Registration Coming Soon
What happens when a congregation becomes a kind of lab: curious, attentive, and willing to try something new? Mission Lab is designed for congregational teams to engage in prayer, discernment, and hands-on exploration of their unique mission and context.
Through guided exercises and coaching support, teams will explore their congregation’s mission and vision, map their neighborhood and its needs, and name the gifts already present among them. Along the way, they will build connections with other congregations and the synod, discovering they are not alone in this work. Each team will leave with concrete tools, including demographic insights, asset maps, a timeline for next steps, and practices to engage the wider congregation in imagining what comes next.
Like any good lab, there is space to test what you are learning. In the months following the retreat, teams can propose a ministry experiment with the opportunity to receive funding and ongoing coaching support. The goal is not perfection, it’s faithful curiosity. Together, we will see what becomes possible when we pay attention, take a step, and trust that God is already at work in ways we are just beginning to notice.
Congregation Teams:
3-5 people including your pastor or deacon. If your congregation is currently utilizing an interim who cannot attend, they should be in contact with Pastor Erin Jones at erin.jones@elca.org.
Must commit to reading Funding Forward, either as a team or as part of the synod’s summer reading group.
Team must bring their congregation’s mission and vision statements.
After the Retreat
Following a few months of congregation teams working with their plan, team can submit a proposal for a ministry experiment grant.
Each Team Will Leave With:
Demographic report for the area around their congregation and an outline of a Mapping and Neighborhood Prayer Walk exercise
An asset map including the congregation’s gifts, opportunities, and growing edges.
Exercises to engage the congregation in the process of revitalization and dreaming.
A timeline and next steps for the team to take over the next year.
Resources for stewardship, generosity, evangelism, and spiritual practices that support discipleship and outreach.
Ideas and information about the “Fresh Expressions” movement and beginning discernment practices to discover where they might be called to pour energy into their community.
A coaching connection, and four sessions of team coaching paid for, for use over the next year.
A member of the Synod Revitalization Team committed to meeting monthly with you, praying for you, and connecting you with resources as you need them.
A check-in visit from the synod’s Director for Evangelical Ministry in the next year, at the invitation of the pastor and/or council.