Ethnic Strategies

EOCM supports and implements the evangelical outreach components of the ELCA Ethnic Ministry Strategies. These include strategic plans for the following communities: Asian & Pacific Islander, American Indian & Alaska Native, African Descent& African Ministries, Arab & Middle Eastern and Latino/Hispanic. 

Ethnic Outreach A major direction of the Evangelical Outreach and Congregational Mission unit (EOCM) is to equip ethnic leaders to develop and implement ethnic specific strategies in order to expand the outreach of the ELCA to ethnic communities. As new congregations are started and as work is done in existing congregations of color and language, the division is committed to being guided by the experience and advice of each ethnic community.

Ethnic Specific Strategies
Outreach strategies are developed with the direct involvement of ethnic leadership, together with Evangelical Outreach and Congregational Mission unit staff, from the respective communities and are culturally and contextually appropriate to the needs of those communities.

Current outreach strategies	EOCM Staff	Multicultural Ministries
African American/Black Ministries	Everett Flanigan	Julius Carroll
Asian	Ruben Duran	Pongsak Limthongviratn
Latino	Jose Garcia	Joseph Villalon
American Indian/Alaska Native Ministries	Ruben Duran	Marilyn Sorenson
Middle East/Arab Ministries	Ruben Duran	Kholoud Khoury
African Ministries	Gemechis Buba	Julius Carroll

These outreach initiatives correlate with the national ethnic strategies and the ELCA's overall objective of being an inclusive church. Since the inception of the ELCA, five national ethnic strategies have been approved as well as the ELCA Multicultural Mission Strategy which may be obtained from the Multicultural Ministries.