Northern North Dakota? Can any good thing happen there? Well, yes. Read on!

On Saturday November 13, the combined elder and trustee boards from Ebenezer Lutheran Brethren Church (Rolette), Bethel Lutheran Brethren Church (Antler) and Grace Lutheran Brethren Church (Bottineau) met together for the first time ever!

Before telling you more about the meeting, let me give a little background. As many of you know, our synod is divided into five regions, and within each region our congregations are grouped into clusters of churches for mutual fellowship and encouragement. And so over the last number of months the pastors in our cluster from the frozen north—Antler, Bottineau, and Rolette—have been gathering on a regular basis. And as we’ve met together we’ve raised several questions among ourselves: How might our congregations fellowship more closely? How might we create a greater sense of Lutheran Brethren identity? How might we encourage greater mission awareness and involvement?

Well, we started rather simply by planning a combined worship service. This past summer our three churches gathered on the first Sunday in August for an outdoor worship service and dinner on the shores of beautiful Lake Metigoshe (located on the North Dakota/Manitoba border). The gathering was a success, but what next?

What was next for us as pastors was to ask our respective church councils if they would be interested in gathering together sometime in the fall to discuss a significant joint ministry venture right in our own backyard—namely, the new Lutheran Brethren church plant in Watford City, North Dakota. We presented our vision in September, and our councils readily agreed to the proposal. On November 13 we met at Grace Lutheran in Bottineau for three hours, joined by our Regional Pastor, Gary Witkop.

The oneness of heart and spirit was amazing. Out of our discussions we voted to recommend to our individual congregations that we join together in 2011 to gather funds every month to support the work of Living Faith Church in Watford City. The funds are to go specifically toward helping pay Pastor Bob Lawson’s salary.

Here’s how it will work: every month we will gather funds from our three churches, but rather than sending individual checks, we will combine the dollars into one check. We voted to do this because our three churches are not interested in competition or comparison. Our three churches are in this mission enterprise together, and we want even the way we handle our funds to be for the glory of God.

But that’s not all. We also voted that when we send our combined monthly check we will send along a regular note of encouragement to our brothers and sisters in Watford City (we will rotate writing the note each month among our three churches). In addition, we agreed that when other needs arise at Living Faith in the days to come, we will prayerfully consider how we might be of additional help.

There is no greater joy than giving and sacrificing for the cause of Christ. Every spiritual blessing is ours in the Savior. Every grace and gift is from his hand. Our plea to all of you across our synod is that in the light of the cross, you would give away your life for what matters—to invest your time and energy and resources in the Great Commission. We challenge other clusters of churches to find ways to support and encourage our various shared ministries. “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”

Dr. Craig Jennings is pastor of Grace LBC, Bottineau, ND.

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