Chance to Serve

     This past week, I was blessed to continue a conversation with Pr. Mike Ruhl who is with the Center for US Missions.  The Center for US Missions is a ministry within the LCMS whose goal it is to help the planting of our churches.  I myself went through their Church Planter training in 1998. 

     The Center for US Missions has 24 identified models for planting churches.  House Churches is one of their models.  The Center for US Missions has been engaged by the Nebraska and Kansas Districts of our church body to provide training for church planting.  Pr. Mike Ruhl and the Center for US Missions would like congregations in these Districts who are interested in starting new worshipping communities to consider the House Church model.

     My great, great grandfather John Buckman came here from Germany in the 1870s.  John worked in Chicago for a decade, saving his money.  He and his best friend married two sisters, they got on a train and went to N. Dakota where they each got a quarter section of land to farm.  Like many immigrants to this day, John worked two jobs- he was a farmer and he was a railroad hand.   In their free time, John and Christine Buckman built a home and then they gathered the German speaking people for worship in their house.  This house church on the prairie bought a lot in the booming metropolis of Belfield and built a church.  The congregation then reached out to the LCMS and asked to be supplied with a Pastor.   When their first Pastor arrived, he came to congregation which was already formed and who had by God's grace already built the sanctuary.   My grandmother, Eleanor played the pump organ in this church for 60 years.  St. Peter Lutheran Church in Belfield remains part of a dual parish and is doing quite well these days with all of the oil exploration going on in North Dakota.

      I look forward to the opportunity to encourage the formation of House Churches on the prairie and praise God for the chance to serve in this way.

 

 

Mission Sundays