The Outreach Committee works with the Synod Council and staff and regional personnel responsible for outreach in order to initiate, develop, support, and evaluate mission congregations, redevelopment ministries, and special ministries, including urban, ethnic and rural ministries.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, in its churchwide and synodical ministries, is giving priority to accompanying congregations so that they can be growing centers for evangelical mission, living out their callings as places of evangelical witness and service in the world.

This focus is being implemented through the Evangelical Outreach and Congregational Mission (EOCM) unit.  Its executive director is the Rev. Dr. Stephen Bouman, former bishop of the Metropolitan New York Synod.  After extensive conversations with leaders throughout the church, The Evangelizing Congregations Mission Covenant between all of our 65 synods was signed and presented to the whole church at our churchwide assembly in Minneapolis in August.  Our church’s goal, formalized in the covenant, is to engage leaders across the church in the formation of evangelizing congregations, so that, “grounded in the leadership of the missionary bishop, every person is a missionary, every pastor a mission director, and every congregation a mission station for the sake of the world.”

To support this vision, each synod will have a Director for Evangelical Mission (DEM), who will engage leaders in the synod to:  1) create a synod mission strategy, 2) grow in stewardship and mission support, and 3) develop new evangelizing congregations and renew existing congregations.

In September, a group from our synod met at the Lutheran Center in Chicago to prepare for the creation of “mission tables” in our synod for each of these three areas.   We ask for your prayer, encouragement and partnership as we increase our ability to  accompany congregations in our synod as they seek to be centers of evangelical mission in South-Central Wisconsin.