LCMS Doubles Number of Long-Term Missionaries
More then 70 missionaries are beginning their service in 20 countries through the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod this year
More than 70 missionaries are beginning their service in 20 countries through the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod this year, doubling the number of new, long-term volunteers from last year, according to a director with LCMS World Mission.
While only four of this year's 71 new missionaries are not long-term volunteers, Kurt Buchholz – who directs personnel services with LCMS World Mission – says the number is not as many as he’d like to see.
"Our goal is to ramp up to 400 new long-term volunteer missionaries in the next few years," Buchholz said.
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According to the LCMS World Mission director, volunteer missionaries "provide a unique set of gifts and talents to support the strategies and work of our career staff and our partner churches." A variety of service opportunities are available as teachers, pastors, medical professionals, business managers, and construction workers.
Likewise, volunteer mission service gives individual Lutherans and their congregations opportunities to become more directly involved in mission, he said.
Buchholz noted that the vast majority of volunteer missionaries – both long- and short-term – teach English-as-a-second-language (ESL) or serve as "relationship builders" in conversational English classes.
An orientation for new missionaries, held June 12-24 at Concordia University, St. Paul, Minn., involved 56 missionaries who took part in worship, Bible study, community-building exercises, ESL training, and instruction in such things as staying healthy, finances and fund-raising, moving overseas, maintaining emotional well-being, and talking about Jesus in cross-cultural settings.
While the requirements for service include active membership in an LCMS congregation and, for most positions, a college degree in any field, Buchholz said what is perhaps most important of all is the volunteer's willingness to serve God by becoming "personally involved in the Great Commission's challenge that the Gospel message be proclaimed to the ends of the earth."
Currently, LCMS World Mission works in partnership with national Christians in approximately 77 countries and maintains a total global missionary force of approximately 300 (career, volunteer, international educators, spouses and contracted part-time) and a supporting staff of 36 at its headquarters in St. Louis, Mo.
LCMS World Mission serves as the global Gospel outreach of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, a confessional Lutheran church with more than 6,000 congregations and 2.6 million members in North America. Its global mission focuses on church planting and leadership development in North America and around the world.
