Read about DMin CML students.

Cheryl Fleckenstein

"It”s important for the church to be missional because God is missional," said Cheryl Fleckenstein, a third-year student in the Doctor of Ministry program in Congregational Mission and Leadership. "God is concerned about reconciling this broken world back to God and bringing all people into relationship with God," she explained.

"It”s all connected. If God is missional, then the church needs to be missional, and then leadership needs to be missional," she said. "You can’t have a missional church without missional leadership," she said.

Fleckenstein serves as pastor of Salem Lutheran Church in Hermantown, next to Duluth, Minn., near the western shores of Lake Superior. While her studies have helped her foster a more missional approach with her congregation, she also possesses a long-standing personal zeal for missional leadership.

"From childhood, I”ve been passionate that God cares about people and wants them to live a rich and abundant life in relationship with God and each other," said Fleckenstein. That passion has only increased as "I see the church struggling to figure out who they are and what they”re about," said Fleckenstein.

While in seminary, Fleckenstein spent time in a Buddhist Sangha (community) which underscored her belief in collaborating with other faiths. "I saw so many ways I could incorporate what I learned without compromising Christ-centeredness," she said. "We (as Christians) have facets of the truth, but that does not discount the truth that God speaks through people of other faiths," she explained.

"Because we”re a pluralistic society, we need to learn how to work with other faiths rather than look at other religions as competing faiths that we need to convert.  We need to look at 'where is God working in those people and those religions to bring about God's mission of justice and mercy—and how can we partner with them?'"

Fleckenstein”s congregation, for example, has collaborated with other local churches through a group called Churches United in Ministry. The group serves the impoverished, the homeless and unemployed people.

Fleckenstein believes that this type of missional approach and a focus on missional leadership are vital to the future of the church. "If we are not connected to God”s mission—then we simply aren’t church," she said.

Fleckenstein pointed out that it is important to remember that, ultimately, this is God”s work in the world. "I think it is so freeing to hear that this is God”s mission and we have been invited to join in," she said.