ELCA Mission Builders Plan Seven Construction Projects for 2004

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Mission Builders of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) plan to build or remodel at
seven church sites in as many states this year. Dean Hiner,
North Platte, Neb., program director, said 32 builders will be
working on five projects this summer but two more workers are
needed for a project in Oregon.
Mission Builders is a program of the ELCA Division for
Outreach.
There are currently 97 Mission Builders, including 23 new
builders, Hiner said. The other 74 have worked a combined total
of 345 projects. Eighteen have worked only one construction
project; three have each worked 14 sites.
"A total of 716 Mission Builders have been involved in
helping 119 congregations since Mission Builders started in
1986," Hiner said.
Builders work alongside members of the building congregation
and subcontractors. They have also worked on several Lutheran
Disaster Response projects following hurricanes, floods and other
natural disasters.
Mission Builders are Christians with considerable
construction skills and other "handy" folks helping
congregations, schools and camps of the ELCA build their
facilities. Most are retired, but others take an extended
vacation with their families, willing to share their skills and
faith and to work for minimum wage.
Mission Builders is planning construction projects at seven
sites in 2004:
+ Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Daphne, Ala.
+ Our Savior Lutheran Church, Twin Falls, Idaho
+ Hawarden American Lutheran Church, Hawarden, Iowa
+ King of Kings Lutheran Church, New Windsor, N.Y.
+ St. Paul Lutheran Church, Ontario, Ore.
+ Lutherhill Camp and Retreat Center, La Grange, Texas
+ Trinity Lutheran Church, Cumberland, Wis.
Hiner noted the tentative nature of construction planning.
Weather, local road and sewer construction, and any number of
variables may change these plans, he said. Construction at the
Alabama and Texas sites is to begin later in the year; the other
projects are set to begin this spring.
Twenty-one Mission Builders worked on four projects
completed in 2003:
+ Trinity Lutheran Church, Hillsdale, Mich.
+ El Instituto, ELCA Southwest Texas Synod, (Mision Luterana San
Pablo) Weslaco, Texas
+ Bethesda Lutheran Church, Bayfield, Wis.
+ Christ Community Lutheran Church, Green Bay, Wis.
"With encouragement and financial assistance from the
Mission Builders, the Mission Investment Fund has produced a new
video, 'Designing Effective Church Buildings,' that is available
without charge to any congregation planning a building program
any time in the future," Hiner said. "In less than eleven
minutes, Mission Investment Fund staff architect Peter Norgren
points out the most important things to consider in the designing
of a church," he said.
The video is available from Mission Builders or the Mission
Investment Fund. Web sites of the ELCA Division for Outreach --
http://www.elca.org/do/opportunities.html -- or the Mission
Investment Fund -- http://www.elca.org/mif/ -- provide computer
versions of the video.
The Mission Investment Fund offers investment opportunities
to ELCA congregations, their members, and ELCA-affiliated
institutions such as colleges, universities and social-service
agencies. With the invested monies the Fund makes loans to ELCA
mission congregations for purchases of land and construction of
initial church units, and to established ELCA congregations for
renovating or expanding existing facilities, relocations and
purchases of land. Nearly 500 loans are in effect throughout the
United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
More than one-third of the ELCA's 10,721 congregations,
thousands of individual Lutherans and numerous ELCA-affiliated
institutions are investors in the Fund.
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Information about Mission Builders is linked to
http://www.elca.org/do/missionbuilders/ on the ELCA Web site.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org
http://www.elca.org/news