by Roland Lovstad “We envisioned a training center that would partner with the Missouri District, a center that would touch areas of rural and small-town ministry but also assist professional church workers and lay leaders wherever they need assistance in ministry.” That’s how Dr. Ralph Geisler describes the Saint Paul Institute for Education (SPIFE). Geisler,

Read an exclusive profile of Concordia, Irvine, student Kelly Warneke and comments by Concorida, Portland, graduate Lynn James about the benefits of a Concordia education. Also, read observations from ‘Kit’ Nagel, assistant professor of business at Concordia, Bronxville, on teaching as a ‘second career.’

A growing number of congregations see a need for outreach help, and “The 72–Partners on the Road” are ready to lend a hand.

Everybody who rode out the May 4 tornado in Greensburg, Kan., has a story. And many of those stories reflect a strong Christian faith.

Opportunities for telling the Good News abound—even when we’re busy with our hobbies.

Packing for international travel–especially if it’s a mission trip–is no easy task. But when Christine and Aaron Ferber, members of Immanuel Lutheran Church in St. Charles, Mo., traveled to Honduras to work at a Christian orphanage for five weeks, they decided to take both the Old and New Testament Growing in Christ posters with them.

Each Growing in Christ poster provides the text of the Bible story, which is printed in English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, and Russian on the poster’s reverse side. “So often in these faraway lands the people cannot read their own language, thus a picture is truly worth a thousand words,” says Deaconess Pamela Nielsen, senior

 by James Heine Over KFUO’s eight decades of service to the LCMS, more than a few readers of The Lutheran Witness may have passed through its doors on a tour, observes Dennis Stortz, director of broadcast operations for the radio station. Many of those tours have been organized by LWML or LLL groups, other parish

by James Heine “I love classical music, and I love CLASSIC99,” says Karen Andersen, a member of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Olivette, a suburb of St. Louis. “Music has always been a big part of my life, and CLASSIC99 provides something that’s available nowhere else. Every radio in our house—and I think we have five