Practicing What We Preach!

Once again, the synod staff is inviting and encouraging the 188 congregations of the Northwestern Ohio Synod to work on their strategy for mission. We believe that through prayer and conversation, we can discern what God is calling us to be doing in the years ahead to faithfully embrace the mission that God has laid before us.

Guess what! We on the synod staff are ourselves doing what we have asked you to do!

You may be aware that in the year 2002, Bishop Lohrmann and the rest of the staff members developed a list of four goals for the year:

• Mission: helping every single congregation understand its call from God to be in mission in order to make Christ known.
• Leadership: working to support our programs for lay and ordained leadership throughout the synod.
• Communication: embracing new means of communication to keep the body of Christ moving in the same direction (as much as possible!)
• Funding the Mission: presenting options for congregations to utilize to strengthen their own financial giving, and to encourage our congregations to fund the mission of the synod.

In the next days, our staff will be reviewing these goals, altering some, adding others, and generally looking ahead to what this synod can do to serve the church with and on behalf of its congregations.

I invite your input! If you have any guidance and insight to offer regarding the current goals or where God might be leading us, please email me at mmiller@lssnwo.org. As we know well, sometimes God chooses to speak through those whom God calls, and other times God speaks through the voice “outside the tent” (Numbers 11:24-30).

God’s wisdom and insight be with us all as we strain to see God’s preferred future for us and for our church. In the grace and salvation of Jesus Christ, we know that whatever our future is, it’s going to be good!

Marc A. Miller
Assistant to Bishop Lohrmann