Reaching out in Morristown
While Living Promise Lutheran Church is less than a year old, it already boasts a rich history of God’s gracious intervention. It all began when two retired couples were looking to relocate from the Midwest to eastern Tennessee. Wanting to be close to a WELS church, they discovered Living Word Lutheran Church, which was close to Johnson City. So they began searching for affordable retirement homes in the area. It wasn’t until the first couple was closing on their property that they discovered the town in which they 
bought their house, Jefferson City, wasn’t the same town the church was near, Johnson City. Oops!
Now faced with an hour and 15-minute drive one way, the two couples started carpooling with one other Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) member to Living Word on Sunday mornings. Their enthusiasm for the gospel, together with the encouragement of Pastor Tom Kock of Living Word, led to a preaching station in Morristown. Every week for three years either Pastor Kock or a vicar would make the long drive to Morristown. This group of Christians then approached the WELS Board for Home Missions asking to become an exploratory mission field. WELS did feasibility and demographic studies of the area, but results were not favorable, ranking them low on the priority list. Morristown was only a community of 25,000 and already had 153 churches in the area. Meanwhile the core group was growing, and they didn’t take no for an answer. Each year they sent a new request to WELS, and finally in July of 2011 Living Promise Lutheran Church in Morristown, TN was born.
First-year Pastor Matt Westra began his ministry with 12 members. In five short months worship attendance grew to nearly 30, with hopes of increasing to 50 by the end of next year, if not sooner. Westra finds that old school evangelism works the best in Morristown–knocking on doors and inviting people to church. Members are inviting their relatives and friends. Westra has already witnessed prospects inviting other prospects to church. The president of the congregation calls this method of outreach the Come and See Approach. Once visitors “come and see” the message, they are intrigued, because they’ve never heard a message like this before.
Even though there are so many churches in Morristown, none of them preach about an unconditional Jesus. People are told they aren’t good enough for Jesus. They have to live their life a certain way, look a certain way, act a certain way, and give a certain amount of money. There is so much legalism involved with church membership that the message of Jesus and forgiveness gets lost among the rules. “This is a friendly community that knows there is a God, they just don’t know much about him,” says Westra. “We want to preach an unconditional message of Jesus and forgiveness.”
Kingdom Workers is helping Living Promise by matching them with help from an Evangelism Mentoring Team (EMT). This program assists new mission congregations, existing missions, or even mission restarts. They meet with local city and government officials, teach members to fill leadership roles, help with outreach efforts and visitor follow up. The list of duties can vary at each location. Westra and the members of Living Promise are planning a launch weekend to introduce themselves to the community, while hoping to generate a prospect list. Plans include hosting a carnival complete with food, games, and activities, followed by an invitation to worship services the next day. The EMT volunteers will spend about a month prior to the launch date helping prepare for the event. In addition, other Kingdom Worker volunteers will help distribute flyers and door hangers in the community to raise awareness.
One last innovative concept at play is Bloomington Living Hope Lutheran Church with two campuses in Bloomington and one in Shakopee, MN. Having a heart for ministry and wanting to directly support mission work, the Bloomington church has decided to adopt Living Promise in Tennessee. Since this is a new program, not all the details are set in stone, but Bloomington is already making plans to send folks to help with man power at the carnival and possibly even send a praise band to be a part of the launch weekend.
As you can see, although Living Promise is still in its beginning stages, it is comforting to see the Lord’s hand at work, knowing that his will is directing it all.
