Ensuring a Legacy of Faith Today, Tomorrow & Forever

Posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.

–Psalm 22:30-31

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Objectives

The 2020 Vision provides the pathway to ensuring a legacy of faith today, tomorrow & forever in all NALC congregations through four primary objectives:

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To ensure long-term vitality and fruitfulness for our congregations, we must constantly adapt and expand the reach of Jesus Christ by carrying out Christ’s Great Commission. GROW places importance on our ability to expand and mature as congregations of the NALC.

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DISCIPLESHIP

Disciples are active in following Jesus and walking with others in faith. Through the NALC Life-to-Life Discipleship Experience, individuals and congregations will be impacted and empowered to go out in the name of Christ to baptize and proclaim the Good News to all nations.

CHURCH PLANTS

In answering God’s call to spread our faith to new families and communities, the NALC has a bold goal for each mission district to plant one new start over the next three years. This will be accomplished through a strategy with healthy churches who can be a mentor church to a mission start. NALC expertise and seed money grants will ensure these new plants have a strategy for healthy sustainability.

SPANISH-SPEAKING CHURCH PLANTS

There is tremendous potential to spread our Lutheran faith to Spanish speakers in the U.S. and abroad. Each new church plant in Mexico will be grounded in the four Core Values of the NALC. The NALC will provide ongoing education and training to Spanish speaking pastors and lay leaders.

STEWARDSHIP

As a part of the NALC mission to improve the culture of generosity, a set of training tools and a platform of gratitude will be spread throughout the mission districts, pastors and laity. These resources will be provided through virtual means, regional conferences and at continental events such as the NALC Mission Convocation.

Funding Grow to Ensure a Legacy of Faith

Fundraising Goal: $1.6 million (32% of total goal)
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We recognize the fundamental role that strong theological formation plays in the capacity of our congregations to carry out faithful mission work as we thrive and live out God’s word. SERVE — one of the four main components of this vision — lays out the pathway for empowering all NALC congregations to form healthy, authentic Christian communities that serve our world.

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NORTH AMERICAN LUTHERAN SEMINARY (NALS)

The North American Lutheran Seminary serves the vital need of providing future pastors and leaders for NALC congregations. Bolstered by an interdependent system, the NALS is working to provide hundreds of new pastors formed in the Great Tradition, as expressed in confessional, evangelical Lutheranism. The NALS uses full-time and adjunct faculty to conduct its academic courses. A team of administrative staff facilitate funding, recruitment and coordination duties.

PASTORAL DEVELOPMENT

The NALC will conduct pastoral development events to provide continuing education for pastors who too often work in isolated environments. These developmental sessions ensure that NALC pastors hone their skills to deal with the contemporary challenges and opportunities facing today’s churches.

CALL PROCESS

The NALC is committed to providing a dedicated pastor to administer the call process that is critical to all of our congregations at one time or another. The call process facilitates the matching of congregations to pastors.

MISSION

The NALC continues to care for its ministries by proactively and intentionally reaching out to advance Christ’s mission. The 2020 Vision fosters a framework for greater support for congregational mission locally, continentally and internationally.

YOUTH AND FAMILY MINISTRIES

A team of laity and pastors who are passionate about our youngest disciples and their families will work to help empower mission districts and congregations to reach out to youth and families and work collaboratively in this facet of ministry. Catechizing our youngest Christians is our duty and delight as we share Jesus with them in ways that shape their young lives and keep them in the faith into adulthood.

COMMUNICATION

Communicating effectively is a priority for the NALC. The 2020 Vision will help the NALC resource congregations in the work of communications by raising up communications leaders in each congregation and mission district. Congregations will be equipped to proclaim the Gospel and minister in the vast opportunities of current technology, equipment and resources.

Funding Serve to Ensure a Legacy of Faith

Fundraising Goal: $2.1 million (42% of total goal)
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Even with the best congregational strategies, our community needs the periodic opportunity to reaffirm its roots while looking ahead to the future. RENEW — one of the four main components of this vision — provides opportunities for all NALC congregations to be renewed by the Holy Spirit.

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FRESH EYES FOR MISSION

“Fresh Eyes for Mission” summits are being planned through 2024. This face-to-face renewal ministry will assist congregations in refocusing their mission to their community and the world. A congregation is led through an extensive pre-meeting workshop that assesses demographics and missional capacity. An on-site visit engages leaders to take hold of the opportunities that are discovered in the process. The result is a concerted effort toward congregational renewal and vitality.

CONGREGATIONAL MISSION AND RENEWAL GRANTS

As a congregation determines their individual needs to engage in a renewal strategy, the Mission and Renewal grants will be awarded to applying congregations who have identified areas of renewed mission focus.

WORSHIP RENEWAL CONFERENCES

Mission district-level conferences will be dedicated to the renewal of a congregation’s worship life. Pastors and lay leaders are encouraged to take time away from the day-to-day workings of the local church to learn (or re-learn) about liturgy, worship, renewing the worship of the congregation, and to explore best practices for this most important aspect of the church’s life together.

Funding Renew to Ensure a Legacy of Faith

Fundraising Goal: $800,000 (16% of total goal)
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Our calling as Christians and congregations in the North American Lutheran Church is much larger than ourselves. We belong to a legacy of faith. Through the 2020 Vision, our congregations devote themselves to join God in His work to FULFILL His promises, taking with them our call to discipleship and our core values as we continue the legacy of faith.

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OUR LEGACY

As a body of believers who trust in the promises of God in Jesus Christ and who follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit, our primary purpose of proclaiming the Gospel message of the kingdom of God will never change. We will, however, as the result of living in an ever-changing world, regularly review our strategies and commitments in carrying out that primary task of being ambassadors of the Kingdom — of forgiveness, healing, deliverance and wholeness — to a confused and broken world around us.

OUR PURPOSE

The North American Lutheran Church exists for the purpose of offering a witness to the saving work of God the Father, in Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, in order that all people would come to know and trust and believe in what God has accomplished for them in His Son. Consistent with Holy Scripture, the apostolic teaching and the Lutheran Confessions, our work as a church body and as individual congregations is based upon our Lord’s Great Commandment — “to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, strength and mind…and to love your neighbor as yourself ” (Matthew 22:37-39) — and His Great Commission — “to go into the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19-20).

OUR CALL TO DISCIPLESHIP

The call to discipleship and to making disciples is in our DNA. It identifies us as followers of Jesus Christ — we are disciples, desiring to grow each day as followers of His who live the sacrificial way of the cross in community with one another. It also defines what we do. Our calling is to make disciples — to live as witnesses of our faith to others, to proclaim to them what God has done for them in Jesus, to baptize them in His name and bring them into His family, and to support and encourage them as they grow in their relationship with Him and grow in their ability to share their faith with others.

Along with our commitment to discipleship are four Core Values that have been central to our identity as a church body since our formation in 2010, and that remain primary in our life and ministry and how we function together as a body of believers.

OPPORTUNITIES

Opportunities for mission and ministry present themselves to God’s people when we are least expecting them. We want to be ready to say “yes” to God’s call when opportunities arise.

Funding Fulfill to Ensure a Legacy of Faith

The 2020 Vision supports the ongoing strategic planning needs of our shared work. Certain funds will enable research to happen, pilot ministry programs to take place, and potential staffing additions to occur as a result of finding new opportunities and better ways to carry out the work entrusted to us by our Lord Jesus.

Fundraising Goal: $500,000 (10% of total goal)
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Progress of the 2020 Vision

Participate in the 2020 Vision

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Resources for Pastors

Download Full 2020 Vision Toolkit (U.S.)
Download Full 2020 Vision Toolkit (Canada)
Download Communications Toolkit Guide (U.S.)
Download Communications Toolkit Guide (Canada)

Additional Media

TODAY, TOMORROW & FOREVER LAUNCH VIDEO

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NALC MINISTRY HIGHLIGHT VIDEO

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2020 Vision Prayer

From Bishop Dan Selbo

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

–Ephesians 3:20-21

Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we thank you and praise you for the abundance of your mercy and the faithfulness of your grace revealed and given to us in Jesus Christ. We thank you for the calling we have in Him and for the way in which we have been brought together by You in the body of the North American Lutheran Church.

We pray for your Holy Spirit to guide us as we consider the opportunities we have to serve in ways that will honor You and as we share in the work entrusted to us by our Lord. We ask for open hearts to be attentive to Your leading, for open minds to be challenged and transformed by Your love, and for generous and faith-filled spirits to respond to the calling we share.

Lord, we pray for the 2020 Vision of our church, asking for You to continue to work through us to carry out Your will. We pray that our individual gifts will be used in collective ways to offer a witness to the world of the salvation found only in the cross and resurrection of our Lord Jesus.

Strengthen our faith. Bless our work. Use our lives, that the life-giving message of Jesus would be proclaimed and heard, today, tomorrow & forever. Amen.

Posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.