Updates from congregations around the Church of the Lutheran Confession
What’s new with Messiah in Hales Corners (Milwaukee area), Wisconsin? Well, we could start with the pastor. After twenty-six years of faithful service at Messiah, Pastor Michael Eichstadt retired from the pastoral ministry in September of 2024. Pastor Luke Bernthal and his wife, Julia (“Jewels”), arrived in October of 2024 and has been serving Messiah for just over a year.
We have a very active and close-knit congregation of approximately 200 souls, and an average worship service attendance each Sunday of 125. It is a tremendous blessing to worship each week in a full sanctuary with a congregation blessed with talented singers and musicians who love to sing praises to our Savior! Whether it’s for worship services, Bible classes, a work day, fellowship meal, voters’ meeting, choir practice, or other church function, this congregation really does a great job of “showing up”!
One of the ways this really stands out is when it comes to our Christian day school. Messiah Lutheran School currently has an enrollment of twenty-three students. We are blessed to have three full-time teachers: Carrie Reim (grades pre-K and K), Levi Schaller (grades 1-4), and Paul Tiefel III (grades 5-8, principal). On top of that we have the added blessings of a host of volunteers who teach music, art, and Spanish classes; and others who participate in reading with the students, recess and lunch monitoring, tutoring, and correcting papers. It really is a joy to see so many of the members of our congregation giving of their time and talents to help with our vital ministry of Christian education.
As far as outreach is concerned, some of our most effective outreach has been “virtual.” We have been blessed with a number of members who are skilled in technology, graphic design, website development, and online marketing. We have a volunteer webmaster for our church’s website, and a team of individuals who help post the livestream of the worship service and run the slideshow that is projected at the front of the church. The result is a very high-quality presentation of the worship service that can be viewed via our website: MessiahHC.org. The livestream services have been very much appreciated by our members at a distance, our shut-ins, and a number of online “visitors” who have watched our worship services from all across the country.
Two of our members have volunteered to be in charge of our church’s Facebook page and have recently started a Messiah Instagram account as well. These volunteers have done an outstanding job of consistently repurposing content from the worship service each week: making “Reels” from portions of the Sunday sermon, posting Bible passages, hymns, and so on. As a result, we’ve reached almost 1,400 users on Instagram with Gospel messages in just the first month—quite amazing for only having twenty followers so far! Last month our Facebook page had a reach of 546 individual users and 4,300 views. Praise God!
We also had great success using Facebook ads for our VBS this past summer (with an assist from our new VBS banner for the front of our church). We had a total of ten non-member sign-ups as a result of our new banner and the Facebook ads.
Come check us out! https://www.instagram.com/messiah_halescorners/
Of course, our events and outreach are not all “virtual.” Our congregation also participates in a number of in-person outreach activities and events throughout the year:
- Vacation Bible school in July with the theme “Missionaries of Christ” had thirty-five total students. “Friendship Sunday” and our annual church picnic were held on the following Sunday.
- “Firecracker Four” four-mile run/walk on July 4th in Hales Corners. Our church is an official water station for the runners as their route passes right by our church and school property. We enjoy handing out water and cheering on the many runners. This has given us good exposure and produced considerable good will toward us from the community. A number of our members also participate in the run each year.
- The Messiah “Block Party” is held on the lawn in front of our church each September. We invite the neighborhood to join us for live music and grilled hot dogs and s’mores around several fire pits. It’s usually quite well-attended and makes for a very enjoyable evening of fun, food, and fellowship! We plan to make more efforts to invite our neighbors in the community to join us in the future.
- Each Christmas season our congregation and school go Christmas caroling to two area senior living centers. Our children perform their Christmas Eve service and share the Gospel message with these residents who are always eager to hear the recitations and songs the children bring each Christmas. We also conduct monthly worship services at these same two senior living centers, which have been very well received by the residents who attend.
- Whether it’s “virtually” or in person, we look forward to the next time you visit our Milwaukee-area congregation!
“Missionaries for Christ” VBS at Messiah, Hales Corners
Messiah Lutheran School children on Reformation Day
is the pastor of Messiah Lutheran Church in Hales Corners, Wisconsin.