June 2017
Life ministry has become an established ongoing mission of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’s Northern Illinois District. Educating people about life issues and providing opportunities to put faith into action is the dual focus. Established in 2015 by District President Dan Gilbert, a Life Task Force was given the broad assignment of creating a pro-life climate within the district over a two-year period.
“We believe we have made strides in that arena,” said Deaconess Kristine Blackwell, who sits on the task force. “The 2017 March For Life Chicago featured several sizeable groups of LCMS Lutherans, including a bus load of suburban church members that we transported from a meeting point at Trinity Lutheran Church in Lisle. We united under a ‘Love Affirms Life’ banner, with many of us wearing red Lutherans For Life ball caps.”
The task force, overseen by Circuit Life Coordinator Rev. Dave Bottorff, also presented workshops on suicide prevention at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Mount Prospect and Immanuel Lutheran Church in Belvidere and a seminar on end of life issues at St. Peter Lutheran Church in Arlington Heights and Immanuel Lutheran Church in Mokena—all in northern Illinois.
The Life Task Force utilized district communication vehicles (the Northern Light, Parish Resource Connection and the New Starts New Believers Facebook page) and appointed pastoral circuit life counselors to get the word out about each event.
“Our success over the initial two-year assignment has moved us to continue our efforts,” Bottorff shared, “We’ll be educating pastors and their congregations about current topics, such as the dangerous trend by institutions to not allow health professionals to conscientiously object and abstain from tasks that violate their Christian beliefs. We’ll be sharing helpful resources. And we’ll be issuing calls to action to LCMS members throughout the district.”
“Currently we are calling on Lutherans to support their local crisis pregnancy center,” added Bottorff. He offered the following websites for locating faith-based pregnancy resource centers by zip code: care-net.org/find-a-pregnancy-center and heartbeatservices.org/worldwide-directory.
The Northern Illinois District Life Task Force has formally accepted the following mission statement: Affirming God’s Will to create and sustain mortal life in the anticipation of Life in Christ, The Northern Illinois District Life Task Force’s mission is to connect with church workers and their congregations by presenting unique educational and outreach opportunities about the reverence of life from conception though natural death.
For more information about opportunities for affirming life in your district LCMS congregation, contact your circuit life counselor or email Coordinator Dave Bottorff.