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	December 9, 2005 .................... LCMSNews -- No. 78

	LCEF fall conference focuses on `Ablaze!`

	By Joe Isenhower Jr.

	Lee Brandt says the information he gets at events like this
year's Lutheran Church Extension Fund (LCEF) Fall Leadership Conference
in California is "amazing."

	Brandt, 34, was one of some 700 participating at the conference
Nov. 18-20 in Indian Wells, Calif., near Palm Springs.

	Attending his fourth national leadership conference, Brandt, a
member of Mount Olive Lutheran Church, Aurora, Calif., works in the
business office of the LCMS Rocky Mountain District.

	"It was outstanding," Brandt said of the 2005 conference --
"including the speakers, small-group sessions [20 this year],
accommodations, the Christian fellowship -- you name it."

	Brandt added, "It's amazing we have such a top-notch connection
to the church through LCEF, where I know investments go to ministry --
helping build churches, not banks."

	As in years past, Brandt said that this year's conference drove
home the point that "Lutherans in our church body are providing loan
funds to congregations that need them: home loans to rostered church
workers; and low-cost services to other organizations that help
strengthen ministry, stewardship, and outreach."

	"For instance," Brandt said, "it always amazes me how many
congregations receive the Million Dollar Congregation Award."

	During the conference, 11 Synod congregations were recognized
for achieving that distinction in the past year -- meaning their members
for the first time invested a total of at least $1 million in LCEF while
at least 10 percent of the members of those congregations are LCEF
investors.

	Also, Iglesia Evangelica Luterana San Pablo (St. Paul
Evangelical Lutheran Church), a Hispanic Synod congregation in Aurora,
Ill., received the Fred E. Lietz Mission Project Award, which LCEF gives
annually "to recognize outstanding efforts on the part of mission
projects associated with the LCMS." The award is named in honor of Fred
Lietz, first executive secretary of church extension in the Synod.

	"Financial results were excellent," LCEF President Merle Freitag
told the conference in his two-part report -- giving an update on LCEF
over the past year, and later sharing "observations applicable to LCEF
and to the LCMS."

	Using audited figures for LCEF's 2005-06 fiscal year, which
ended June 30, Freitag noted that the fund's total assets "continued to
climb slowly" to a level of $1.415 billion. The "bottom line," he said,
showed earnings of $9.4 million -- "$4.6 million ... from the operation
we control more directly and $4.8 million from other income, including
our investments, gifts and bequests, and other sources we do not control
but hope to influence.

	"As a result of the Lord's blessings on our operations, we were
able again to share our good fortune with our partners in ministry,
Synod, and the [LCEF] member districts, through the earnings
distribution," Freitag said.

	For the year, he said that distribution came to $1.36 million --
"$136,000 to Synod and the remainder to our 28 member districts," with
each district receiving an average of $44,600.

	Freitag noted that for the previous year, half of LCEF's
distributed earnings of $2.4 million "was used for new mission planting
or tasks related to that planting."

	He said that although loan demand was lower than for "recent
record years, many new missions were planted, many older churches were
modernized or relocated, and many other organizational needs were met."

	Freitag said that LCEF's portfolio of 3,000 loans "clearly shows
that we are indeed about our primary business -- helping congregations,"
which constitute 78 percent of the current loan portfolio.

	"I also want you to know we have been able to keep the loan rate
low [at an average of 5.5 percent]," he said, "primarily as a result of
the low interest rate in the marketplace."

	Freitag prefaced his report with remarks about ways that LCEF
has supported the Synod's hurricane-relief efforts in recent months.
They include:

	* Laborers For Christ, an LCEF ministry, placing a project
manager in a New Orleans congregation to coordinate cleanup.

	* providing a $50,000 line of credit to the Lutheran high school
in New Orleans, after it was badly damaged and shut down as a result of
Hurricane Katrina. Loan payments will be covered by 10 other Lutheran
high schools and cash donations from other schools.

	* adapting an LCEF product so that church workers affected by
hurricanes can get a $40,000 interest-free loan for 12 months with no
payment in that period.

	Freitag also spoke of priorities LCEF has for helping LCMS
District and Congregational Services -- School Ministry boost
enrollments in Synod schools and helping DCS -- Stewardship Ministry
emphasize the importance of "personal financial responsibility,"
especially with rising church-worker indebtedness.

	Freitag told of "exciting things happening in 'Ablaze!,'" the
Synod's movement to share the Good News of Christ with 100 million
people -- unreached by the Gospel and uncommitted to Christianity -- by
2017.

	Specifically, he mentioned LCEF providing support for planting
2,000 new ministries in this country by creating a Mission Site Fund
that sets aside $11 million at a 1 percent interest rate for up to five
years.

	Freitag spoke about LCEF's Church Development Partners
initiative, a new Synod recognized service organization that has started
20 projects in the last year where land will be used for new mission
sites.

	He also said that LCEF has recommended to its investors the use
of the LCEF Special Interest Fund "to provide ongoing support to the
'Ablaze!' movement."

	"Is your congregation involved?" Freitag asked in reference to
"Ablaze!"

	"If you are waiting to be invited -- consider yourself invited,"
he added. "Jesus did it when He said, 'Go ye therefore into all nations,
teaching them all I have commanded you.'"

	Synod President Gerald B. Kieschnick, who addressed the
conference before Freitag, also spoke of the need for spreading the
Gospel through "Ablaze!" with references to a theme he has used over the
past year -- "One Message, One Mission, One People."

	"Witnessing our faith is not as complicated as some would make
it," Kieschnick said. "It is the response to our Baptism and a simple
sharing of the knowledge we have about what Christ has done for us. That
is the critical event at the heart of spreading the One Message of
Christ. When the hearts of the people of God are so attuned, the One
Message will indeed spread like wildfire."

	Using examples of Christians who have shared their faith,
Kieschnick said, "One cannot help but be inspired by stories of faith in
action and lives in mission. Such faith in action is what needs to be
multiplied time and again across our Synod. We all know it can happen,
but do we really believe that it is going to happen? Is it really
possible that flames of faith can spread without restraint?

	"I believe such a fire can roar in the Missouri Synod!"
Kieschnick said.

	To illustrate "pull[ing] together as One People," Kieschnick
recalled that gifts to LCMS World Relief/Human Care this year have
exceeded $10 million for hurricane relief and $5.5 million for tsunami
relief.

	"I could not have been more proud of the response of our
church," he told the conference audience.

	"We have proven as a church body that we can respond in an
overwhelming way to the physical needs of people in the wake of physical
disaster," Kieschnick said. "What has yet to be proven is if our
response will be even more overwhelming in the face of the enormous
spiritual need that faces us every day.

	"It's time for the LCMS, in grateful response to God's grace and
empowered by the Holy Spirit through Word and Sacrament to get fired up
about Jesus," Kieschnick concluded.

	Other conference speakers also alluded to "Ablaze!"

	Dr. Paul L. Maier, Synod second vice president and professor of
ancient history at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, was the
featured speaker for the opening conference session.

	"We are at a crossroad in our history," Maier said.

	"Thank God for 'Ablaze!' and LCEF's support of 'Ablaze!,'" he
said to the audience. "We've had many church-wide campaigns, but none
with the potential for outreach like this one."

	Dr. H.B. London, vice president, Ministry Outreach/Pastoral
Ministries with Focus on the Family, the Colorado-based family-support
ministry founded by Dr. James Dobson, was speaker for the Saturday
morning prayer breakfast.

	London praised the Synod for taking on the "Ablaze!" initiative.

	"You and I know that when you set a goal like you have set by
the year 2017, there is no way in the world you're going to reach that
goal until people are able to look at you and to look at those in your
denomination and say, 'There's something about them that's intriguing;
there's something about them that creates within my heart a desire to
want to be like them. There is something that calls them to live a
higher level of living than I am now living.' That's what we call a
witness," London said.

	Among other groups that met in Indian Wells -- in addition to
their members attending the LCEF Fall Leadership Conference, along with
LCEF leaders -- were the Synod's Board of Directors; Council of
Presidents; and North American mission executives; as well as business
managers for Synod districts, colleges, and seminaries.

	****************************************

	If you have questions or comments about this LCMSNews release,
contact Joe Isenhower Jr. at joe.isenhower@lcms.org or (314) 996-1231,
or Paula Schlueter Ross at paula.ross@lcms.org or (314) 996-1230.

	****************************************

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