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Ablaze! Grants Round Eight

Two Ablaze! Mission Outpost Grants Help Fund New Pastors

By Jackie Bussert
June 2010

Celebration Ministries has been building relationships in the community through its day care, after-school programs and adult outreach. Now, this new start is ready to bring a full-time pastor on board to initiate a regular schedule of worship.
Two new mission pastors will be joining the Northern Illinois District with the help of Ablaze! Mission Outpost Grants awarded by the district's Board of Directors on June 21.

Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Palatine, in partnership with Immanuel, Palatine, will call a bilingual pastor to serve full-time as a mission developer for Spanish-language ministry in the Palatine area. This project received a grant of $150,000 over two years.

Palatine has a slightly over 24% Hispanic population, which is still growing, particularly in the northeast section of the city. The plan is for this new start to be a fully functioning Word and Sacrament ministry, with worship, children's ministries and community services initiated by the end of next summer. This will be The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod's first Hispanic church plant in the northwest suburbs.

This is the second grant for Prince of Peace in two years. In 2009 a grant was received to help call Rev. John Scott as mission developer for new work in Lake in the Hills area. That mission is growing strong and seeking a rental location for a worship launch in February 2011.

Both of these missions evolved out of a strategic planning process in the congregation along with a stewardship campaign to help fund new local mission work. Pete Barber is chairman of the planning team and Rev. Scott Christenson is senior pastor of the congregation.

The second grant went to Celebration Ministries in Park Forest, a new start at the former Hope Lutheran Church. Director of Christian Education Christine Rechsteiner was engaged by the district at the closing of Hope, Park Forest, to initiate new ministry to community children and families on the campus.

Working together with the talents and commitment of some former members of Hope congregation, that new start has drawn new people into the mix and is now ready to engage a site pastor. Pastor Bryan Reeves, an experienced, LCMS African-American pastor from Indiana who has been helping out at Celebration since early spring, is expected to join them full-time by the end of summer.

Funding for this position is aided by a $140,000 three-year Ablaze! Mission Outpost Grant and directed funds from mission donors being raised up through a local stewardship campaign.

The funding pool for Ablaze! Mission Outpost Grants comes from a portion of regular congregational offerings to the district, supplemented by individual mission donors and, on a case by case basis, use of district reserve assets. Over $60,000 from individual mission gifts went into this round of Ablaze! Mission Outpost Grants.