Audio sermon by Dr. Gemechis Buba on April 27, 2014, at Faith Lutheran Church. We were honored to have Dr. Buba with us this weekend, and we invite you to listen to his message. The gospel lesson was Luke 24:45-53. (The message starts about 20 seconds into the recording.)
Imagine this: You are in a congregation that began less than 20 years ago. You started with 368 members and are now well over 7,000. In this brief history you have already given birth to fifteen congregations and send out nearly 60 evangelists in your city (a largely Muslim region) and across the country. You are in your third 5-year strategic plan and have the intention of giving birth to 10 more congregations within the next five years. You are even expecting to send missionaries to troubled lands like Somalia and South Sudan.
This is our new and inspiring partner, the Tabor Congregation from Ethiopia, from whom we will receive more than we will give. We pray this partnership will call forth others within our denominational body, Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC), and congregations and synods of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY). A delegation of 11 people from the Augustana District (including Faith Lutheran’s Pastor Paul Knudson) visited Tabor in January, and brought back with them excitement for this new partnership.
Stay tuned, and you will see marvelous mission endeavors multiplied through the power of the Holy Spirit working within and among us.
The Augustana District’s Board of World Missions has actively sought a way to meaningfully connect with the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY), the fourth-largest Lutheran church in the world. They believe they found it through a developing connection with the Tabor congregation in the city of Hawassa, Ethiopia.
This exciting congregation has grown from 368 members in 1996, to 6168 members in 2010. Even more impressively, the Tabor Congregation deploys 53 evangelists, and to-date has established 13 new EECMY congregations in the region – even in areas that are predominantly Muslim. It is this evangelistic ministry that most excites our Board of World Missions.
We are pleased to announce that between 11 and 14 people from Augustana District churches (from Wisconsin, Minnesota, and South Dakota) will be travelling to Hawassa this January 9-19, 2014. Their purpose is to further explore the possibilities of an active relationship with the Tabor Congregation and its outreach and evangelistic ministries.
Pastor Paul Knudson from Faith Lutheran will lead a delegation of ten or more volunteers to forge a partnership in witness between the Augustana District and the 7,000-member Tabor Congregation. Pray for this endeavor that all the final plans will fall into place and the Spirit will use this time so that our Lord’s Kingdom work will be strengthened mightily through this partnership.
Acts 1:8 will direct all that develops. In this verse Jesus before his ascension declares: “You will receive power when the Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Questions about this trip? Contact the church office at 587-2093 or email Pastor Paul Knudson.
Have you ever felt called to mission work overseas? The Augustana District is sending a delegation to Ethiopia to develop a partnership in mission with the Tabor Congregation in the southern city of Hawassa.
This mission trip is scheduled for January 9-19 and is intended to be a time for us to be inspired for witness by this dynamic community of Christians as we determine how we can walk with them in their mission. Read full information about this mission trip, and find an application form here.
Pastor Paul Knudson from Faith Lutheran Church is coordinating the trip and would love for one or two from Faith Lutheran to join him and several others on this mission venture. Applications for the trip are due by Sept. 15. Speak with Pastor Paul if you have interest in exploring this opportunity. 320-587-2093, [email protected].
My journey to Ethiopia created life-long memories. If this trip was for personal inspiration, it would likely be but a fading memory by now. That, however, was never the reason I gave time and treasure to travel over 7,000 miles to a distant land.
This journey for me came from a sense of calling by God to give some form of leadership to an ever-so-important future partnership with one of this world’s fastest growing churches. The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY), from its beginning in 1959 with 20,000 members until today with over 5.8 million members, has had a passion for reaching the lost for Jesus Christ. Their witness has always reached out to the poor and needy by addressing the needs of body and soul. They without apology have led with an evangelical witness calling people to faith in Jesus Christ.
For many years the EECMY was in partnership with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, but the actions of the ELCA in its 2009 decision to support the ordination of gay and lesbian pastors in committed relationships was a tipping point. In fact, for years this Ethiopian Church was not finding a partner in the ELCA that shared their deep commitment to bear witness to the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for all people. When the EECMY formally cut ties with the ELCA, they stepped out in faith that brothers and sisters in Christ in the Lutheran world wide family would stand with them in new partnerships.
To develop a new partnership was the reason why some twenty-five of us from Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ and the North American Lutheran Church journeyed to this distant land. It became clear from our eleven days with them that this would be a two-way partnership. Their clear witness empowered by the Holy Spirit humbled and inspired us, while their needs for our help were also shared and are many.
My personal role is one of seeking to provide informal leadership in developing multiple networks of partnerships. One of them will be a partnership between the Augustana District of LCMC, of which Faith Lutheran Church is a leading congregation, and the Central Synod of EECMY.
You can expect to hear more about this in the months ahead. Please feel free to contact me. I will be more than happy to share the story, pictures and how our Lord may be calling us to yet another time of bold witness.
Written by Pastor Paul Knudson. Pastor Paul is a part-time pastor at Faith Lutheran Church and a board member on the Augustana District Board of World Missions.
