Brand new church planters gather together with experienced home missionaries for a Church Planter Intensive at Carbon Valley Lutheran Church in Firestone, Colo. Experienced church planter Jared Oldenburg (Eternal Rock – Castle Rock, Colo.) developed the program and Home Missionary Matt Rothe (The Way – Fredericksburg, Va.) now leads the training. This extended weekend seminar encourages and equips pastors who are called to plant brand new home mission churches. The purpose of this event is to:

  • Talk through church planting principals.
  • Be a sounding board to new missionaries and their unique situations.
  • Give the missionary a chance to think about all aspects of starting a church.
  • Encourage the missionary to make decisions and plans based on the core group, community, and location God has placed him. In other words, don’t copy, but instead learn to lead intuitively.
  • Help the missionary establish some big picture benchmarks/activities.
  • Offer encouragement by openly sharing what it’s like to be a church planter.
  • Provide the opportunity for a new missionary to network with other missionaries.

After the intensive, new church planters are paired with a coach from an established mission church to guide them for their first two years of launching a new church. Home Missionary Joel Schulz (Divine Savior – Delray Beach, Fla.) leads that portion of the program.

Both the Church Planter Intensive and the coaching program are sponsored and encouraged by WELS Home Missions.

“As much as Church Planter Intensive was able to ground me, set our ministry on a good path, and send us out with valuable information, the coaching program is now my lifeline in an ongoing way. My coach is the most-accessible avenue to bounce ideas off, get input from, and help me grow as a pastor.”

WELS Church Extension Fund (CEF), a valuable partner of WELS Home Missions, supports the spread of the gospel by providing loans and grants to WELS home mission congregations. They provide home mission churches a 4-to-1 matching grant for initial land purchase based on their 10% down payment as well as a 2-to-1 matching grant on a home mission congregation’s 10% down payment for their facility construction project. Learn more at wels.net/cef.

District mission boards (DMBs) and home mission churches are supported by three home mission counselors. They work with the DMBs to find, evaluate, and develop new home mission locations. They also provide onsite assistance to home mission congregations and counseling and training to the new missionaries who are called to serve them. This support is crucial in guiding mission churches on the way to becoming self-supporting congregations. WELS Home Missions also works with three specialized mission counselors that assist congregations with Hispanic, Asian, and Campus Ministry outreach.

Meet the Mission Counselors

 

Rev. Mark Birkholz has served as a Mission Counselor for WELS Home Missions since 2007. He currently supports the efforts of the Dakota/Montana, Minnesota, Western Wisconsin, Michigan, North Atlantic, and the eastern half of WELS Canada district mission boards.

Birkholz graduated from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in 1983 and was assigned to start a new mission church in Northeast Denver. Over the course of 23 years, that mission grew and opened an elementary and preschool, became a key player in forming a federation of congregations that eventually opened Rocky Mountain Lutheran High School, and partnered with Home Missions in opening three daughter congregations. In 2006/2007, Birkholz served at Grace Lutheran Church in Grenada before accepting the call to be Mission Counselor.

Birkholz and his wife, Lin, have been married since 1981. They have four children, three of whom are married, and seven grandchildren. Their kids reside in San Diego, Calif.; Denver, Colo.; Indianapolis, Ind.; and Minocqua, Wis. They currently reside in Sioux Falls, S.D.

Rev. Matt Vogt has served as a Mission Counselor for WELS Home Missions since 2018. He currently works with five districts—South Central, Nebraska, Colorado, Pacific Northwest, and the western half of WELS Canada—and around 70 mission fields/congregations.

Vogt graduated from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in 1997 and was assigned to plant a new church in Las Vegas, Nev. (Water of Life). During his 20 years in Las Vegas, he and Water of Life daughtered a second congregation in northwest Las Vegas (Shepherd of the Hills), trained pastors for and assisted in starting both a Korean ministry and an African immigrant/refugee ministry, started a preschool/kindergarten, and explored a new world mission field in Liberia. He served for several years as chairman of the Arizona-California district mission board and as a member of the WELS Board for Home Missions and its Executive Committee.

Vogt and his wife, Kelli, have been blessed with two sons, Noah and Caleb, and still call Las Vegas home. Kelli is a public-school teacher and tutor. Noah, recently married to Hannah, is serving his vicar year in Smyrna, Tenn. Caleb is a project manager at a Las Vegas-based construction firm.  

Rev. Wayne Uhlhorn has served as a Mission Counselor for WELS Home Missions since 2021. He currently supports the efforts of the Arizona-California, Northern Wisconsin, Southeastern Wisconsin, and South Atlantic district mission boards. He works with the four district mission boards to research, help launch, and counsel new home mission churches.

Uhlhorn has served four congregations in his 32 years of ministry: St. Paul’s in Valley City, N.D.; Atonement in Baltimore, Md.; Fount of Life in Colorado Springs, Colo.; and Beautiful Saviour in Carlsbad, Calif. Fount of Life was a mission restart and during his 15 years there, they were blessed to be able to explore Hispanic outreach, start a preschool, and launch a new mission church in northeast Colorado Springs. He also previously served as chairman of the Colorado district mission board (nine years), Board for Home Missions executive committee member (nine years), and chairman of the Board for Home Missions (five years).

Uhlhorn and his wife, Daneen, have been married since 1989. They have four adult children (two of whom are married) and four grandchildren. They currently reside in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Rev. Tim Flunker has served WELS Home Missions as the Hispanic Outreach Consultant since 2009. He helps congregation throughout the United States that are already doing Hispanic outreach as well as new congregations who are looking for advice and counsel as to how to begin Hispanic outreach. By God’s grace, 18 locations have weekly worship services in Spanish and another five locations offer Bible classes in Spanish.

Flunker grew up in Puerto Rico, where his father served as a missionary. It was there where he learned Spanish. Upon graduation from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, Flunker served in Flower Mound, Tex., for six years; Mexico City, Mexico, for three years; and Green Bay, Wis., for six years. In Green Bay he began work as a consultant in ethnic minority ministries, serving the districts in the state of Wisconsin and focusing on Spanish ministry.

Flunker and his wife Terri have been blessed with three children: Charles, Amelia, and Michael; and three grandchildren: Zooey, Isaak, and Ava.

Rev. Dan Lindner serves as the WELS Campus Ministry Mission Counselor. He partners with a variety of individuals, groups, and institutions to serve college-age students. He works to strengthen and support existing campus ministries, partners with WELS high schools in their encouragement to students (both domestic and international) to connect with a campus ministry, works with congregations to start and maintain active campus ministry programs, and equips domestic and international students to share their faith with family and friends wherever they call home. He also partners with district mission boards as they explore planting new churches where colleges would be part of the mission field.

Lindner spent his vicar year at Cristo Glorificado in Puebla, Mexico. Prior to his current call, he served as a tutor at Nebraska Evangelical Lutheran High School, a parish pastor at St. John’s in Minneapolis, Minn., and the campus pastor for True North Campus Ministry in the Twin Cities.

Lindner and his wife, Heidi, live in Minneapolis, Minn. She is a teacher at a Hmong Charter School in St. Paul, Minn.

Rev. Neil Birkholz was called by the WELS Joint Mission Council in 2020 to serve as Asian Ministry Coordinator. He supports WELS outreach efforts that take place in Asian cross-cultural situations and coordinates the WELS Diaspora Ministry Facilitator program that helps build connections between home and world mission efforts. This program assigns a stateside pastor to every World Mission team overseas. This stateside pastor helps facilitate connections and outreach between people-groups in North America and their home country. Birkholz also works with the Pastoral Studies Institute as they train non-traditional students who are uniquely equipped to serve in Asian outreach situations. He encourages them through their studies while also helping identify their local mission fields where they can serve while taking classes.

Before graduating from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, Birkholz served with Kingdom Workers in Brazil (six months) and with Friends of China (two years). Upon graduating in 2014, he was assigned to the WELS World Mission field in East Asia where he served until 2020 when he accepted his current call.

Birkholz, his wife Becky, and children Caleb, Malachi, Noah, and Kaia currently reside in San Diego, Calif. Becky teaches at 7-8 grade at Reformation in San Diego, Calif. Because of their location in San Diego and the outreach efforts of Reformation, the Birkholz family continues to have opportunities to connect with many Asian people in the local setting.

 

Download and share PDFs of all Mission Counselor biographies at wels.net/missioncounselorbios.

District mission boards (DMB) are the heart and core of Home Missions. They are the “boots on the ground” as they support existing home mission churches and work with area congregations to identify locations to plant new churches throughout their district. This group of 2-4 pastor and 2-4 laymen volunteers helps build a solid foundation for each new mission start and shepherds these new churches and their pastors on their path from starting a new mission to being a self-supporting church. The DMB serves as a critical link between three distinct groups:

  1. Individual home mission churches in their district – DMB members are assigned specific home mission churches to “shepherd” in their district. This includes providing advice and encouragement to the missionary, his family, and church members; assisting them as they look to receive ongoing financial support from Home Missions; and connecting these young churches and missionaries to resources that help them carry out their mission.
  2. The WELS Missions Office – DMBs work with core groups in their district to put together the necessary research and paperwork needed for a formal new start or enhancement request to the Board for Home Missions. They are responsible for prioritizing and submitting these requests for consideration. They also work with existing home mission churches as they submit requests for ongoing financial support from the Board for Home Missions.
  3. Congregations and leadership of their district – DMBs are the voice of Home Missions in their district. Members report to various conferences, conventions, and rallies to share news about Home Missions and encourage a mission mindset within their district. They are also alert to mission opportunities and proactively seek partners to help make the most of those opportunities.

When all is said and done, DMBs develop ongoing relationships to encourage the mission and missionary as they carry out the great commission and facilitate the God-pleasing efforts that are made to reach lost people with the good news of Jesus.