October Update

Our Planting Team of six members continues to investigate the feasibility of the Viroqua church plant as currently conceived. We're using the Church Planting Simplified program provided by the LCMS. We've gathered a good deal of helpful information about Viroqua, both quantitative and qualitative. Much of our data, especially on the qualitative side, comes from the interactions I (Vicar Junkin) have had in person with the people of Viroqua. For several weeks, I've been spending two days every week in Viroqua, either sitting in the coffee shop with a sign inviting conversation, interviewing key community members, especially the local clergy, or attending community events. I've had over a dozen good random encounters and interviewed eight local church leaders, as well as the mayor, who was very helpful and supportive. I've also begun attending the Viroqua Lions Club chapter meetings in order to integrate with the community and form mutually beneficial relationships. Meanwhile, other team members have assembled some of the more quantitative, numerical data.

A preliminary look at the data indicates that there will be some real challenges with the church plant, but it seems to be a good opportunity to pursue. There is some interest in a church that will offer both traditional teaching and traditional liturgy, which is otherwise not readily available in the area. However, space in Viroqua is hard to find and expensive, and there are already a lot of churches in Viroqua, which makes some people wonder why we would want another one; these are two of the major challenges we might face.

Two team members are also beginning to draft a preliminary budget for the church plant. Once that's complete, we will be able to move on to Phase 3: Planning of Church Planting Simplified, which, as I understand it, starts dealing with more of the nuts and bolts.