Dr. Martha Helland to speak at Evangelical Lutheran Church’s spring conference

April 6, 2017

Dr. Martha Helland, Associate Professor of Business, will speak at the South Dakota Synod-Evangelical Lutheran Church’s Spring Theological Conference, Scattered Saints: The Church at Work in the World, on April 18-20 at First Lutheran Church in Sioux Falls.

The focus of the conference is on equipping church leaders to be intentional about preparing and scattering church members to serve as the Body of Christ in their homes, work environments and other spaces—the places where people live outside of worship and programs that gather people together at church.

Dr. Helland is being tapped for her expertise in business, management and leadership. In her talk, she will discuss how church leadership often defaults to an emphasis on getting things done rather than developing and equipping members to live their vocations outside of church.

According to Helland, congregational leaders find themselves leading as the boss, managing programs, finances, membership and operations while at the same time ministering to members and conducting worship.

“A scattered church requires a leadership point of view that looks at the first priority needs of people over organizational needs, in other words servant leadership,” Helland said. “While many church leaders might think they lead this way already, I want to challenge this belief by creating a greater awareness and understanding of servant leadership. It is not what most people think, even in the church. I am looking forward to partnering with Rev. DuBois during this provocative conference.”

Also at the conference, Rev. Dwight DuBois, author of The Scattering: Imagining a Church that Connects Faith and Life, will lead congregational leaders in a discussion about his ideas regarding the scattered church and wrestle with questions like: How might we become as intentional about equipping and scattering our members into the mission field as we are gathering them together for church organized events? What might be the impact on our members, churches and communities if this became a higher priority?

Registration for the conference closes on April 7. For more information, or to register, visit: http://sdsynod.org/spring-theological-retreat/.