MOUNT CARMEL & WMPL

Mount Carmel Ministries was not the only one to be birthed from the austere years of the Great Depression in the United States. Several other ministries sharing the same Lutheran roots emerged, primarily from the Lutheran Bible school movement. Both Mount Carmel and the World Mission Prayer League (WMPL) were among them. Chuck Lindquist, General Director of the World Mission Prayer League from 1997-2017, notes: “Mount Carmel and the World Mission Prayer League emerged from the same spiritual parentage, you might say, embodied in the Lutheran Bible Institute of Minneapolis. It is no wonder that a book on the Camp should reference the League, and vice versa. We are siblings.”

During the summer months Bible school education was encouraged for the family, with week-long camp ministry. (Photos below and at right show a cabin from the 1930s-1950s. The closet shows some of the uniforms that visiting missionaries might have worn. There were many nurses who worked overseas.) Speakers at the camps were more often than not teachers from the Bible schools, and later missionaries from the Prayer League. Describing this time, Lindquist continues, “The Bible Institute represented an array of powerful spiritual values, swirling through the times. Personal piety. ‘Getting right with Jesus.’ The power—and accessibility—of the Word of God. And (a) broad vision for the world. (In fact,) we used to call our magazine, World Vision.”

The Holy Spirit began to answer that prayer from Luke 10:2 by placing a sense of call upon the student pray-ers. Soon the young people felt emboldened to ask, “Who will go?” and to offer, “Send me.” The established Lutheran church did not envision a need for these untrained volunteers and the mission agencies of the day were not as ecumenical as many are today. One agency representative challenged those seeking to go, to establish a Lutheran version of itself, and send themselves out. That challenge encouraged the prayer group to trust God, as is sung at every prayer send-off, for all He provides.

The core values of the prayer group were established: to know Jesus, to trust God for His provision, to live in community, to support the Lutheran church, to pray for people to share Jesus with those least likely to have been exposed to the Good News, and to use the gifts and the people that God brought into this fellowship to meet these needs. The mission of the World Mission Prayer League was to pray and to go.

The three main Bible schools in the United States included the Lutheran Bible Institute (LBI) in Minneapolis, the Lutheran Bible Institute in Seattle (LBIS), and the Lutheran Bible Institute in California (formerly California Lutheran Bible School). There were smaller schools that were started in New Jersey, Omaha and Hawaii as well, and a school in Camrose, Alberta, Canada, the Canadian Lutheran Bible Institute (CLBI). Hundreds of students went through these two-year schools, and summer teams from the schools provided the staff for many Vacation Bible Schools throughout the continent.

It was not uncommon for young people from youth groups to approach the mission with a desire to determine a mission call, and to be encouraged to take a year of Bible school as discernment or preparation for overseas ministry. In the late 1980’s a house was bought by WMPL near the Seattle LBI. The expectation was that candidates for mission service who were being asked to take additional courses in missiology or Bible, could live at this house without going into debt to pay for housing. When not being used by candidates, the housing was also available for visiting missionaries. A vibrant group of pray-ers met weekly for fellowship, food and prayer. Many new missionaries got their first experience of sharing about their hopes and desires with prayer supporters and established personal prayer networks as a result of these meetings.

The last remaining Lutheran Bible school, Canadian Lutheran Bible Institute (CLBI), has continued to introduce students to God’s heart for missions. Changing their curriculum from book-based to action-based, a mid-winter overseas experience called IMPACT was introduced some years ago. Second year students are placed in a different culture for short-term exposure to ministry opportunities in small peer groups. Students prepare for these trips beforehand with week-long courses on intercultural living, missiology and team-building. They debrief afterwards with Prayer League mission representatives and prayer supporters.

For some students that experience is enough. But for others there is a desire to go deeper. Just before the Covid pandemic, the World Mission Prayer League staff were prayerfully considering how to engage the next generation of global pray-ers and workers. It was obvious that a generation or two were missing from Prayer League activities. Was the need still there? Yes! It is estimated that nearly a third of the world’s population has yet to hear about Jesus. Young adult groups had continued to meet at various times at the Mission House in Minneapolis, on the campus of CLBI, and in prayer groups in Seattle. It was time to launch a new initiative.

In 2022, WMPL General Director Paul Gossman (2017-2023) encouraged the development of the Discipleship House (DH). The Discipleship House would invite young adults who were investigating opportunities available to them in missions, to live and work alongside WMPL home staff. An integral part of the DH experience was a short-term (4 weeks to 3 months) “Discernment Trek,” which was to take place in one of the areas that WMPL works in outside of North America.

The community continues to reflect the sense of a family reunion. The Prayer League was invited to continue their week-long Family Camp at Mount Carmel about the mid 2010’s. As the Mount Carmel staff meets to begin training for the summer, WMPL staff and board members, along with global workers, meet for a week of prayer and debriefing. Mount Carmel staff practice with WMPL members how to lead afternoon activities, instructions that are needed for guests to understand mealtimes and what tasks are needed to be performed for general camp enjoyment. The Mount Carmel counselors are invited to any of the morning and evening activities that can fit into their very busy orientation time.

To expand upon the missionary/camp relationship, Mount Carmel instituted a program in 2022 called Missionary in Residence. Global workers from the Prayer League are invited to attend a week of Mount Carmel Family Camp, sharing with campers about the work they are doing and how to pray actively and more effectively for the Unreached People Groups of the world. Participants of the MIR program greatly appreciated the opportunity and believe these experiences have increased their base of prayer supporters. By exposing Mount Carmel campers to contemporary mission opportunities and real-life global workers it is hoped that a revival of prayer for these areas would follow in local congregations.

It is the desire of the World Mission Prayer League to build up the family of God by praying for the distant, hard to reach areas of the world. Those areas have changed over the years, as have the methods to get there. Cargo ships and handwritten letters are now jet planes and email or texts. The need continues but the spiritual resistance is real. Visas are harder to come by, governments are less likely to work well together. But the challenge to “pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” continues to be taken to heart by this core group of people.