Urban & Inner-City Mission

Reaching the City with Christ

The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s Urban & Inner-City Mission boosts revitalization efforts in city ministries while sharing the Gospel across cultures, and UICM provides resources to help churches provide a spiritual home for people searching for hope and healing.

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Urban & Inner-City Mission offers training to equip leaders in Witness, Mercy and Life Together for community engagement that leads to Christ becoming known in neighborhoods. UICM strives to assist congregations with their efforts to transform the chaos, death and decay that often plagues their cities into communities characterized by peace, life and renewal.

UICM is focused on assisting congregations with engaging their communities to bring about renewal. This engagement occurs through an intentional focus on Witness, Mercy and Life Together.

The resulting renewal stems from a revitalized congregation that has successfully identified who it is, what it believes and what defines it. These factors serve to unite a congregation and enable its members to witness to the hope we all have in Christ.

Priorities
- Creating local and regional urban-ministry partnerships
- Facilitating strategic Lutheran ministry training opportunities that embrace viable community engagement, cultural, generational and ethnic diversity
- Modeling merciful and compassionate care that informs intentional local Gospel outreach
- Nurturing mission and ministry conferences and webinars
- Making Christ known in our cities
Request Information

Please contact our office to receive information on connecting to ministries that address:
- Affordable aging services
- Advocacy
- Community re-entry
- Housing, transitional housing and blight improvement
- Asset-based community planning
- Social enterprise
- Programming for at-risk youth
- Pregnancy resources
- Urban education
- Substance abuse recovery
- Providing for basic needs
These services and programs are empowering, and they will truly be transformative for communities and individuals.

Urban ministry webinars

Watch June 2022 webinar on demand: “Insights on Establishing Ministry Among the Chinese”

Caring for the homeless

LCMS Urban & Inner-City Mission offers resources to assist in caring for the homeless and others in need.

Resources & Services

Grants

The LCMS Office of National Mission accepts grant applications for community projects.

Download and save the PDF to your computer desktop. After opening the file, the application form and budget template will show as attached files.

Download application documents

Webinar: Opioid Abuse

The Rev. Dr. Steven Schave, director of LCMS Urban & Inner-City Mission, presented a webinar on “Opioid Abuse in Rural and Small-Town Settings.”

Once thought to only be a problem in large cities, the opioid epidemic has affected many families in the United States in some form or fashion.

Watch webinar

City Case Studies

White Paper

Community Development and Caring for the Marginalized

Presentations

The LCMS shares presentations from an Urban & Inner-City Mission conference. Topics include “Toxic Charity,” “Poverty Cure” and “Building Sustainable Community Alliances.”

Read presentations

Videos

‘We Believe in the Resurrection’

LCMS Urban and Inner-City Mission presents a documentary that recounts the nearly five-year journey of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Madisonville, Ohio, which persevered amid inner-city strife and socio-economic challenges.

Watch documentary (8:23)

Why do we need city ministry?

Hear what Rev. Steve Schave says about the importance of LCMS Urban & Inner-City Mission, which works to boost revitalization efforts in city ministries that reach out across cultures with the Gospel.

Watch video introduction (2:19)

Rev. Dr. Mark Wood
Interim Managing Director
Church Planting, Renewal, and Support

Rev. Dr. Mark Wood

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Staff Directory

Contact the LCMS

Ask a question 1-888-843-5267

Ministry Overview

Urban & Inner-City Mission advances revitalization in city ministries, most of which are multi-ethnic or reach out across cultures with mercy and witness to the Gospel.

Download information sheet

How to Help

The LCMS Office of National Mission works within the borders of the United States to support the programs and resources available to congregations, districts, schools, Recognized Service Organizations and other Lutheran organizations.

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Recent Resources

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UICM Emails

Complete our easy sign-up form to receive webinar information and other resources from LCMS Urban & Inner-City Mission.

Also, select other LCMS ministry topics to receive related information.

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Mission and Vision

The Lutheran Witness Magazine

MDFL Resource Center

Million Dollar Life Match

Church Work Recruitment Initiative

Caring for Ukraine

Contact Us

Email us

Church Info Center: 888-843-5267
Staff Switchboard: 800-248-1930
Donor Care Line: 888-930-4438

1333 S. Kirkwood Road, St. Louis, MO 63122-7226

Auxiliaries and Seminaries

Partners

The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod Inc., including Mission Central (in Mapleton, Iowa), is an IRS registered 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charity.

A contribution designated (restricted) for a specific purpose, when accepted, will be used only to fund expenses related to that purpose. Occasionally, we may receive more in contributions for a particular purpose than can be wisely applied to it in the foreseeable future or the purpose may cease to be feasible. In these situations, the LCMS will make reasonable attempts to contact contributors to apply their contribution toward another aspect of ministry that aligns closely the contributor’s goals and values. If a contributor cannot be contacted, the LCMS will use the gift to meet a similar pressing need that most closely matches the contributor's original intent.

Consistent with Synod Board policy and in recognition of a more challenging economic and philanthropic/fundraising environment due to inflationary pressure, not more than 12.5 percent of any charitable contribution will be allocated to administering gifts and communicating with contributors (compared to a not-more-than ceiling of 10.5 percent the previous fiscal year). Contributions received and accepted by the LCMS are deemed to be in agreement with this statement.

Donor Transparency Resources