With little over a month left in our fiscal year (ending April 30th), we are only 71% to our goal. Last year at this time we had received 84% of our goal. Please prayerfully consider whether God is calling you to give to the ministry of the Church of the Lutheran Brethren (CLB).

We would like to thank those who have given their time, talents and money to their congregations and the CLB this past year. God is working in amazing ways through our congregations and missionaries. It is a wonderful privilege and incredibly exciting for each of us to be part of something so much bigger than ourselves. God welcomes us into His Mission with open arms, and we are called to be faithful in our own lives proportionate to our responsibility within the larger body of Christ. We, as a family of churches, are on the same mission, together.

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"We see God stirring in our church a fresh passion to reach beyond our own comfort to all people among whom God places us. We embrace God's mission to bring the life changing Gospel to unreached people in Asia and Africa, and we sense God convicting us to more intentionally reach out to people who live in our midst in North America as well."
CLB Vision Statement

The following are three main goals as we look at the mission of the CLB.

Christ worshiped in one more language

Empowering Heathly Congregations: Worship & Going

Preparing congregations and future leaders for ministry

(left to right) MaryBeth and Joel Nordtvedt, Debra and Gary Witkop, Barbara and Joel Egge,
Marcia and Rick Bridston, Cheryl and Stan Olsen.
(read about each Regional Pastor > here)

The changes to the structure of the Church of the Lutheran Brethren started to take more concrete shape this February at Inspiration Point Bible Camp in Minnesota. There President Egge and the four Regional Pastors in the U.S. and their wives met for four days of training and planning about how this work will be done. While it was cold, gray and snowy outside the discussion, fellowship and fire on the hearth were warm. The discussion centered around how to minister to our pastors and churches in ways that will strengthen them and so strengthen the people who call CLB churches their home. There was discussion on ministering first to the pastors and their wives and then to the churches. They talked about crisis management, church planting, leadership development, youth work, cluster organization, and how to really listen.

It is the hope and prayer of the CLB leadership and especially of the Regional Pastors and their wives that God would use these new positions to strengthen and expand the ministry of the CLB in the U.S. and Canada. We need healthy pastors to lead healthy congregations to do the work of touching lives for eternity. As the week came closer to an end the words of Acts 1 and 2 became more real as they realized how much they had become one in heart and in desire to see the work of God go forward.

- Pastor Gary Witkop
(pictured with his wife, Debra)
Regional Pastor for the Western Region