The New Old Day of Mission

There are changes happening in the way we do mission today. They seem new to us but in reality they are very old.

For the last 50 years, we sent our benevolence monies to our national churches and expected them to do our new mission starts.

Thirty years ago, I was a mission developer for the former The American Lutheran Church (TALC). Funds to begin a new ministry came from congregations across the nation funneled into Minneapolis. The Mission Board of the TALC would then send the mission support check each month to the local mission developer. You had the sense that the whole church supported your work. Oftentimes the national church would purchase land on a speculation basis that eventually an area would be a good mission field.

Today we are returning to former methods. Synods, congregations and groups of congregations are starting new mission work. Pastor Doris Harris Mars will begin a new ministry in Toledo which will be multicultural. The Synod has taken the initiative for this work and Synod's Mission Partners will fund the work. Already seven of our congregations have agreed to give $60 a week for three years to support this effort. We hope to have 13 more by the end of the year.

Other congregations are starting new worship sites in communities close to them. They bring the staff and resources of the existing congregation to this new worship location. St. Paul, Maumee is an example of this type of mission. It is planning an additional worship site of its existing congregation in Monclova Township. The Southeast Conference has been investigating growth that is happening in its conference along the I-71 corridor. It is preparing to take mission action once that growth reaches a certain point.

All of this is quite a change from the way we have been doing things. It is a return to the old days when congregations began new congregations. The passion for telling the good news about Jesus now is located once again in our congregations and not in a distant office building on the sixth floor. That does not mean the ELCA has no role to play. They do and will but the focus is swinging back to the way we used to do it. Sometimes something new is really quite old.