Texas District

As a District here in Texas, we believe that God is calling us to multiply disciples and churches. To support our congregations in this mission, we are committed to church planting, church revitalization, and leadership development. In this “Mission Moment,” we explore our work in the area of leadership development.

 

Healthy, disciple-making and multiplying churches need healthy and well-trained leaders. While every congregation is called to develop leaders, we believe that this is a vital area for our District to provide support. Therefore, we host our Annual Gathering and Pre-Gathering Seminars each Summer; regional Reboot | Retool | Refuel workshops in the Spring and Fall; and our Winter Leadership Retreat in Concan. We are grateful that these events help leaders with opportunities for education, inspiration, encouragement, and spiritual renewal.

 

Recently, we felt called to grow our engagement in the area of leadership development. Inspired by the ministry training program employed by our newest congregation, Bethel, Laredo, and the Latin American Lutheran Institute, we began dreaming about a ministry training program that would be online and on-demand to train and equip leaders for ministry. We are calling this program Workers for the Harvest.

 

In Matthew 9 we read that “Jesus continued going around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest.’”

 

God has given us a big dream for better equipping more workers for the harvest by creating a new on-ramp for leadership development. We aim to provide faithful and mission-minded training to equip students to answer God’s call to greater Kingdom ministry as future ministry leaders, youth workers, evangelists, church planters or even contract pastors. And we need your help. First, we want to invite you to pray for this new ministry. Secondly, we’d like to ask you and your congregation to consider making a financial gift to help us launch this new program. And finally, prayerfully consider whether God may be calling you or someone you know to take the next step to answering God’s call by enrolling in Workers for the Harvest. If you or your congregation would like to learn more, contact me. I look forward to sharing about this exciting new ministry.

 

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