New position to support Home and World Missions
Filed Under: Home Missions, Missions, World Missions
In a move designed to improve operational efficiency and effectiveness, one administrator of operations is now serving both the offices of WELS Home and World Missions.
Mr. Melvin Schuler began serving as the director of missions operations July 1. It is a new position under the auspices of the Joint Mission Council, a coordinating group authorized by both mission boards and ratified by the Synodical Council. Schuler is a partner with the pastoral administrators of the two boards—Rev. Harold Hagedorn of Home Missions and Rev. Dan Koelpin of World Missions.
Hagedorn says with one director of operations for both boards, "all mission fields can concentrate on doing their gospel outreach and ministry."
Schuler served for the past seven years as the associate administrator for Home Missions. For nearly 30 years prior to that he held a variety of positions with the Halifax Corporation, including vice president of the communication division. One of his biggest challenges now, he says, is that both Home and World Missions have different philosophies of ministry. "We'll need to bridge that in some shape or fashion," he says.
Schuler sites one example in particular. He points out that Home Missions generally helps plant congregations with the goal they become self-supporting. World Missions looks to identify potential national pastors in foreign countries with the goal of training them so they can lead their own church bodies. But those differences don't faze him. "I'm always looking for a challenge," he says.
