Starting New Congregations a Priority for the ELCA

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Starting new congregations in the United
States and the Caribbean is a priority of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). According to the Rev. Ruben
Duran, "We're in the business of forming healthy, vital and
mission-minded communities of faith that see themselves not as an
end but as a means by which God can do more work in the world."
A strategic direction of the ELCA churchwide organization is
to assist members and congregations of the church to "grow in
evangelical outreach," said Duran, director for new
congregational development, ELCA Evangelical Outreach and
Congregational Ministry (EOCM).
"Right now we have 177 ministries under development. Many
of those are in the Midwest and Northeast United States, where
the Lutheran presence is still strong. Other ministries are
developing in the Southeast, like Florida, and parts of the
Southwest," he said.
EOCM is working on 56 proposals for new mission starts in
2006, Duran said. "We have the funding and everything else
needed to start these new ministries except leaders, people with
the call and gifts needed to create new congregations in the
ELCA. We call these leaders mission developers," he said.
"Right now we're starting somewhere between 30 and 35 new
congregations a year. By the end of 2006 we will possibly have
started 40, given that we're blessed with leaders. Otherwise,
we'll repeat what happened last year. We approved 52 proposals
and started 38 because we couldn't find mission developers."
Although "numbers" are not his goal, Duran said he would
like to see the number of proposals for new starts reach 100 in
the next few years. "The idea is to change behavior, to think
about mission for the future. That's really what all mainline
denominations are after. It's about mission. A church serves as
a vehicle to reach all of God's creation," he said.

Mission Developers
Pastors and lay leaders whose vocation is to provide visions
for starting new congregations in the church gather together
annually at the ELCA Mission Developers' Training Conference held
in August. The 2006 conference focused on theological
foundation, leadership development, reading the context and
assessing the health of congregations, according to Duran. "Led
by practitioners, staff of EOCM and other ELCA churchwide units,
the training conference aims at preparing and supporting mission
developers for this unique task," he said.
With the help of colleagues from across the church, "we've
developed a profile summarizing the characteristics of someone
qualified to start a new congregation," said Duran. "There are
16 basic characteristics, and eight of those are sort of 'knock
out' factors. For example, motivation is a key factor. A
mission developer must wake up in the morning wanting to do this
kind of work. She or he must see this ministry with a deep sense
of call, a spiritual call. Another characteristic is having the
capacity to envision a new community of faith and engage everyone
around him or her in creating that community. This is not only a
skill but an art, with an ability to listen to people, hear their
needs and dreams, connect those with God's dreams and, out of
that, develop a collective vision. Another characteristic is
that a developer must be able to read a community, learn about
its context, fall in love with the neighborhood, allow people of
the community to love him or her back, and join them in building
a community that reflects God's love, peace and justice for all,"
he said.
"The Holy Spirit has given gifts for all the baptized,
including some with the ability to create new communities of
faith. There are people already in our (congregations) and many
more not yet in our churches, who are or will be gifted for this
type of ministry. We want to meet them and encourage them to
explore this opportunity," Duran said.

Entry Points for New Starts
"New starts are a way to reach groups of people not
currently being served through existing ministries," said Duran.
"These geographical, socioeconomic, ethnic and generational gaps
can be bridged with intentional, strategic congregational
development initiatives that emanate out of mission thinking and
a passion for people to experience God's wholeness," he said.
Some entry points for starting new congregations include:
+ Churches starting churches -- congregations that show signs of
health and are mission-minded take the initiative to extend their
ministries into other communities
+ A congregation or a group of congregations can choose to
support a new start already in progress
+ Worshiping communities authorized by a synod, otherwise known
as "synodically authorized worshiping communities" -- communities
with ministry potential that, upon consultation with synod
leadership, become authorized to conduct worship and explore
their potential to serve, grow and multiply
+ Local leaders taking the initiative to start a new ministry
where there is little or no Lutheran or Christian presence
+ Ethnic-specific communities. "Ethnic populations continue to
expand," Duran said, "presenting great opportunities to develop
new work among them. African American and Black, Arab and Middle
Eastern, Asian and Pacific Islander, Latino, and American Indian
and Alaska Native communities have teams of leaders focused on
the development of new starts."
"Today we see so many opportunities across the United States
and Caribbean to work 'en conjunto,' (which is Spanish for) 'in
community.' The ELCA is positioning itself to be a good steward
of its gifts. The church has plenty to allow itself to be in
tune with society and present in places where people are
struggling to break the cycles of poverty and injustice, where
new ethnic communities are trying to build a future in the church
and where young, emerging generations are demonstrating how God
is active in their lives. Starting new ministries can only
happen when we work together in community," said Duran.
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Information about starting new congregations is available at
http://www.ELCA.org/congregations.html on the ELCA Web site.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org
http://www.elca.org/news
ELCA News Blog: http://www.elca.org/news/blog