By Cheryl Magness
On March 28–30, a group of first- and second-year seminarians from Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne (CTSFW), traveled to The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) South Wisconsin District (SWD) office in Milwaukee for a workshop on church planting. The event was hosted by the LCMS Office of National Mission (ONM).
Why would busy seminarians give up their weekend to drive 10 hours round trip for a two-day workshop on church planting?
“[CTSFW] President [Rev. Dr. Jon] Bruss sent out an email telling us about the workshop and encouraging us to sign up,” said Ryan Skove, a first-year seminarian from California. Skove added that he had already wanted to learn more about the topic.
For Corrie Steel, a first-year seminarian from Australia, it’s the need for pastors to plant faithful churches in Steel’s home country, where the fledgling Lutheran Mission – Australia (LM – A), a newly formed confessional Lutheran church body, is starting to take root. The LM – A began as a confessional movement within the Lutheran Church of Australia/New Zealand, which has increasingly drifted from biblical Christianity.
Steel, a former high school teacher and adult convert to Lutheranism, said, “I think there’s a good chance I’ll be planting a church when I go back to Australia. … We don’t have a seminary yet, so in the meantime, they are sending people here [to the U.S.] for training.” He was impressed to see the extent of research and data about church planting presented during the workshop.
Gabriel Hallock, a second-year seminarian from Kentucky, said he was curious “to see everything that goes into planting a confessional Lutheran church.” Hallock’s brother Joshua, a first-year student, also attended.
During the workshop’s first two days, LCMS Church Planting Manager Kendall Cortright provided an overview of a church planting model developed by the Rev. Dr. Mark Wood, former ONM managing director. (Wood recently retired from the LCMS International Center and now serves as pastor of an LCMS church plant in Arizona.)
Wood’s model makes extensive use of available demographic data and draws on project management principles, with defined benchmarks and the opportunity for the planting team to apply for grants from LCMS Church Planting. However, as Cortright presented the material, he repeatedly reminded attendees that there is “no magic bullet”: “God gives the growth” (1 Cor. 3:6). SWD Mission Executive Rev. Dr. Nathan Meador, who served as site host, said the model’s emphasis on a process rather than a person is key.
“The reality is,” said Meador, “that at some point, every pastor will leave his congregation. It will be in one of two ways: either in a moving van, or in a box with six handles.” If a church is built around the person of the pastor, Meador continued, the pastor’s departure can be devastating. For a very young congregation, it can be a death knell.
An ‘outreach mindset’
In 2023, the Rev. Joshua Benish was called, after graduating from CTSFW, to serve as pastor of Peace Valley Lutheran Church, a SWD church plant in Monticello, Wis. On the second day of the workshop, Benish shared some of Peace Valley’s journey, highlighting its use of Wood’s model, which LCMS Church Planting is currently calling Church Planting Simplified.
“When I first arrived at Peace Valley,” Benish said, “it felt like I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. There was so much to do. That’s when [LCMS Church Planting] came in. They plugged into where we already were in the process and have been extremely helpful.”
Attendees also heard about two other Wisconsin church plants during the workshop. In 2024, Josiah Junkin, a CTSFW student, was assigned for his vicarage to Faith Lutheran Church in La Crosse, Wis. In addition to his duties at Faith, Junkin is involved in the effort to plant a church in Viroqua, Wis. Junkin and the Rev. Jacob Eichers, Faith’s pastor, gave a presentation on the Viroqua plant, then joined Benish, Meador and the Rev. Joel Brandt for a panel discussion. Brandt is pastor of Cross Lutheran Church, Waunakee, Wis., which began as a church plant of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Sun Prairie, Wis. He also served on the advisory committee for Peace Valley.
During the discussion, Eichers said that being involved in church planting has been good for his congregation.
“If we exist just to make ourselves bigger,” Eichers said, “people aren’t going to say, ‘Hey, that’s great, I want to join your machine.’ … [Church planting] takes a congregation outside its four walls … into an outreach mindset.”
Asked what a typical day looks like for him as part of a church planting team, Junkin said that at least once a week, he spends several hours at a local coffee shop in Viroqua. He wears his clerical collar while sitting at a table and working on his sermon or other tasks.
“I go, I order a coffee, and I sit there with one sign that says, ‘Ask a pastor-in-training,’ and another that says, ‘Sit with me, the coffee’s free.’ … I’ve never bought anyone coffee, but … just about every time I’m there, someone talks to me for at least a half hour, sometimes two hours.”
Junkin said he has talked to people who are not Christian as well as those who belong to other Christian denominations, and only once did someone get antagonistic. “She ordered her coffee, had to wait a couple of minutes for her order, and said, ‘Fine, I’ll bite.’ She asked me a question, didn’t like what I said, yelled at me until her coffee was ready and left,” Junkin said with a laugh.
Junkin compared the early phase of church planting to pregnancy — “At first, there’s not much to see, and you’re tired” — and Brandt said it can feel like “pushing a boulder up a hill,” but that eventually, the boulder starts rolling and “you start chasing it.”
Paradigm shift
In addition to presentations from the two new Wisconsin church plants, attendees heard from the Rev. Daniel Galchutt, executive director of the ONM; the Rev. Michael Meyer, ONM managing director; and the Rev. Dr. Heath Trampe, director of LCMS Discipleship Ministry, all of whom presented on different aspects of church planting, evangelism, outreach and national mission.
Two CTSFW professors also joined the students who attended the workshop: the Rev. Dr. Don Wiley, chairman of the CTSFW Department of Pastoral Ministry and Missions, and the Rev. Dr. Detlev Schulz, director of CTSFW’s Ph.D. in Missiology program. Schulz also serves as general secretary of the International Lutheran Council.
Wiley and Schulz both noted increasing discussions among the ONM and the seminaries, discussions that have contributed to bringing about events like this one.
“In missiology,” Wiley said, “there has been a general paradigm shift toward the idea that church planting is something all pastors should think about in their context. Christ’s words to His apostles in Matthew 28 give the church of every time and place its direction: ‘Go … and make disciples of all nations’ (Matt. 28:19). … Reaching out to those God has placed in our communities is not an optional activity for the church — it’s part of what it means to be Christ’s church.”
Schulz agreed, observing that “church planting has become more accessible to the average seminarian. The SWD visit has shown that CTSFW is quite capable of producing church planters among its student body. We would assume that for Concordia Seminary, St. Louis [CSL], as well. [A similar event for CSL is in the planning stage.] That bodes well for the LCMS’ future. Efforts between the ONM, seminaries and districts are now in place to assure that church planting becomes a constant activity in the life of our Synod.”
After the workshop, Wiley said, “All who attended — professors and students alike — appreciated the Christ-centered, Word and Sacrament-focused approach. … The … process they shared with us — together with the hands-on discussion by those engaging in the process in the SWD — was enlightening and encouraging.”
Wiley said the highlight of the trip was the group’s visit to Peace Valley on Sunday, March 30, “where we received together … the faithful Gospel proclamation of Rev. Joshua Benish and the forgiveness and strength of Christ’s body and blood in the Holy Sacrament. We look forward to making the church planting workshop an annual event at CTSFW and pray for ever-increasing participation by our students.”
The ONM recently called the Rev. Dr. Quintin Cundiff, currently serving as an LCMS missionary to Latvia, to serve as director of LCMS Church Planting. Cundiff will begin his new role later this year.
Learn more about LCMS Church Planting.
Posted May 16, 2025
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