The missing piece of the puzzle

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‘When you talk to Lutheran people, you see that they have deep faith and great love for God’, Anna Kroehn says. ‘But they haven’t had the confidence to share it.’

She says that for a lot of Lutherans, a piece of the puzzle is missing.

‘When you were baptised, the Spirit came to you – you have the Spirit in you. It’s not you who needs to share this message; it’s the Spirit of God in you that will enable you to go and share. We need to change our thinking towards a willingness to participate with the Spirit.’

A member of the Lutheran church at Waikerie in South Australia, Anna is the chairperson of the LCA Committee for New & Renewing Churches. One way that she participates with the Spirit is through her congregation’s monthly Messy Church.

Speaking to one of the mothers who attends Messy Church, Anna realised that their children’s-ministry outreach had unintentionally transformed into becoming a space that people were owning as their church.

‘That calls you to a whole new level of spiritual care and discipleship, and an invitation to helping others walk closer to Jesus the rest of the month between Messy Churches.’

She says there will come a time when they won’t be able to keep up with what the Spirit is going in people’s lives. ‘Our hope is that it will be so big and unexpected that we can’t control it, and we’ll have to keep learning new ways to support people.’

‘It’s the Spirit of God who will grow the church, and we’re just trying to keep up with supporting and resourcing as best as we can.’

This is the fourth of six stories about LCA church planters to coincide with the Season of Prayer. You can view the video story at the Story of the Week webpage www.staging.lca.org.au/sow

For promotion resources for the Season of the Prayer, go to www.staging.lca.org.au/new-and-renewing and for worship resources, go to www.staging.lca.org.au/worship/wpp

• Visit www.staging.lca.org.au/spread-the-word to find promotional materials (bulletin inserts, A5 flyers, PowerPoint slides and social media posts) to help you spread the word about our Story of the Week.

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