Would you like to learn how to invite, welcome and receive people to your church? The Connect to Disciple workshop, the first module in the re:Vitality program, is designed to help your congregation develop effective outreach.
Leaders of the Synod’s Office of National Mission and district presidents discuss domestic mission efforts like Mission Field: USA and Re: Vitality – ongoing efforts to bring the Gospel to urban, rural and multiethnic communities while also revitalizing struggling congregations.
The need for healthcare and education internationally is enormous, and the MMT program will continue to walk alongside our international partners to help meet this need. However, that same need exists right here in the United States as well.
KFUO Radio host Andy Bates talks with Rev. Steve Schave, director, LCMS Church Planting, and Rev. Peter Burfeind about national mission work. Rev. Burfeind is a domestic missionary serving in campus ministry at the University of Toledo and in the struggling inner city of Toledo, Ohio, at Holy Cross Lutheran Church and Student Ministry.
Early in any stage of revitalization, reorganization, reinvigoration or whatever you want to call it, it is easy to have that sense of excitement. There is urgency in your work and little victories seem like great triumphs. And then, time wears on.
Membership, financial resources, and influence are in decline, even steep decline, in many congregations. Now fewer people with fewer resources and less influence remain to do what the larger, more prosperous, and more favored church failed to do ...
What would happen if we intentionally planned out our congregation’s work and set about raising up those leaders which God has placed in our midst? Imagine the possibilities!
The purpose of the Remnant Church is to bear witness of Jesus in our world so that others would come to faith just as we have. God's purpose in doing this through a remnant is that we would give Him the honor, praise, and glory that is due Him.
Being the Remnant Church is a call to the Cross ... Our Savior's urgent plea for His Remnant Church -- for our sake as well as for the sake of those who are perishing around us -- is "Don't go to Egypt."
Revitalizing the declining church is a call to preserve our confession rather than our institution.
"Revitalization" isn't the best word to describe the work of helping congregations be healthy and whole, but it's the one we use. Once we get past the stigma of the word, we discover that every congregation needs "revitalization."