Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ - Press Releases

LCMC Announces Search for New Service Coordinator

Mon, 10 Feb 20 00:00:00 +0000

PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE DISTRIBUTION

In October 2019, Rev. Mark Vander Tuig announced his decision to retire from his position as the Service Coordinator for LCMC effective August 31, 2020.

The leadership and staff in LCMC have gone through a consultation process that aided the Board of Trustees in developing an Opportunity Profile for the incoming Service Coordinator.

This document is included at the LCMC website within the open position (https://lcmc.net/open-position/1125).

Interested candidates are asked to read the Opportunity Profile and prayerfully consider applying for the position.

The Board of Trustees will be accepting applications through March 15, 2020.

The initial phase of the hiring process simply requiring a cover letter along with a resume or C.V. be submitted in pdf format to info@lcmc.net.

Candidates that are selected to move further in the process will be notified shortly after the application deadline.

Calvary Lutheran Church, Lee, IL Calls Pr Craig Nelson

Wed, 17 Nov 10 00:00:00 +0000

It had to be more than a coincidence, Craig Nelson said. It was more like a sign. Shortly before he interviewed to become the pastor at Calvary Lutheran Church in Lee, Nelson said he was studying Revelation 2:17 in the Bible. “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it,” Nelson read during an interview on Monday morning. As a pastor he said he studies the Bible routinely, so there was nothing that stood out to him as unusual or unique about this passage. At least at that time, he said. But when he visited the church at 19 Perry Road and saw the white walls, he said he began to think that maybe there was more to this verse. “We took pictures of the church when we came for a visit,” he said. “And the walls were just glistening. And that verse just stuck with me.” “We felt like we were called here,” Nelson said, referring to himself and his family. And church officials said they felt the same. Out of a dozen candidates and six months of searching, Nelson will join Calvary Lutheran Church officially on Nov. 28 after he is installed during a ceremony at 2 p.m. The service will be followed by a luncheon. “We had a dozen applicants and we just kept narrowing it down,” said Bob Johns, the president of the committee tasked with finding a new pastor. “We are excited about having a pastor finally ... one who is a Bible-preaching word-of-God type of guy.” About a year ago, Calvary Lutheran Church left the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, an association of Lutheran congregations, to join the Lutheran Congregation in Mission for Christ. The LCMC is focused on starting congregations in this country, supporting missionaries around the world, and raising up and training leaders to serve Christ and his church, according the LCMC!s website. The association was formed 10 years ago and has about 500 members from the U.S. and has several congregations in 10 countries from around the world, according to its website. “We believe the word of the Bible and you can!t change what the Bible says,” Johns said. And similar to other churches, leaving the ELCA meant the congregation would have to find a new pastor who, “fit the bill,” he said. Johns said Nelson!s unique background fit what the church was looking for. Nelson was born and raised in Japan by his parents who were missionaries following World War II. He said he lived there until he was 18. He also spent time in Hong Kong as a missionary helping to establish Lutheran churches and most recently was the senior pastor at the Calvary Lutheran Church in Minong, Wis., where he also helped serve several LCMC churches before leaving. “I was born to missionary parents and I actually learned Japanese before I learned English,” he said. “When I came to the United States, my grandfather told my parents, "You better teach this kid some English.!” Dennis Johnson, board president for the church, said it was more than just his background that gave Nelson an edge. “He is multi-talented with generations,” Johnson said. “He is good at bridging the gap between the different generations that attend our church.” Johnson said he thought Nelson does not treat being a pastor as just a job. Serving the church is his life and he!s passionate about helping to make this congregation stronger, he said. “He definitely has the spirit of the Lord,” Johnson said. “He works hard, but he also sees the excitement in life as well.” Having been at the church for about two weeks now, Nelson and his wife, Barb, said they couldn!t be happier with the decision they made. “When we arrived the first night, the parking lot was lined with people waiting to help us move in,” Barb Nelson said. “The people here have just been so kind.” Craig Nelson said his goal is to continue to improve the already-strong mission outreach program and he would like to work with the congregation to put together future mission trips. “The people here are

LCMC Welcomes 500th Congregation

Fri, 27 Aug 10 00:00:00 +0000

CANTON, MI - As Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC) prepares to celebrate its tenth anniversary as an association, it is with joy that they also mark a new milestone and welcome their 500th congregation into membership. On August 22, 2010, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Morris, Minnesota, a new mission start congregation, voted to join LCMC. The acceptance of the application for membership makes this congregation number 500 to join LCMC.

LCMC, Lutheran Core, WA Meet - Pledge Cooperation and Support

Wed, 27 Jan 10 00:00:00 +0000

MINNEAPOLIS, MN - Leaders of Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ, Lutheran CORE and the WordAlone Network met jointly in a Minneapolis suburb in mid-January to discuss and coordinate their ministry to individuals and churches seeking biblical, confessional, Lutheran teaching and practice. The three groups were founded over the past 15 years because the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has been moving away from accepting the Bible as its final source of authority in decision making. This trend away from the Bible’s authority was seen most recently in the ELCA’s August 2009 assembly votes to accept committed homosexual relationships and to allow practicing homosexuals to serve as ordained and professional lay ministers, according to confessional Lutherans. (Confessional Lutherans accept the Bible as the sole, divine source and norm for all Christian teaching and endorse the 1580 Book of Concord—the statement of Lutheran doctrines—as being accurate interpretations of Holy Scripture. The Bible repeatedly condemns sexual relationships outside of a marriage between one man and one woman.) Some ELCA members and churches are leaving the denomination because of this drift from the authority of the Bible. Others are staying in the ELCA but are protesting the assembly votes, some by withholding financial giving. William Drew, chair of the WordAlone Board of Directors, Spokane, Wash., noted the three confessional groups discussed during their meeting a cohesive approach to address the needs of Lutherans seeking faithful ways to move forward in a reconfigured North American Lutheranism. WordAlone is changing its direction from having worked to renew the ELCA for almost 15 years to serving confessional individuals and churches, whether they stay in or leavethe ELCA, by providing educational resources, pastoral care, fellowship opportunities and teaching by confessional theologians. “The LCMC Board of Trustees very much appreciated the opportunity to sit down with the board of WordAlone and with the working group from Lutheran CORE,” said the Rev. William Sullivan, LCMC service coordinator, Canton, Mich. “What emerged from the meeting was a strong consensus that we all share the same goal of a Word-centered, mission-driven Lutheran presence in North America. All agreed that each group has a particular niche to fill in the years ahead.” LCMC, constituted in March of 2001, is an association of 297 Lutheran congregations in eight countries and 38 states, working together to fulfill Christ's Great Commission to go and make disciples of all nations. Since August, 2009, LCMC’s ranks have swelled by 74 congregations departing the ELCA. Ryan Schwarz, the chair of Lutheran CORE’s Vision and Planning Working Group, Washington, D.C., said, “We were particularly pleased to find consensus that Lutheran CORE and LCMC are ‘fraternal twins’ traveling on ‘parallel tracks,’ with both benefitting greatly from the contributions of WordAlone. We look forward to the prospect of substantial cooperation in mission and ministry with LCMC, and continued collaboration with WordAlone, as we move forward.” He added, “WordAlone was instrumental in the founding of both LCMC and Lutheran CORE, and its varied ministries are critical to Lutheran CORE’s efforts to catalyze a reconfiguration of North American Lutheranism.” At its annual meeting in 2010, Lutheran CORE intends to constitute a new Lutheran church body and to reorganize the ongoing ministry of Lutheran CORE as an independent federation of confessional centrist Lutherans both within and outside of the ELCA, Schwarz said. The recent meeting included the first formal discussions between leadership of LCMC and Lutheran CORE. -end-

Roanoke Lutheran Church Opts Out of National Assembly

Tue, 12 Jan 10 00:00:00 +0000

Members of Roanoke's St. John Lutheran Church voted Sunday to leave the church's national organization in a dispute about gay clergy. The vote affirms a September ballot that also was in favor of leaving the national Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which stirred controversy in August with a statement that gay people in committed relationships could serve as clergy. St. John will join the smaller Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ, one of several national groups that have formed over the past decade in response to what is sometimes described as the ELCA's increasingly liberal take on Lutheran theology. The Rev. Mark Graham, pastor of St. John, said today's vote was 350-104, well more than the two-thirds majority that church rules required to re-affiliate. Graham and other supporters of leaving the ELCA said they hoped the vote would be seen as a stand in support of the central authority of Scripture rather than as homophobic or anti-gay. "We have to work hard at love as well as truth. ... We all can follow Christ together," Graham said. Graham said the vote might prompt the departure of some of the church's congregation, which recently stood at 1,200 people. He hoped that as people have time to fully consider the vote and the church as a whole, the loss would be held to 10 percent to 20 percent. Those who do leave the church are still friends and "they'll be in our love and prayers," Graham said. The association St. John is joining, Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ, holds to what had been the standard Lutheran position on gay clergy, which is that only a celibate gay person may be a minister. The reasoning is that sexual activity is only condoned within marriage, and that marriage is to be between a man and a woman, Graham said. The vote came after St. John's 11 a.m. service, with congregation members retiring to a hall in the church and more than a dozen people making short statements for or against the motion to change national associations. Longtime congregation member Richard Herring, whose family helped found St. John and who opposed leaving the ELCA, said he repeated a question he'd asked earlier in the church's debate: "How much do you have to hate somebody else to live as our Lord commands?" Herring said he was not surprised by today's vote but was sorry to see "secessionists" prevail. "I prefer to call us loyalists. We didn't dissent. They did," Herring said. But Mark Peters, who supported leaving the ELCA, saw the vote as confirming Lutheran conservatism. Roanoke Lutheran church opts out of national assembly in dispute over gay clergy - Roan...Page 1 of 2 http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/2326131/12/2010"How many Lutherans does it take to change a light bulb?" he asked after the votes were counted. "None, because Lutherans don't believe in change. "We're staying the course" formed by historic church leaders Martin Luther and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Peters said. St. John was thought to be among the largest of about 165 congregations in the ELCA's Virginia synod, perhaps the largest. About 100 other congregations have voted to leave the ELCA, which has about 10,400 member congregations in the United States, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ has about 260 member congregations.

Lutheran Schism Feared After Vote on Gays

Mon, 24 Aug 09 00:00:00 +0000

votes recasting the role of homosexuals in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a mop-up operation had begun a few blocks away. In a hospitality suite on the 12th floor of the Doubletree Hotel, Bill Sullivan's cell phone was ringing and ringing. Mr. Sullivan, a former ELCA pastor, is national coordinator for the Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC), a collection of 226 congregations founded in March 2001 with 25 charter member churches dissatisfied with the denomination's liberal drift. Now the trickle has turned into a flood. "It's been going nonstop," he said of his phone. On Friday alone, he scheduled three visits to ELCA churches in Buffalo, N.Y. Sioux City, Iowa and Jacksonville, Fla., for later this fall. They are thinking of leaving, as were the 15 people who had stopped by the hotel suite that day. Twenty-five inquiries had come in that week alone, and that was before all the vote tallies were in down the street at the Minneapolis Convention Center. He glanced at his e-mail. "The train wreck is just about over," he said, reading from a post sent by a delegate on the convention floor. "The first responders need to be ready." He looked up. "People have been calling all morning," he said. "They want this to be over. It's been going on for days. A small minority of people are changing 2,000 years of church teaching." However, the "small minority" includes personages such as former ELCA Presiding Bishop Herbert W. Chilstrom, who posted an open letter July 27 in response to traditionalists' concerns about the upcoming convention. In it, he explained that church teachings have changed over the millennia. "I knew that our decisions to ordain women and retain some divorced pastors on our rosters were not decided exclusively on the basis of a few biblical texts or our long-standing tradition in either area," he wrote. "We believed there were deeper streams in the Holy Scriptures that we needed to listen to. When I came to sexuality issues, I knew I could not employ a method that differed from what I had used to deal with those two issues."The majority of delegates at the churchwide assembly were apparently using similar logic: It was the final day for the most important votes and the traditionalists were losing every one. For the one-third of ELCA delegates who decisively voted against ordaining homosexual clergy and other gay-friendly ballot measures, Mr. Sullivan's group is a possible lifeboat in a sea of heresy. The group calls itself "post-denominational," meaning churches can associate with it while retaining membership in other bodies. The only requirement is an agreement with the LCMC's statement of faith and constitution. The loose confederation of churches does not have bishops, but it does have an annual conference, set this year for early October in Fargo, N.D. Into the suite walked a young man dressed in a clerical suit who identifies himself as a pastor of a 450-member church in Nebraska. "Here's an ELCA refugee," chortled a member of the LCMC's board of trustees sitting in the suite. The pastor said he's there to "look at options" for his church. "I've a congregation with a significant number of members who will leave," he said. "The theology of the social statement bothered us," referring to a 34-page document the denomination approved Aug. 19 that sought to establish a theological framework for differing views on homosexuality. Church liberals said the document was long overdue; conservatives said sexual practices forbidden in the Bible should not be given equal moral status. Until now, conservative Lutheran churches that have wanted to leave have generally been allowed to take their property with them, unlike in the Episcopal Church, where the denomination has sued nearly every departing congregation. Lutheran clergy and bishops interviewed last week said that situation could change if there is a substantial exodus or if the local synod - which is like a diocese - holds the title to the property. There are several Lutheran denominations in the United States. They include the 390,000-member Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), which posted a statement on its Web site Friday condemning the ELCA's decisions. "It's unfortunate that many headlines have referred to the recent decisions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as something 'Lutherans' have decided," WELS President Mark Schroeder said. "We are saddened that a group with the name Lutheran would take another decisive step away from the clear teaching of the Bible, which was the foundation of the Lutheran Reformation." After the ELCA, the largest Lutheran denomination is the 2.4-million-member Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. Spokeswoman Vicki Biggs said Friday that her denomination has gotten inquiries from individual ELCA members. "People are saying, 'If the ELCA goes this route, I might be looking at another church,' " she said. However, neither the Wisconsin nor Missouri Synod churches ordain women, while the LCMC does - a factor important to many wishing to leave the ELCA. The specter of departing congregations was one Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson addressed Friday as he begged conservative and liberal Lutherans to bear with one another. "Those deeply disappointed today will have the expectation to continue to admonish and teach," he said. "Those who've experienced reconciliation today - you are called to humility. You are called to love." Yet, Lutherans who testified and quoted the Bible during the lengthy legislative sessions repeatedly brought up the possibility of leaving. "I believe what we are about to do in the social statement will split the church," John Seng, a member from the Northeastern Ohio Synod, told the crowd. "It saddens me that we are going this way." Terri Stagner-Collier, a member of Southeastern Synod, tearfully told the delegates her family will leave the ELCA. "I urge you not to do this to all those people in the pews and my family," she said before one of the votes. In his final press conference Friday, the presiding bishop said gay Lutherans had stuck with the ELCA during the long years they were not accepted and he urged traditionalists, who felt the tables had been turned, to exercise similar patience. "My appeal tonight is to those who feel they can't support the decisions this church has made," he said. "We need you in the conversation about the shape of our life together. ... It'd be tragic if we walked away from one another. Then the story I hoped to tell will not be the one told this week." He repeated a few minutes later, "We must welcome to the table those who feel we have not been faithful Lutherans today ... I am pleading with people to stay with us in that conversation."

Church leaves the fold: Lutheran beliefs stray, pastor says

Mon, 19 Apr 04 00:00:00 +0000

Fargo's Atonement Lutheran Church is leaving the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. By a vote of 211 to 14, Atonement's congregation confirmed on Sunday an earlier decision to secede from the 17-year-old Lutheran organization. The 1,500-member congregation has been distancing itself from the ELCA for years, because it is becoming more hierarchical in structure and less traditional in beliefs than members prefer, said the Rev. Dale Wolf, a pastor at Atonement. The change also means the church will be able to avoid messy upcoming debates in the ELCA about topics like ordaining non-celibate gay clergy, Wolf said. "Instead of focusing on the battles within the ELCA, we will be able to focus on God's ministry here at Atonement," he said. No other church in the ELCA's Eastern North Dakota Synod has taken such a vote before. "There is some disappointment with that (Atonement's leaving), but on the other hand, they have the right to do that," said Rev. Randall Schlecht, associate with the synod's bishop, who attended the meeting. Sunday's decision follows a January vote during which 85 percent of those casting ballots favored leaving the organization. To pass, the resolution needed two votes receiving a two-thirds majority 90 days apart. Only one person spoke during the open debate portion of the meeting. John Carlson said he had known for 10 years he wanted to leave the ELCA, which he said no longer reflects the church he grew up attending. "It doesn't change anything today – I'm still going to be a Lutheran," Carlson said to applause. Church members should see few day-to-day differences with the change, Wolf said. Already, the church has joined another association – Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ – which fits better with church members' beliefs, Wolf said. Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ is a "looser" organization, where decision-making authority lies with each church, he said. By contrast, the ELCA has entered into "full communion" with the Episcopal Church USA, which emphasizes the authority of bishops, Wolf said. The debate about homosexuality, though one example of how the ELCA is becoming more liberal, is not a "driving force" behind the split, he said. Readers can reach Forum reporter Joy Anderson at (701) 241-5556.

Lutheran church to quit ELCA

Mon, 14 Jan 02 00:00:00 +0000

Members of Lutheran Church of the Master on Sunday completed their withdrawal from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America over disagreements on ecumenical and social issues. About 576 voting members of the congregation at 2617 S. 114th St. gave 89 percent final approval to a resolution to quit the ELCA, said the Rev. Kip Tyler, Lutheran Church of the Master's senior pastor. A two-thirds majority was needed. Voters gave 81 percent initial approval Oct. 14 to leaving the ELCA, with which the 2,374-member congregation has been at odds over a 1999 fellowship agreement with the Episcopal Church USA and a perceived liberal trend on sexual issues. Lutheran Church of the Master, which was the largest congregation in the ELCA's Nebraska Synod, became the third member of the fledgling Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ to leave the larger, 14-year-old church body. Leaders of the Omaha church helped found the new group in March 2001 and its parent, the WordAlone Network, in December 1999. Both groups oppose the ELCA's entrance into the Episcopal "historic episcopate," in which new pastors and bishops receive the "laying on of hands" by bishops linked by "apostolic succession" to Jesus' time. Other issues include the ELCA's inclusion of some abortionsinits health-insurance plans and fears that a study of sexual issues due by 2005 will pave the way for the ordination of active homosexuals and the blessing of same-sex unions. The ELCA now permits neither. Tyler said Sunday afternoon's 90-minute meeting was very cordial with little discussion of the issues. Members seemed to have reached a consensus and were ready to vote, he said. There was no vocal opposition. "I have very mixed feelings about the vote," Tyler said after the action was taken. "I wasn't surprised by it, but I have a major concern that we continue to listen, minister and reach out

Synod may lose large Omaha church

Sat, 12 Jan 02 00:00:00 +0000

January 12, 2002 The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is on the verge of losing its largest Nebraska church, only 14 years after hopes for greater Christian unity spawned America's largest Lutheran church body. And when the Rev. David deFreese thinks of Sunday's decisive vote at Omaha's Lutheran Church of the Master, he mourns the souls he fears will be lost if church members decide Christians don't really want to be one in Christ. "The greater world says, 'Does Jesus make a difference? You keep saying it does, and yet He can't keep you at the table talking,'" the ELCA Nebraska Synod bishop said about the potential departure of the 2,374-member congregation at 2617 S. 114th St. Sadness also can be heard at Lutheran Church of the Master, which will decide whether to ratify its Oct. 14 vote to leave the ELCA over a 1999 fellowship agreement with the Episcopal Church USA and a perceived liberal drift on sexual issues. But leaders of the Omaha church and the nationwide dissident movement they helped found say external unity isn't as important as maintaining Christian truths that are under assault. Other Christians "are brothers and sisters in the faith," said the Rev. Kip Tyler, Lutheran Church of the Master's senior pastor. But "it's not a manmade invention that makes this happen." Church member John Chatelain said such distrust in human structures is steeped in the 16th-century Protestant Reformation but has been lost in the ELCA, formed by the 1988 melding of three liberal to moderate Lutheran church bodies after 240 years of mergers. Those who stress external unity make "a good argument for disbanding the Lutheran Church altogether and everybody becoming Catholic," said Chatelain, a co-founder of the WordAlone Network and its spinoff, Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ. His church would be the third of the latter's 48 congregations to quit the ELCA if two-thirds of those voting agree at a Sunday congregational meeting. About 81 percent agreed in October. Chatelain is a board member of WordAlone, organized shortly after the ELCA-Episcopal "Called to Common Mission" agreement - one of five between the ELCA and Protestant churches to share clergy and admit each other's members to Holy Communion. Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ, launched last March, has two leaders from Lutheran Church of the Master - Chatelain as treasurer and Deborah Lingen as a trustee. Interim Executive Director Robin Lake said he expects membership to grow as ELCA congregations hold annual meetings early this year. The new church body doesn't require members to leave the ELCA. The protest movement reflects the struggles of many churches over "sex and authority," said the Rev. Martin Marty, an ELCA pastor and an expert on American Christianity. Those struggles don't end with a new church body, said Marty, who left the conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod during a 1970s schism. "If they start a new church body, in five years it's the same issues." Marty and other former Missouri Synod moderates helped form the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches in 1976. ELCA leaders say the impetus for their 1988 merger came from that group, the smallest of the three merger partners. Its only Nebraska member was Omaha's First Lutheran Church, whose retired pastor, the Rev. Harold Schmidt, said members disliked the Missouri Synod's limits on women in the church and worship and ministry with other Christians. Such dissent "can only be done out of deepest concerns and conscience," said Schmidt, who believes protesters are misreading the church's positions. Dissidents oppose a requirement that the ELCA enter the Episcopal Church's "historic episcopate," in which new pastors and bishops receive the "laying on of hands" by bishops linked in an "apostolic succession" from Jesus' time. Although some Lutherans worldwide follow the rite, dissidents say, Lutheran doctrine insists it cannot be forced. But deFreese noted that the ELCA's August convention permitted ordinations without the rite. In the 1999 agreement, he said, the Episcopal Church recognized ELCA pastors ordained before it - including himself. "Called to Common Mission" allows differing beliefs on the rite's effects, said deFreese, Nebraska Synod bishop since 2000. "Is it magic? I don't know." Tyler said Lutheran Church of the Master has no argument with the Nebraska Synod. But members fear the ELCA doesn't want dialogue on the Episcopal agreement and has resolved to loosen its stances on sexual issues. Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ lets women be pastors, like the ELCA but unlike the Missouri Synod. But its leaders decry ELCA health-insurance plans covering some abortions and favor current bans on ordination of active homosexuals and same-sex unions. They cite the permissive tone of a shelved 1993 ELCA sexuality statement, the April 2001 ordination of active lesbian Anita Hill in St. Paul, Minn., and theAugust convention's vote to complete a major study on sexuality and gay issues by 2005. DeFreese and the Rev. Eric Schafer, the ELCA's national spokesman, say it's not inevitable that the ELCA will reverse its policies on sexual issues. The national body does not recognize Hill's ordination and censured the congregation that permitted it, Schafer said.

Why I'm Excited About LCMC

Sat, 05 Jan 02 00:00:00 +0000

This item first appeared as an article for Kairos News, and is reprinted here with the permission of the author. [KAIROS] EDITOR'S NOTE: David Drum is a fine pastor who I have had the privilege to meet personally. We have had numerous discussions over the past few years and tend to agree on a whole lot of things. However, last week David wasn't so keen on my satirical characterization of LCMC, so I suggested to David that he write up something better to describe his experience of LCMC. Thank you David, for your graciousness, your friendship and most importantly, for your love for the Lord! Christopher Editor, Kairos_News Hershman Why I'm Excited About LCMC The Rev. David Drum Community of Hope Lutheran Church, Tucson, Arizona Christopher Hershman invited me to write this article for his Kairos News Service on Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC), and I gladly agreed. Why am I excited about LCMC? Let me count the ways. 1.Theologicalintegrity When LCMC talks about the freedom that the gospel brings and the normative authority of the Scriptures, I believe we mean what we say. All who have joined seem to have basic underlying agreements on what used to be widely accepted as traditional Lutheran theological foundations, but sadly no longer are so common. Where there is theological discussion and debate (and anyone who has participated on the list serve can tell you that such debate is common and lively), it is done out in the open, warts and all. Thus far, I have encountered no hidden agendas, no political statements nuanced in order to please everyone, and no power-grabbing. Integrity is sorely lacking in countless areas of societal life, and LCMC is not immune from the effects of sin, nor would it claim to be. Nevertheless, I praise the Lord that integrity between belief and practice is a stated value which has become manifest at multiple levels 2.Mission-minded As the board met to plan its next convention, we were unanimous in desiring to bring in the best speakers we could find who would help us think outside the box in order to most effectively fulfill Jesus' Great Commission. LCMC has no intention of creating a vast infrastructure as if the church is to be located within the national institution. LCMC doesn't even want congregations to forward lots of benevolence dollars to them in order to be passed along to other missionaries/organizations - "Support them directly, and we'll help you identify some worthy causes if you ask us to." How's that for arefreshing change? We are committed to a stream-lined national institution whose sole purpose is to support God's Kingdom expansion plans at the congregational level. So far this means LCMC has facilitated two new mission congregations in its first year, with a paid staff of only one administrative assistant who is shared with Word Alone, and everyone else volunteering. 3.Organizationalfreedom How does the phrase go - something like "unanimity in the essentials, freedom in the nonessentials, charity in all"? That's what we're striving for. LCMC is organized so that our basic statements of faith and practice are created by all, treasured by all, and expected to be honored by all. However, beyond those essentials, congregations are encouraged to align themselves with others who have similar interests and passions, and go to work! So, groups are coming together (known as districts) around shared theological statements, geography, worship preferences, and various other shared values. Congregations can belong to as many districts as they wish, or none at all. Congregations can make LCMC their sole/primary church home, or remain with other associations/denominations simultaneously. We're not about power and control, we're about mission and service. 4.Forward-lookingmentality History cannot be denied - LCMC was born out of dissatisfaction with things as they were. God often creates something new by first creating dissatisfaction with the status quo. Leaving behind old wineskins, like any loss, means that a certain amount of grieving is necessary before a person/congregation adequately heals. Nevertheless, the tone of our gatherings has already changed, and members are firmly committed to looking forward, not backward, and identifying the things we're for rather than re-hashing the things we're against. I have been so refreshed by the opportunity to contribute something positive as light advances against the darkness, rather than having to spend lots of time plugging holes within my own boat. 5.Laundrylist Like any good epistle, I'll end by cataloging a whole bunch of items I won't take the time to elaborate. LCMC is healthy and growing. It has the potential to reach out to and be a meeting place for many different Lutheran organizations in existence (just this last week I've had conversation about LCMC with friends from AFLC, LCMS, AALC, and Lutheran Renewal). I come away from gatherings encouraged and refreshed. New wineskins are being explored in multiple areas. LCMC is an organization I'm eager to talk about rather then embarrassed to admit. Most significantly of all, I believe the Lord's promise to raise up those who truly desire to humble themselves and seek the Lord's guidance. 01.05.02