Located ten minutes apart, Morrison Zion, Greenleaf, Wis., and Immanuel, Shirley, Wis., both want to reach out with the gospel in the rural area 15 miles outside of the De Pere/Green Bay area. But what’s the best way to conduct the most ministry without stepping on each other’s toes? Or as one of Morrison Zion’s core values states: How can the congregations get “more Jesus to more people more often”?

The answer: Work together.

These congregations had recognized this answer for several years, already having a joint youth group and a shared online Bible class. But in 2023, leadership from both churches met more formally to discuss options. In spring 2024, they invited WELS Congregational Services to facilitate the process. WELS Congregational Services’ Mission Together program helps congregations in geographic proximity consider if some sort of ministry together might enable them to accomplish their mission better.

“For me, the question ‘Can we do more ministry together than we can do separately?’ remains the reason why we continue to participate in the Mission Together process,” says Dave Ruddat, pastor at Immanuel. “It’s not that we weren’t doing ministry before nor that it was necessarily wrong to do ministry that way, but can it be done better?”

Mission Together takes congregations through three phases:

• Exploring. Congregations discuss ministry challenges, learn about different ministry partnerships, and discover a process to explore and plan for joint ministry.
• Envisioning. Congregations form committees to research and plan for ministry together, including putting together a long-range ministry plan. Each congregation then votes on that plan, determining if it wants to move forward or not.
• Executing. Congregations that voted to proceed put the plan into action.

“Congregations do the planning and make the decisions,” says Joel Gaertner, one of WELS Congregational Services’ Mission Together facilitators. “We are there to provide guidance and resources.”

Morrison Zion and Immanuel currently are partway through envisioning what joint ministry can look like for their congregations.

One thing they quickly realized is that both congregations wanted to start an early childhood ministry but neither was able to do it on its own. Although Morrison Zion has a school, it doesn’t have space to add more classrooms. Meanwhile, Immanuel, which had closed its school 13 years earlier, is located in a growing area. “As two communities that are growing on the outskirts of Green Bay, we felt there was a possibility for this early childhood center to start,” says Kris Scheider, member at Morrison Zion and co-chair of their Mission Together executive committee. In January 2025, the congregations voted to start an early childhood ministry, Lil’ Sprouts Learning Center, on Immanuel’s campus in the fall. Eleven families already are interested. The congregations will share the cost of supporting the center.

While the congregations have already made that decision, they are still working through what it could look like to become a multi-site ministry: one church, two locations. Committees are discussing ministry, human resources, constitutions, property, and financials. “More than 50 volunteers between both congregations are taking hours out of their schedules,” says Scheider.

Locally, the congregations refer to this planning work as “Unifying for Ministry.” “How can we use both locations and become one unified ministry?” says James Enderle, pastor at Morrison Zion. “It’s not about which church [prospects] belong to. It’s about getting people into the kingdom and getting them connected to Jesus.”

Mission Together committees hope to present a ministry plan to both congregations to vote on in January 2026. Whatever happens, Ruddat says this process will have been beneficial. “There is an energy with some of our members—themselves knowing how difficult it is for a church institution to survive in the times we are living in—as they see that the church can adapt its institution in a quest to serve God’s people and the community better. Whether it works or not, at least they are willing to try and to explore if it could be done better.”

Learn more about Mission Together in this month’s edition of WELS Connection or by contacting [email protected].

Author: FIC
Volume 112, Number 06
Issue: June 2025