Mission and Vision
Over the last several years, FLC has undertaken an ongoing discernment process related to our vision and mission. We want you to see the ways that our ministry emphases, as well as the major building project that was completed in 2006, have been shaped by our asking God to enlighten us with His mission for us.

Read the material below to see how The Church with the Heart in the Heart of Brainerd has been led by the Holy Spirit since 2000:

First Lutheran Vision and Goals (Jan., 2001)
Our Mission: To Make Christ Known
Our Mission’s Purpose: This is God’s call to us as Christians. As First Lutheran is an “evangelical” church, we are compelled to focus on reaching out to help all develop and grow in their relationship with Christ.

Our Vision for Achieving This Mission: We will make Christ known by focusing on the following areas—

• Enhance the diversity of the existing congregation (age and cultural backgrounds) while developing
  this same congregation to accomplish the vision for FLC. Enhancement of diversity would include:
  Providing multigenerational social activities for all to participate in and invite neighborhood to attend
  Providing and encouraging participation in adult Bible education which will give congregation
  the background and tools to reach out with and accomplish our vision
• Provide a warm, welcoming, healthy atmosphere at FLC so that all God’s people will feel at home
  and part of God’s family
• Grow our youth ministry for youth of all ages. Give youth a healthy, Christian alternative to the
  negative pressures in the world that pull them away from their walk with Christ.
  Capitalize on church’s proximity to five area schools and provide after-school activities
  Provide activities on Sunday for youth of all ages
  Provide space for youth centered activities
• Provide uplifting, gospel-centered, Scripture-driven worship services with good music

First Lutheran Mission Statement (2002)
So that all may know Jesus Christ, we are a community of faith, equipping disciples to be Spirit-led witnesses and loving servants in God’s world

Building Project Vision and Goals (2004)
Our God’s Church With a Heart in the Heart of Brainerd building project will focus on providing additional facility space for the following areas of need and outreach:

• Care and Compassion for Vulnerable People—Programs and space that reach out to those who are
  in urgent and ongoing need will be a mark of our growing ministry in the downtown Brainerd core. Special emphasis will be given to better living out God’s call to us to be a people of compassion, outreach and sensitivity toward those who are in genuine need in their lives
• Expanded Youth Ministry—While our youth ministry programming has expanded greatly in the
  recent past, we have run out of space in which to operate this ministry and grow it. Youth are both the church of today as well as the church of tomorrow. Space specifically designed for and dedicated to youth will be a mark of this project’s purpose
• Ministries Toward Health and Wholeness for All People—We live in a time when we have taken
  our physical health for granted. As a result, our spiritual sense of wholeness has suffered as well. Programs, space and ministry for all age groups will focus on us, as God’s people, being stronger stewards of the bodies, spirits, souls and minds God has given us so that we can celebrate new health and wholeness in ourselves, congregation and community. A spirit of grace, hospitality, forgiveness and generosity will be the mark of this project as it influences us

Mission Statement Focus (2005)
As our First Lutheran vision and mission statement work has developed over the last five years, in 2005 we focused our congregation’s mission statement so that it could be easily captured in our memories and succinctly reflect our ongoing mission as a Christian community of faith. We ask all members and participants at First Lutheran to let this mission be reflected in the living of their own lives of faith.

Our First Lutheran mission as a congregation of Jesus’ disciples is:
Learning the Faith + Being Community + Living as Servants