FORO model brings together partners in mission

The Rev. Dr. David Preus, director of the LCMS Eurasia region, presents on LCMS mission work in Germany during a FORO (forum) at Zion Lutheran Church in Hamburg. (LCMS/Erik M. Lunsford)

By Megan K. Mertz

In September, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) Eurasia region held its first-ever FORO in Germany.

The FORO model started in the LCMS Latin America and the Caribbean region (FORO means “forum” in Spanish) as a way to bring together the various mission partners — districts, congregations, Recognized Service Organizations, missionaries and others — around the strategic plan in a particular area for the purpose of planting churches.

In 2023, the Synod in convention adopted Resolution 2-07A, “To Commend Use and Attendance of FOROs.” The resolution called on the LCMS Office of International Mission (OIM) to roll out the FORO model in the other three world regions, and since then OIM staff have been working to implement this in many different contexts around the world. Prior to the Germany FORO (Sept. 24–30), the first two African FOROs were held in August — first in South Africa and then in Malawi.

The Germany FORO brought together 10 attendees from the LCMS South Wisconsin and Michigan districts, the bishops of the Synod’s German and French partner churches, LCMS missionaries and staff, and a number of local pastors and Persian refugees. During the event, the group learned about how congregations of the Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany and LCMS missionaries have been working with the influx of Persians — those primarily from Iran and Afghanistan — who have come to Germany seeking asylum since 2015.

As the FORO attendees traveled from Hamburg to Berlin to Wittenberg, they also heard about the Synod’s work among English-speaking expats in Kaiserslautern and with Ukrainian refugees in Wittenberg. Although each program works with a different population in a different language, the goal of these projects is the same: to spread the Gospel and plant Lutheran churches.

“[The FORO] is a great opportunity to see how these ministries work together,” said the Rev. Dr. David Preus, regional director of the Synod’s work in Eurasia. “We’re doing the same thing in all these places, and in the areas of ministry that are more advanced — like in the expat ministry, where we have established congregations — it gives us a great model of what we want to accomplish in other places.”

Preus is well-versed on the FORO model, since he previously served as a missionary in the Dominican Republic for six years. Ultimately, the FORO model is meant not just to raise awareness about the mission work taking place in other countries, but to engage LCMS districts and congregations in the United States in this work.

“A FORO partner is not simply somebody who comes over and sees what we’re doing and learns how they can support us,” Preus stressed. “These are all very important things. But I don’t want them to go back home and say, ‘They are doing this.’ I want them to go back home to their congregations and say, ‘We have a mission in Germany, and this is what we are doing.’”

Watch for more about the Germany FORO in the upcoming Winter 2025 issue of Lutherans Engage the World magazine.

Posted Oct. 31, 2025