Ways to Give

Giving Opportunities 

Fund for Congregational Revitalization and Leadership Support

Listen to our congregations. You may hear the sounds of confusion and discouragement as they face declining membership and changing neighborhoods. Listen to our exhausted leaders, ordained and lay, who are pushed to their limits and need time to study and refresh themselves in order to inspire and support the ministry of their congregations.

The Fund for Congregational Revitalization and Leadership Support provides grants to congregations to help them assess their present ministry and develop a broader vision of their mission in light of changing communities. The grants also offer resources for lay leadership training and support sabbatical leaves for rostered leaders.

Fund for Ministry with Youth and Young Adults

Listen to youth and young adults. You will hear them calling for help in navigating their culture. Many children and teenagers spend the hours outside of school without family companionship or supervision. The plentiful temptations to fill that time are often destructive.

Many young people who grew up in the church have left it. Seventy percent of baptized and confirmed youth stop coming to church by age 21. Less than half of them return by the time they are 35. Those who do return to church in young adulthood often do not find a community that knows how to welcome and engage them in meaningful ways.

The Fund for Ministry with Youth and Young Adults makes grants available to congregations to conduct innovative programming that addresses the needs and spiritual development of this age group and that involves them as valued contributors to the church and community.

Fund for Urban and Multicultural Ministry

Listen to the urban and multicultural communities in New England that have historically been unconnected to our 97 percent white/European church. We want and need to incorporate the gifts and abilities of people from varied ethnic and cultural heritages in the ministry of the Lutheran church, in order to be the church that God is calling us to be.

The Fund for Urban and Multicultural Ministry has been created to fund programs that will assist in training leaders and providing arenas for multicultural conversation and community development. Your gift to this fund will assist in the transformation of the Lutheran church in New England as we seek to value all who want to know Jesus Christ and serve as he commanded.

Henry E. Horn Fund for Campus Ministry

Listen to students on the campuses of colleges. You will hear their searching for meaning in their lives. They want to make a difference in the world. A campus ministry community offers conversation and guidance to help them find their way, and connects them with the church.

Your gift will help us strengthen our Lutheran campus ministry in New England through the Henry E. Horn Fund for Campus Ministry, created to honor a true pioneer in ministry with young people in college.

 Reflection by Henry Horn on the 70th Anniversary of his Ordination given at the 2006 New England Synod Assembly

Mission Development Fund

Listen to the 40 percent of our population who have no relationship to a community of faith. Listen to the people within New England whose spiritual needs are not met by traditional congregations. Listen and you will know the great potential in New England for the creation of new faith communities. The Lutheran church can be strengthened by the creation of new congregations and ministries that will embody the unique and powerful witness of the Lutheran tradition and heritage.

The Mission Development Fund of the New England Synod provides financial assistance for the development of new congregation and other new ministry efforts, such as a satellite ministry of worship and/or Bible study offered by an existing congregation in a location within a few miles. This location may be showing new growth, often culturally specific. A satellite may become an independent congregation or it may continue as an ongoing branch of the existing congregation(s).

New England Synod Seminarian Scholarship Fund

Listen to those who hear the call of God to consider ordained or rostered leadership in the church. They face many questions. Not the least of these is: how will the cost of seminary be met?

Seminary costs are rising. Like other students, many seminarians take out educational loans. However, the salaries congregations are able to pay pastors and other rostered leaders, especially those in their first calls, are not always adequate to support timely repayment of their loans. The New England Synod Seminarian Scholarship Fund provides grants to students approved for seminary enrollment. Your gift to this Fund will make a difference in the future of our church as we provide for the education of new leaders.

LISTEN! GOD IS CALLING YOU to particiate in the ministry of the New England Synod through financial giving! For details on how you can answer God’s call to support these funds please contact Pastor Alice Kerr Laird, Associate to the Bishop, New England Synod, 508-791-1530 x104; This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it