How to L-I-F-T Our Congregations in Mission?!?!? PDF Print E-mail

 

By Rev. Judith VanOsdol, Director for Evangelical Mission
 
All Call to each congregation to begin work on a strategic missional plan!! 
 
"What is God calling this church to be and do in the future?" 
"What changes are in order to help us respond most faithfully?" 
 
These two burning questions began a process called "LIFT": Living Into the Future Together. I believe both are great questions for all of us to wrestle with, as leaders, individual congregations, and as an entire synod. How would we answer them? 
 
In my travel around our Synod, I have often heard and am moved by the following statements: 
  • "We feel stuck-don't know what our mission is or how to get there." 
  • "We want to grow but don't know how." 
  • "We have been in survival mode for so long; we have forgotten how to do mission." 
More worrisome, I have also heard the following statements: 
  • "We have no children, no youth nor young people, nor young families in our congregation, but we like who we are." 
  • "Our call is just to take care of our own flock." 
  • "Just send us a person a few hours a week so that we can "do church"! 
Wow! Do any of the above statements reflect thinking in your congregation? This is an indicator that it is TIME TO FOCUS ON OUR MISSION TOGETHER!! 
 
During workshops around mission in our Deacon training programs as well as the Synod Assembly, we have discovered that WHEN CONGREGATIONS GET EXCITED ABOUT MISSION, THINGS TURN AROUND!! 
 
A thought to ponder: the church Is the only institution that exists for the people who are NOT YET A PART OF IT! In other words, mission is not only essential to what we do, (activity) but it is who we are called to be (identity and call/ vocation) in Christ Jesus! 
 
The goal: 
  • Each baptized believer is a missionary (by virtue of his/her baptism) 
  • Each congregation is a mission station 
  • Each leader (Pastors, deacons, lay leaders) is a mission director!! 
In other words, your DEM: Director for Evangelical Mission, has as my goal: working myself out of a job!-There will be so many trained and gifted mission directors in the synod, the call of the DEM will one day become obsolete! 
 
Where to start?? 
 
The good news is that there are LOADS of information, materials, training events, websites, books, etc., on this process of renewal and mission planning! 
  • 23 missional leaders of our synod will attend a "Train the Trainer" event this month to begin working on the renewal process in every conference! 
  • These leaders will then become the core of our mission table/ renewal movement for our synod! 
  • We are working on a communication strategy, in order to help congregations understand their communication missionally (web sites, Facebook, social media, signage, publication, print media, etc.) 
  • We are working together on stewardship resources, as stewardship education has a key place in our strategic missional planning. 
  • Your DEM and Deans will continue to visit conferences, Deans, Ministerium and other leadership gatherings, congregations and missions looking to work together on formulating strategic missional planning! 
  • Want more information? Go to: www.elca.org/missionplanning for full report of the LIFT process and recommendations: www.elca.org --type LIFT into the search box
Two additional resources:
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