Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod sends 29 new missionaries
Formal sending service set for Friday, July 6
Photos available upon request.
ST. LOUIS, July 3, 2012—The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) will commission 29 new career and long-term missionaries and educators into global service with a special “sending service” set for 2 p.m. Friday, July 6, in the International Center chapel in St. Louis.
The special Divine Service with Holy Communion will be followed by a special reception. The event is open to the public.
The service, at which LCMS Second Vice-President Rev. Dr. Herbert C. Mueller Jr. will preach, marks the end of a two-week orientation in St. Louis, which began June 24. The annual event focuses on training, equipping and encouraging the new missionaries. This year the event theme is “Credo: Created to live...Forever!”
Missionary orientation is the first major step in a missionary assignment. It provides information, experiences and study materials that will help establish a solid foundation on which new missionaries build as they prepare for missionary service. It provides specific training for their ministry assignment and an introduction to the LCMS staff and structure that will support missionaries during their international deployment.
The 2012 career and GEO (Globally Engaged in Outreach, serving one- to two-year terms) missionaries range in age and experience and include recent college graduates and mid-career couples from Arizona, California, Idaho, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin. The countries where they will serve include the Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Germany, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Kenya, Macau, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Singapore, South Africa and Sri Lanka.
The 29 new missionaries will join a global mission team of more than 1,000, which includes short-term missionaries, military chaplains, international educators and other career and GEO personnel.
The LCMS has been involved in mission and outreach since 1851 when it established its first mission board and sent its first overseas missionary to India in 1895. Today, the LCMS trains, sends and supports called and appointed, career, long-term GEO and short-term missionaries throughout the United States and in various countries around the world where there are mission stations, partner churches, schools and mission relationships.
For more information about missionary orientation, visit www.lcms.org/missionaryorientation. To find out more about the missionaries, or to support their efforts, download their prayer cards from the LCMS website at www.lcms.org/prayercards.
About The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
The 2.3 million-member Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod is a mission-oriented, Bible-based, confessional Christian denomination headquartered in St. Louis. Through acts of witness and mercy, the church carries out its mission worldwide to make known the love of Jesus Christ. Learn more at www.lcms.org.