MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
“You will be faithful to Jacob, and show love to Abraham, as you pledged on oath to our ancestors in days long ago” (Micah 7:20).
God’s faithfulness is as steadfast for us as a synod as it is for us as individuals. This annual report reviews some of the ways that God has displayed his faithfulness to us in guiding and blessing our work as a synod.
Those blessings begin close to home in our churches and schools. Well-trained pastors, teachers, and staff ministers serve by faithfully proclaiming God’s Word. Those workers, products of our ministerial education schools, are gifts of God whom he has sent as workers into his harvest field.
We look back on how God blesses our congregations as they gather around his Word and sacraments. Through his means of grace, he not only creates and strengthens faith and enables us to bring up our children in the training and instruction of the Lord. He also moves us to serve him in our Christian vocations and to reach out to our communities with his saving gospel.
We also work together to plant new congregations here in the United States and Canada. He has moved us to establish the goal of opening 100 new home missions in 10 years. In 2025, the third year of this plan, those efforts are already being blessed by God.
Then we see how God is blessing our efforts to extend God’s church around the world. He has continued to give us many opportunities to support existing world missions and to expand the reach of his gospel to more people in more places. He has opened hearts to support those mission efforts with generous prayers and offerings.
At our synod convention, a new long-range strategic plan called “Christ through us” was adopted. This plan will guide us for the next ten years as we carry out the work that God has given us to do. We recognize that while we do the planning under God, it is God himself who will bless the work that we do.
We marvel at God’s faithfulness to us, despite the many times when our faithfulness has wavered. And we thank him that his faithfulness, so evident during the past year, will always continue.
Rev. Mark Schroeder
WELS President
WELS IN BRIEF
As a Christian church body, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod’s calling is to nurture the faith of our members and to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world.
WELS is the third largest Lutheran church body in the United States with 1,237 churches, 327,943 baptized members, and 261,357 communicant members.
WELS has 12 districts to allow for more area-specific ministry, personal contacts, and member involvement.
WELS congregations—either individually or as federations—operate one of the largest parochial school systems in the United States. This system includes 269 Lutheran elementary schools, 335 early childhood ministries, and 29 area Lutheran high schools. Wisconsin Lutheran College, Milwaukee, Wis., a liberal arts college for Christian men and women, is a WELS-affiliated ministry.
WELS maintains four schools for the education of our pastors, teachers, and staff ministers—Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in Mequon, Wis.; Martin Luther College in New Ulm, Minn.; Luther Preparatory School in Watertown, Wis.; and Michigan Lutheran Seminary in Saginaw, Mich.
WELS supports work in mission fields in the United States and in countries around the world.
WELS is a member of the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference, an organization of 34 confessional church bodies throughout the world.
Five separately incorporated entities work closely with WELS to provide resources necessary to carry out WELS’ ministry.
Known as the WELS Center for Mission and Ministry, the synod’s headquarters in Waukesha, Wis., houses WELS’ areas of ministry and support staff as well as the subsidiaries, WELS Archives, and the WELS Visitor Center.
From collections that document the administration of WELS to individual congregational records, the WELS Archives helps preserve and share the history of our synod. Visit wels.net/archives for more information.
Tours to the WELS Visitor Center may be scheduled by e-mailing [email protected] or by calling 414-256-3200.
churches
baptized members
communicant members
early childhood ministries
Lutheran elementary schools
area Lutheran high schools