Mission Strategy Table

Bishop Wollersheim, Bill Bartlett & Bishop McCoid

Our Synod Council meets just four times a year so each meeting’s agenda is rather full.  Even so, business was kept to a minimum at our council’s January meeting to allow for a full discussion of an idea Bishop Gary Wollersheim and synod vice president Bill Bartlett proposed.  Since each congregation of the synod (in fact, each congregation of the ELCA) has been asked to take a look at its own mission plan, the proposal was for the synod to do the same.

The Synod Council approved the idea and got to work right away.  Joining us for the meeting was the Rev. Don McCoid.  Bishop Wollersheim had invited him to facilitate our conversation.  Pastor McCoid currently serves as the Executive for Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Relations in the Churchwide expression of our church.  We, however, were drawing upon his deep understanding of synodical work from his twenty years as bishop of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Synod.

As a result of this guided conversation, the Synod Council approved the formation of a task force, or Mission Strategy Planning Table, which will be under the leadership of Pastor Gary Erickson, our new Director of Evangelical Mission, and Pastor Kurt Nordby, who just finished his work as our DEM.  Any mission strategy process helps a congregation or synod to take a look at what it is doing, how it is doing it, whether it should continue doing what it is doing, and what it will do in the future.  Folks from across the synod will be invited into the process.

A mission statement provides a measure against which to evaluate what you do.  “Making Christ Known” has been the short version of our mission statement for a long time.  Here’s the complete statement as it exists today:

The Northern Illinois Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is a gathering of people created by God in Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, called and sent to bear witness to God’s creative, redeeming, and sanctifying activity in the world.  Our mission is simple: Make Christ Known.

What do you think?  Comments?  Go to the blog website or comment on Facebook.  --JC