In our November Congregational meeting, I unveiled our vision for the next few years, which we are calling “Bridging the Gap.” Here’s the statement for that vision once again:

    Over the next seven years, we envision a church that builds meaningful connections across generations, using technology to BRIDGE THE GAP and reach our community. Through these relationships, we will plant seeds of the timeless Gospel, trusting God to bring forth His harvest in the right season.

    In that same meeting, I also made a side statement that we would not be looking for another Director of Christian Education (DCE) intern or calling a DCE from the field in the near future. I didn’t go into a lot of detail at the meeting so let me explain this decision here. There are two main reasons that led me and the Church Council to arrive at this conclusion.

    The first reason has to do with the demographics of our congregation. Right now, we have about 550 baptized members at Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church. Of those 550, about 440 aren’t confirmed. That means that there are roughly 100 children in our congregation in 8th grade and under. There are another 25 or so that are high school aged. This is the population that a DCE would work with in the education ministries of our church. At first blush, it seems like this would be more than enough for a DCE to work with, but there’s more to the story.

    To say that there are 100 children of our congregation is a bit misleading. Many of these are really grandchildren of our congregation. Over the past few years, many of you have done a great job making sure your grandchildren are brought to the font to receive the washing and adoption that Holy Baptism brings. But many of these children have returned to homes that are not in or near Indianola and left their membership here. For example, our Ruth Circle generously provides Bibles for children entering 3rd Grade. In 2024, when we examined the list of children entering 3rd Grade, half to two-thirds of these students did not live in our area.       Another example is our Wednesday LIFE class. Last year we had 15-20 students at both LIFE and confirmation classes. This year that number has dropped to about 10… most of them coming from only three or four families. We effectively have one class for LIFE on Wednesdays and one class for Sunday School. All this points to a declining need for a full-time staff person in youth and children’s ministry. 

    The second reason for this decision is financial. Ever since Mt. Calvary has had DCE interns and full-time DCE’s, we didn’t have to pay two full-time salaries and benefits until 2023. For many years between about 2017 and 2023, our DCE vacancies and internships have been staggered with a nine-month pastoral vacancy. In 2024, we struggled to meet the demands of two salaries, dipping into some cash reserves to do so. As the Church Council prepared the budget for 2026, a realistic look at our offerings and the cost of a second full-time church worker showed that it wasn’t good stewardship to add another full-time staff person. We’re still exploring the possibility of hosting interns, but there’s more to that discussion than just finances.

 These are the hard facts of where Mt. Calvary is in this year of our Lord 2026. We don’t have as many children and young families as we used to have. Many of the children that are members don’t live near our church. And our offerings don’t support calling an intern or fully-fledged DCE right now. 

    However, I believe that both these things can change. Our community is filled with young families and, statistically, many of them probably don’t have a church home. These young families are looking for the same thing we are: relationships. They want to know that they are loved and cared for just like we do. The challenge is that these younger families don’t communicate in the same ways that we do. That means we have to find new ways to get the Word to them… but that’s an article for next month.

    For now, there are two steps we can take to Bridge the Gap to calling another DCE. First, we must pray to the Lord of the harvest that He would increase our vision so that we might sow more seeds in our community for Him to gather. Second, we must examine our own stewardship of the gifts God has given us. Are we shepherding our children and grandchildren as we should? Are we responding faithfully with the time, talent, and treasure that God has given us?      

   In Christ,

                                                                           Pastor Tom Vanderbilt