Your MIF investments are at work every day as loans to more than 750 ELCA ministries throughout the United States, in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, supporting the church's mission of spreading the gospel.

“Our desire to be ‘hands on’ in the community has led to growth over time,” said the Rev. Andy Smith, pastor at First Lutheran Church in Brainerd, Minn. First Lutheran is located in Minnesota’s Lakes Region, a popular vacation destination.

The congregation’s approximately 1,300 members operate a soup kitchen, build homes for the homeless with Habitat for Humanity, house homeless families with children at the church as part of the Interfaith Hospitality Network (IHN), and sponsor a preschool. The congregation needed additional space to accommodate its ministries, and the new members who want to participate in them.

First Lutheran’s original sanctuary and fellowship space were built in 1915, with a lobby and a three-story educational building added in the mid-1950s. A new elevator and office space followed in 1980.

Thanks to a $1.3 million Mission Investment Fund loan and a congregational fund-raising campaign, First Lutheran will dedicate in January 2007 a 12,000 square-foot expansion of its sanctuary, hospitality, education, and fellowship space. The expansion occupies one-fourth of a city block and will make more room for congregational worship and fellowship, as well as for the IHN and preschool ministries.

First Lutheran worked with MIF building consultant Phil Roe and the Rev. Daniel Carlson, an MIF area representative, to help determine the congregation’s priorities and its loan needs. “Things have gone fairly smoothly for such a complicated project,” said Pr. Smith. “I would work with MIF again in a heartbeat.”

“Investing with the Mission Investment Fund adds a deeper dimension to First Lutheran’s ministry,” said Pr. Smith. “MIF supports the church and its congregations by providing the funds for the low-interest loans used by congregations to further the work of God’s kingdom.”