BOARD OF EVANGELISM

Evangelism is speaking the good news of God’s love for sinners. Jesus is Good News and He sets us free to live in His love and grace. Proclaiming and Serving Jesus Christ is an evangelical mission statement.

The Good News of Jesus’ love is to be shared. We share Jesus’ love with those who do not know God’s love. We share God’s love with those who knew, but have forgotten the warmth of God’s love. Finally, we share God’s love with those who know God’s love. As the old hymn, “I Love To Tell the Story” proclaims:

I love to tell the story, for those who know it best
Seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest

We strive to make our worship services warm and welcoming. We expect to have visitors worshiping with us on any given Sunday. If you visit, we hope you leave spiritually filled and we hope you will want to join us for worship again.

Evangelism is not done by a select group within the congregation and evangelism is not done primarily on Sunday mornings. Throughout the week, members of St. Stephen Lutheran are evangelists when at work and play they invite people they know to come worship at St. Stephen Lutheran. We are evangelists when we proclaim and serve Jesus Christ in our daily lives.

New Member classes are offered in September, November, January and April of each year. Membership classes consist of three sessions. The first session focuses on what it means to be a Lutheran Christian. The second and third sessions focus on six characteristics of Christian discipleship. We use Michael Foss’s book, Real Faith for Real Life: Living the Six Marks of Discipleship for our discussion.

Some of the missions/ministries we financially support include:

  • an ELCA missionary overseas
  • Rev. K. K. Alavi in India
  • House of Hope in Marshall, MN
  • Shetek Lutheran Bible Camp
  • Lutheran Campus Ministry, Southwest Minnesota State University, Marshall, MN
  • Lutheran Social Services

We also strive to reach out through social media. Facebook and Blogger are a couple of ways we try to bring our ministry to people every day of the week.