School of Urban Ministry- (SUM) Is a year-long course "Teaching Christian Leaders to Build Ministries Cross-Culturally in the City." Over 300 people have attended SUM in its first 14 years. It meets every Monday night for one school year, 6:30-9:30 at St. Paul’s. Using a variety of experiential teaching styles and experiences, it gives students an understanding of cultures, how to effectively cross cultural borders, to be at ease in the city, to build ministries, to understand world religions, to write grant proposals, and gives students a basic understanding of the challenges of the city, like chemical dependency, prostitution, immigration law and more. Students actually create a plan to build a ministry to reach a people group in the city who have not had access to the Gospel. It currently is listed as a course in four local college catalogues, but any adult may take the class. The tuition is very inexpensive.
The Urban Cross-Cultural College Consortium (U4C) is a new visionary urban cross-cultural ministry major offered jointly by Concordia University-St. Paul, Crown College, Northwestern College and St. Paul’s church. Students take SUM as their intro to the city in their sophomore year. Their junior year is resident in the city, where they live, take all 36 credits of their major sequence, and serve a 10-hour per week mentored internship. The program began in the fall of ’06.
SUM and U4C were recognized by a 2006 Lausanne Occasional Paper as one of six global models for training the next generation.
MissionShift DVD Series-- This video series was created to wake up the American Church to the opportunity and responsibility all around her as the God sends tens of millions of new immigrants into our midst. Right now the Twin Cities have over 700,000 new international immigrants! Presenters in the video series include many local pastors and experts, such as Jin Kim, Efrem Smith, Patricia Fenrick, David Fenrick, John Mayer, Roland Wells and national writer Patty Lane. The video series has been purchased by over congregations this in less than a year.This video series was created to wake up the American Church to the opportunity and responsibility all around her as the God sends tens of millions of new immigrants into our midst. Right now the Twin Cities have over 700,000 new international immigrants! Presenters in the video series include many local pastors and experts, such as Jin Kim, Efrem Smith, Patricia Fenrick, David Fenrick, John Mayer, Roland Wells and national writer Patty Lane. The video series has been used by hundreds of congregations, training programs, non-profits and colleges since the fall of 2007.
-TO WATCH MISSIONSHIFT PREVIEW ON YOU TUBE CLICK HERE-
St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church – a 135-year old legacy congregation in downtown Minneapolis. St. Paul’s has a long history of involvement in world missions and secondary education. Its members are spread across a 60-mile-wide circle of the Twin Cities Metro. Ninety years ago it helped found the Lutheran Bible Institute, (LBI) which then created four daughter schools in Teaneck, NJ, Seattle, LA, and Camrose, Alberta, Canada. First generation graduates of LBI in turn created Bethany Fellowship and its worldwide mission, the World Mission Prayer League, the Latin American Lutheran Mission, the Lutheran Colportage Service and the Lutheran Evangelistic Movement. The Lutheran revival created by those young people ran from the 1920’s through the 1970’s.
Since 1988 Pastor Wells has worked to re-establish St. Paul’s vision and ministry, once again focusing on world missions and education. St. Paul’s is a Training Congregation for Luther Seminary, and has mentored over 60 future evangelical pastors in the Lutheran church. In the past 15 years, St. Paul’s has developed the School of Urban Ministry (SUM), the Urban Cross-Cultural Consortium (U4C) and now the MissionShift Video Series. Pastor Wells has served St. Paul’s since 1988.
