Our focus for 2025–2035

The new long-range strategic plan names four priorities for WELS to focus on for the next ten years. These sweeping areas tackle the challenges the church—and WELS—face today. With the plan’s theme, “Christ through us,” we are given a powerful reminder—God works through us to carry out his work as his ambassadors.

Culture: Cultivating a gospel-driven culture
Congregations: Strengthening WELS’ backbone
Calling: Producing workers for a growing harvest
Commission: Bringing Christ to the nations

Engaged members mean active congregations that unite to form a network of churches supporting shared gospel efforts.

I was months old in the summer of 1970 when my father accepted a call to start a new mission on the north side of Houston. The core members of this start-up mission had left their Missouri Synod churches for confessional reasons. They saw a ripe mission field and wanted to plant a new church to reach out with the gospel in this fast-growing part of Houston.

This core group of several families became Abiding Word Lutheran Church. They gathered for worship around Word and sacrament, first in a public school and then in a double-wide trailer on four acres of land they purchased. They invited friends and others in the community to join them. They gathered for fellowship. It was a modest start, but the Lord blessed their efforts.

Several pastors and 55 years later, Abiding Word is now a congregation of more than five hundred members with a school that provides Christian education for the children of their congregation while also serving as an outreach arm into the community. Abiding Word generously supports the worldwide mission of WELS with its Congregation Mission Offerings. Former and current members have served or are still serving in the public ministry. Others are preparing to serve in the public ministry.

Additionally, Abiding Word helped start new missions in the Houston area and beyond. Children and grandchildren of original core members have served as core group members of new mission starts in Texas and Arkansas.

Supporting shared gospel efforts

We may not always see these kinds of results in every mission, but the story of Abiding Word illustrates how the 1,200-plus congregations of WELS serve as the vital backbone to our work together as a synod. It all started in 1850 with a handful of churches around Milwaukee, but over the past 175 years, hundreds of congregations have formed the backbone of WELS that supports our shared gospel efforts.

How so? As a synod, we can do together what a single congregation cannot do. Congregation Mission Offerings from WELS congregations provide essential financial support for training future pastors, teachers, and staff ministers. They fund the initiative to plant one hundred new missions in North America over ten years. These offerings also support international mission work in which our synod reaches 300,000 souls around the globe. Humanly speaking, WELS could not do this without the support of congregations and their members.

This is just the start of what congregations do to serve as the backbone of WELS. Abiding Word is an example of how congregations nurture, identify, and encourage future called workers who are vital for serving the next generation with Word and sacraments. Our members, united by the love of Christ, are equipped to serve the body of Christ and give personal witness to the love of Christ in their lives, making our congregations become beacons of light and truth in their communities.

Shining the light of God’s Word

We live in a world that is becoming increasingly dark. People are searching for happiness and hope, but they are struggling to find it. They never will find it outside the light of the gospel. Instead they will be lost in darkness and despair, whether they realize it now or when it’s too late.

We know how the light of the gospel brings us true happiness and hope. We know “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding” (Philippians 4:7). We know the joy of living under the blessings of our baptism, wrapped cleanly and completely in the robe of Christ’s righteousness with our sins washed away. We know the promises of Jesus that give us comfort and confidence, even as we face the realities of living in this dark world. We have what the world wants!

Jesus has given us the Great Commission: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:18-20). To do that he has given us the light of his Word, which is a lamp to our feet and a light for our path (Psalm 119:105). As the hymn says, spreading its light from age to age is our chief endeavor (cf. Christian Worship 640). WELS members and the congregations they attend spread that light in their own communities. They also offer support so WELS can plant new gospel outposts in new communities and countries to bring that light to the lost.

Fulfilling the Great Commission

What does fulfilling the Great Commission look like for you and your congregation?

Imagine a future where our churches pulse with vibrant discipleship, their members engaged in reaching out to their communities with the gospel’s hope and working hand in hand across the synod to strengthen and expand ministry efforts at home and abroad.

Imagine congregations where all members see themselves as active participants in Christ’s mission—letting their light of faith shine and boldly sharing their faith as a natural way of life—rather than passive spectators on the sidelines.

Imagine a network of churches—both longstanding and newly-planted—radiating the unity and love of Christ, drawing the lost into fellowship, and equipping the faithful to stand firm in a stagnated world.

Imagine God’s people and the congregations of our synod generously supporting the local and synodwide mission with their gifts and offerings so that together we can extend our reach in North America from 2 percent (6.8 million) to 3 percent (10.2 million) of the population and our reach worldwide to more than 1 million souls.

This is what God’s people have been created to do. This is what God’s people have been doing and will continue to do. And this is the work God will bless, as Christ does his work through us.

Visit christthroughus.net for more information about the plan. 

Author: Mark Gabb
Volume 112, Number 10
Issue: October 2025

How can I help strengthen WELS’ congregations?

REFLECT: Consider your unique community. How might you connect with your neighbors to meet a need, build relationships, and share the love of Jesus?
VOLUNTEER: Explore how a group from your church might assist a mission congregation through the WELS Mission Journeys program (wels.net/missionjourneys).
SUPPORT: Visit wels100in10.net to discover how you can help plant new missions and aid ministry enhancement efforts.
LEARN: Invite a mission speaker to your congregation to share firsthand stories of gospel outreach (wels.net/speaker-request).
GROW: Build your congregation’s outreach culture through Everyone Outreach, an in-person workshop offered by WELS Commission on Evangelism (everyoneoutreach.com).
REMEMBER: The work of the church is Christ’s alone, but Christ works through YOU!