Official Workbook PDF page source text

2026 Convention Workbook 21

OFFICER, BOARD, AND COMMISSION REPORTS

La Chorrera, Panama; Cienfuegos, Santiago, Dominican Republic;

Salto, Uruguay; and Canelones, Uruguay.

The planting of Lutheran churches requires that a missionary be prepared and supported in this task. As such, our Language Institute, which teaches missionaries Spanish and English, is in its tenth year. A missionary needs, through the Network Support Mission model, to have an average of 150 donors before deploying to the Dominican Republic for orientation. Once they arrive in the DR for orientation, missionaries engage in four months of intensive language learning, cultural adaptation, and studying of religious currents in Latin America. They also make visits, preach, and the like. Following this, they deploy to their field of service, often still learning Spanish and beginning their church-planting work.

Human Care missionaries, Deaconess nurse Tirzah Krey and Deaconess nurse Jamielynn Tinkey Flores, lead the human care circle. Rev. Dr. Jonathan Naumann and Rev. Dan Conrad, both veteran pastors and missionaries, serve as chaplains to our English- and Spanish-speaking missionaries and serve as professors at CMSCR.

This human care circle advocates for our missionaries, helping them obtain visas, housing, and access to medical services, helping them with finances, helping them find education for their children, and the like. Our average tenure of missionary service in LAC is 6.9 years, potentially the highest average achieved in the past 20 years. The human care circle continues to directly contribute to the longevity of missionaries continuing to serve in LAC.

LCMS Mission LAC Human Care also supports a once-a-year missionary conference, which this past year was held in St. Louis in recognition of the LCMS mission work that began in Brazil in 1900 with missionary Mahler. Concordia Historical Institute partnered with the LAC region under the banner “Remember, Repent, Rejoice” and has upheld Brazilian missionary work in its main exhibit for 2025–26. All of our missionaries were made CHI members.

Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly dedicated its spring issue to missionary essays. Additionally, Krey and Naumann published a missionary book of eight historical essays of LCMS LAC work in her mission fields. We are grateful to Altenberg and historic Trinity in St. Louis for allowing us to use the two chalices that were brought from Germany with the Saxons for our Divine Service in those churches as we visited our American Lutheran roots and studied with Rev. Dr. Lawrence Rast the early church planting efforts of LCMS and the founding of her seminaries.

B.2.a. Theological Education CMSCR is in its ninth year of existence. Forty-four men have graduated from our residential and online (Formación Pastoral para Hispanoamérica, FPH) programs, and via colloquy since its inception. In May 2026, we anticipate the graduation of 13 pastoral students. Twelve men are currently in the pastoral residential program, which teaches men to be evangelists, shepherds, and teach - ers. In this four-year program, men study Greek and Hebrew and receive four classes in the Lutheran confessions. Additionally, 16 men are currently in the FPH online program, which is also a joint program with the Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Specific Ministry Pastor Program in Spanish/English. In July 2026, we await with joy the graduation of our first seven men from the FPQ program in Bolivia, which is in the Quechua language. We anticipate 10–12 new men entering in our residential pastoral program this September 2026. Our ninth annual symposia is focused on church planting, in which Rev. Dr. Detlev Schulz’s book Mission from the Cross will be presented in Spanish, and church planters from LAC and missionaries alike will participate.

making this hymnal, the use of which the Synod encouraged in the last convention (2023 Res. 4-04), even more versatile, especially in mission settings where it is difficult to make accessible physical books across Latin America.

Luther Academy courses, in coordination with executive Rev.

Dr. Bennett and Rev. Carlos Schumann, also continue to be taught yearly across the Americas. In the last triennium, 34 theological conferences have been held involving 19 countries and more than 600 pastors and seminarians across 15 countries.

B.2. Plant Lutheran Churches The planting of Lutheran churches is the primary focus of LCMS LAC, as we are committed to bringing to the people in the countries that we serve the fullness of the Gospel as confessed in our liturgy, creeds, Law and Gospel preaching, pastoral care, Small Catechism, and instruction in Christian righteousness.

Church planting continues, as in the last triennium, in Belize, the Cayman Islands, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Peru, and Puerto Rico. Our missionaries also assist in planting Lutheran churches in Mexico and Uruguay. At the time of this writing, 50 LCMS and alliance missionaries are actively planting Lutheran churches. In 2025 alone, we have seen 12 new missionaries join the work in LAC, which is the largest influx of missionaries in one year in the past six years.

Twelve districts, perhaps hundreds of congregations, RSOs, Rev. Dr. Ross Johnson of Disaster Response, and individuals from Synod visit our mission sites twice a year during FORO meetings to receive reports, attend worship, study theology, and review the work that is presented to them.

In Cuba, we have seen our work expand from one pastor to three, with an additional two men currently studying, a deaconess, and five more preparing for diaconal work. We are also glad to report that the Sinodo Luterano Mexico has grown from three pastors a decade ago to 10, with another five studying and potentially another six joining the Concordia Seminary (CMSCR) in the Dominican Republic Seminary next year.

In LAC, an average of 30 short-term teams support church planting. A secondary goal is to have 50 percent of our teams focus on mission education, strengthening our laity in their understanding of Lutheran missions both abroad and at home. Our capacity to handle short-term teams in proximity to Lutheran church plants through our FOROs has allowed us to see an average of 50 teams a year with 25 to 30 of those being handled by our LCMS missionary coordinators and the rest through RSO partners such as the Belize Mission Society, Ysleta, and MOST. We are grateful for these partnerships with our RSOs at our FOROs and their collaboration in placing their teams in proximity to our church plants. Special thanks to Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, and Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, for sending nearly 100 seminarians and deaconess students to the Dominican Republic for three consecutive years for mission education on short-term teams. Likewise, through an initiative by the Office of the President, 10 new district presidents were in the Dominican Republic in 2025 with Rev.

Dr. Cory Rajek to learn of the work of LCMS Mission around the world and how to partner with her in her worldwide work.

New Lutheran church plants in the past three years are found in Choluteca, Honduras; Havana, Cuba; San Juan, Puerto Rico;

Tijuana, Mexico; Chetumal, Mexico; San Pedro Peralta, Mexico;