally involved and to
“own” the mission in one or more ways. To help meet this need for
quality mission involvement service opportunities, a new short-
term mission team program was kicked off in 2006, creating links
and opportunities for LCMS members to be strategically involved
in LCMS mission fields. Sites for short-term mission teams are
being identified and already include 200 opportunities throughout
Asia, six in Kyrgyzstan, and four in East Africa. Each year, LCMS
World Mission also places seven to nine Pastoral Leadership Insti-
tute teams that average 10 members per team. The short-term pro-
gram continues to help connect potential volunteers to the relief
camps in the Gulf Coast area or to the LCMS Southern District.

The new Ablaze! Connection began as an idea in LCMS World
Mission in 2006 to support the Ablaze! movement by equipping
and training Christians to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with
100 million unreached and uncommitted people. Making use of in-
structional programs offered over the Internet, the Ablaze! Con-
nection proposes to assist the congregations to offer high-quality
educational programming for their members and communities in
four areas in which Lutheran people live out their vocations: fam-
ily, occupation, church, and community. Because the program calls
for close integration into the lives of the congregations and their
members, discussions to include other LCMS entities in a consor-
tium to serve the needs of congregations for both formal and non-
formal education are going forward.

Through Ablaze! Connection facilities, congregations will have
easy access to world-class experts, to training, to ministry collabo-
ration and networking opportunities, and mission involvement op-
portunities. The use of these rich resources will strengthen the
congregations’ ability to fully utilize their greatest asset—the di-
verse talents and strengths of their members—as they strive to be-
come mission outposts. The Ablaze! Connection pilot was
scheduled to launch in April 2007.

Balanced Focus Pian—People Focus:

Identify and develop people who have the expertise and capacity to
link partners, mission responders, and resources to mission
opportunities in a creative and innovative manner.

T.E.A.M.—Together Everyone Achieves More

The St. Louis administrative staff of 44 people is organized into
work teams that are not only committed individually to what they

2007 Convention Workbook

do separately, but are also committed to what their teammates are
doing on a daily basis. Every work team is assigned a specific area
to “own”—executive, administration, communication, finance, re-
cruitment, ministry to the Armed Forces, missional education and
Ablaze! Connection, and international and national missions—but
ownership doesn’t end with each team’s specific area of responsi-
bility and expertise. The entire mission staff owns and is committed
to the vision that LCMS World Mission is the place where the
church turns for quality mission involvement!

Personnel Statistics for the Triennium

¢ In January 2004, 69 career missionaries in 32 countries were on
the LCMS World Mission missionary payroll.

¢ As of March 2007, 65 career missionaries in 22 countries are on
the LCMS World Mission missionary payroll.

¢ As of March 2007, 10 missionaries from our partner churches
around the world are serving in other countries through LCMS
World Mission.

¢ As of March 2007, the number of staff based at the LCMS World
Mission headquarters at the International Center in St. Louis is
44 full-time equivalents.

¢ In 2006, 125 long-term volunteer missionaries served in 25 coun-
tries.

¢ As of March 2007, 110 international educators are serving
schools in six countries.

¢ As of March 2007, 98 short-term individuals have served, are
serving or have been placed for service since January 2006.

¢ Six short-term teams have served since the short-term teams pro-
gram began in late spring 2006, and 27 teams are currently placed
to serve in 2007-2008.

¢ Up to six months following the Gulf Coast hurricane disasters in
2005, LCMS World Mission helped place or connect more than
700 volunteers with service opportunities in the LCMS Southern
District.

¢In 2006, 513 “guests” traveled to LCMS fields for short-term,
specialized individual or group assignments in areas such as the-
ological education, English-as-a-Second Language teaching and
medica] missions.

¢LCMS Ministry to the Armed Forces currently endorses 75 ac-
tive duty chaplains, 105 reserve and National Guard chaplains,
23 in Veterans Affairs ministry (eight full time), 24 Civil Air Pa-
trol chaplains, and three full-time prison chaplains.

Balanced Focus Plan—Leadership Focus:

Establish and put into practice a culture of leadership, accountable
for fostering ideas, stretching people, and successfully achieving
the Balanced Focus Plan. (For LCMS World Mission, leadership

is a behavior, not a position.)

The July 2006 installation of Africa, Asia, Eurasia, and Latin
America regional directors marked the first time that all four de-
ployed regional director positions were filled since the 2003 align-
ment to four international regions. Regional directors work with
church and mission partners to establish priorities and develop a
comprehensive strategy for global mission outreach in their re-
spective regions. They also provide for the development and sup-
port of the mission teams and the individual missionaries
throughout the region. Upon request, they serve as a representative
of the LCMS President in church relations matters. Each region
also has raised up area management teams comprised of mission-
aries currently working in the field. Their oversight areas may in-
clude business, geographical area, human care, or diaconal program
management.