I was blessed by God to be born into a family that is passionate for mission work. It began when my father's first call, in 1936, took my mother and him to a mission congregation in Canada and has continued these many years during which my one brother served in several foreign and home missions and my other brother spent his life training missionaries. I taught in Christian day schools for twenty-three years, teaching little ones about their best friend, Jesus. So it's hard for me to understand why everyone is not as passionate for mission work as I am. The following thoughts come to mind:
- Many people tend to want to let somebody else do mission work.
- Many people are too "busy."
- Economics. They may be struggling to survive from day to day themselves.
- Selfishness. It's a ME generation.
- Many people don't know about missions and don't care to learn, which, in turn, keeps them ignorant of the wonderful things happening in our own country and around the world.
Since many of our congregation's members do not subscribe to mission publications, I write a "Missions Update" for our church's monthly online newsletter, The Lamb's Pen, gleaning information from the ELS website, Mission News, the president's monthly newsletter, the Helping Hands mission letter, and the Thoughts of Faith newsletter. Here is a sample.
When our (then) small mission congregation moved into our new church building back in 2005, I asked if I could have a small bulletin board put up in the lobby to be specifically a "missions" bulletin board. Since then I have been displaying, as best I can, the latest in what's going on in our Synod's missions and trying to motivate people to make "missions" a part of their lives too.
What you see here are pictures of some of the 60-plus bulletin boards I have created over the years. They are divided into four categories:
- Promotions for our church's direct mission and ministry support efforts. We have four of those over the course of each year, where members have the opportunity to contribute to a cause outside our own congregation.
- Profiles of world and home mission sites.
- Mission rally advertisements.
- Seasonal reminders.
Click on the following images to enlarge them. Use the "back" button to return to this page.
Support for Mission Projects
Support for Mission Locations
Support for Mission Rallies
Seasonal Reminders
Discussion
He mentioned on his “to do list” was to identify a liaison in every congregation. I responded that one idea was to enlist a retired military individual or family to take on was developing a poster like I saw at Mt. Olive Lutheran School (ELS) in Mankato. The really nice poster drew attention to church members who were past and present members of the military. It had a picture when available, and a short “bio” of their service. I was amazed how many in that congregation (that both of us know) were on that poster! But a permanent poster somewhere in our congregations would serve as an important reminder to thank them, and to remember current members of the military in our prayers. I asked him how one would go about knowing who has served in the military in a congregation – put an announcement in the bulletin or church newsletter?
Anyway, I thought of your wonderful Christian outreach with the posters and thought I’d post the suggestion here, too.