“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Romans 15:13

development encouragement enhancement enrichment  establishment

My last September 23, 2008 post stated:

 Home Missions functions and allocates resources in keeping with the listed “Home Missions Ministry Categories.” 

The following paragraphs  further describe the Home Mission categories.

Home Missions Ministry Categories

Mission Encouragement

Part of the purpose of the District Mission Boards (DMB) is to encourage individuals, groups and congregations in their outreach and ministry plans.  A congregation or a group may (more…)

Listen to Hymn 572

In the spirit of the hymn writer we invite you to join in praising the Lord our God for the grace that has saved us and enables us to serve Him. To that end we list some of the investment of mission dollars from God’s people for God’s work. These involve new or expanded Gospel outreach ministry in calendar year 2008. Because of timing issues no other allocations will be made this year. The following are opportunities being pursued in addition to subsidies provided on an ongoing basis in support of ministries in the process of being established and developed as well as existing campus and cross cultural ministries. In 2008 $147,000 was also granted as outreach grants to help enrich the Gospel outreach of various congregations.

Home Missions functions and allocates resources in keeping with the listed “Home Missions Ministry Categories.” Please review these. Though it is somewhat arbitrary, we have divided the 2008 “new ministries” between two categories.

Mission Establishment
Pastoral manpower was authorized and funded to help establish new congregations in…
(more…)

How do you find a balance when world missionaries see themselves as sacrificing in living apart from the comforts and conveniences of the U.S. (and they do) while the national Christians they serve perceive them as still living in luxury by comparison to themselves? How do you help others without creating a dependency that keeps them from helping themselves? How can you call someone a brother in another culture when to them that means you’re a part of their family and therefore should be willing to share all your worldly goods with them? How do you convince WELS Christians who see themselves as poor while comparing themselves to the wealthier in our society that they are actually very rich compared to most of the world’s population and most of the those living in the rest of history? These were the types of questions and issues discussed at the World Mission Conference that was held at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary from July 28 to August 1.

Approximately 45 participants, missionaries, administrators and observers, were on hand to hear presentations that dealt with the conference theme (more…)

Victories for Christ

On a January trip to the White Mountain and San Carlos reservations in AZ. We used the second meeting of the newly restructured board as an occasion to acquaint the new board with the world field nearest to home. Gary Lupe, a graduate of the Apache Christian Training School has brought the average Sunday attendance at Cibicue from 30 to over 100 by God’s good grace. He told us he used to have the Bible in the front seat of his car as a good luck charm before attending training classes a Apache Christian Training School (ACTS). He is now functioning as a pastor!

The Church of the Open Bible at Whiteriver, AZ is averaging over 200 in attendance and has an on-line counseling program which enables counselors from WLCFS to help troubled parishioners. What a blessing to many!

A Prayer Challenge

Please pray for Native Americans who continue to wrestle with the dysfunctions on the reservation (many of the similar problems in our Midwest WELS congregations) that effect everything we do, including our work with the church attending members (alcoholism, drugs, incest, teenage pregnancies, fetal alcohol syndrome, promiscuity in the family, etc, etc.).

May the Lord continue to bless our work in the mission fields.

The District Mission Boards work with whomever to put together proposals that fit into one of the following categories. We then have a Home Missions Executive Committee made up of 2 laymen and 2 pastors elected by the Board for Home Missions (BHM) from the BHM that then allocates whatever financial resources we have available at various times of the year.

Our next such session is April 2 – 5, 2008. They will seek to evaluate the opportunities, especially the plan and focus for reaching the lost and straying and equipping the saints for works of service.

Then again, maybe it is mysterious…