Mission Partners

Redeemer Lutheran Church

Redeemer Lutheran Church,1800 Glenwood Ave. N., Minneapolis, is a multi cultural worshipping community which reaches out to its neighborhood with various community services. Among them is the Peace Palace, an adjacent building with athletic, computer, recording facilities for community youth and adults to enter into positive creative relationships and activities.

Email address: www.redeemermpls.org

Hmong Central Lutheran Church

Hmong Central Lutheran Church, 301 Fuller Ave., just west of the state capitol in St. Paul, is the largest Hmong Lutheran congregation in the world, and has about 140 in Sunday worship. Special events during the year (Thanksgiving, Christmas The Hmong New Year, Valentines' Day, Graduation, and Easter) all provide excellent fellowship and outreach times for the congregation. Hmong egg rolls are a favorite at Christ the Kings and Hmong Youth provide them for us at various times during the year.

At 4 a.m., the second Sunday of each month, youth and the young couples of Hmong Central Lutheran Church, St Paul, begin preparing six to eight hundred egg rolls for Christ the King Lutheran Church in New Brighton, MN. By 8:30 a.m., the smell of egg rolls greets Christ the King members and guests as they come to worship. By the end of the third service, all the egg rolls are sold at $1.00 each. Funds raised have sponsored Hmong youth and young couples on mission trips, retreats and the refurbishing of the youth room at Hmong Central.

This is just one of several activities that bind these two congregations in a Mission Partner commitment of Prayer, Presence and Presents, the three hallmarks of the Mission Partner ministry of the ELCA. Hmong Central is located near the center of the city of St. Paul which has one of the largest Hmong populations in the United States, all of them refugees after the Vietnam War. Christ the King is a two thousand member mostly Caucasian congregation in a first ring suburb of St. Paul.

Once a month, Vern Rice, retired pastor and chair Local Mission Partners for the St. Paul Area Synod and Christ the King, mentors Pastor William Siong of Hmong Central. They pray together and talk over the challenges of ministering with the one hundred seventy to three hundred Hmong who worship at Hmong Central. For two years Pastor Rice has helped Pastor Siong teach a seminary inter-cultural interim, and this past year, led a Hmong Central church council retreat on growth in faith and stewardship.

Every year Hmong Central brings a Hmong Fellowship Meal (with all the Hmong delicacies) to about one hundred Christ the King members and guests. Along with Hmong dancing and music, they bring speakers who tell about their road to Christianity, their church's current mission and their life in the world where many of them are getting advanced degrees, going to seminary and

increasingly are doing well in the business world. Usually a Christ the King music group also sings for the Fellowship meal. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans matches the money raised, resulting in about $1600 for Hmong Central’s ministry.

Last year a Christ the King family helped Pastor William and his wife Chou with financial assistance during the premature birth of their daughter. Recently the Christ the King Foundation gave a $1000 grant for their growing young couples' ministry at Hmong Central.

Pastor Rice says, “We pray for each other regularly. We love each other and rely on each other for inspiration and help. Many people in both congregations cherish our relationship and have experienced what the theologian Emil Brunner said: ‘The Church exists by mission as a fire exists by burning!’”

Why do we work with these ministries?

GUIDED BY THE GOSPEL: GATHERING • GROWING • GIVING