Straight talk: Finding a healthy balance
WELS Home Missions is WELS’ church-planting entity. Uniquely equipped with resources congregations don’t have, Home Missions has been able to fund 63 new missions over the last decade so that…
Moments with missionaries: Evan Chartrand
Starting a church is many things. It’s exciting and exhausting, humbling and rewarding, daunting and wonderful—often all at once. Oh, and it’s one more thing: unpredictable. The lead-up to the…
Global, vibrant, ever-changing
“New York City is a global, vibrant, ever-changing city,” notes Timothy Bourman, pastor at Sure Foundation, Woodside, Queens, N.Y. The same words could be used to describe Sure Foundation. “I…
Christ through us: Congregations
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…
“My name will be great among the nations”
In keeping with this year’s theme of “Christ through us,” Steven Prahl, a home missionary at Foundation, Peyton, Colo., encouraged the assembly during his Wednesday morning devotion “to look upon…
Moments with missionaries: Steven Saatkamp
What do you do when it suddenly becomes possible for your mission church to hit its long-term goals in months rather than years? That’s the question we’ve been asking ourselves…
Moments with missionaries: Ben Bitter
Do you remember your first Bible? Mine is an old study Bible that some relatives gave me at my confirmation. The margins have accumulated helpful notes and comments, different dates…
Training future church planters
In January 2025, three different groups of students from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary (WLS) went on Winterim trips as part of a special partnership with WELS Home Missions. These trips were…
Moments with missionaries: Ross Chartrand
My wife and I were standing in an empty living room of a new house filled with dust and echoes and not much else until our moving truck arrived. Neither…