To help strengthen schools, especially those with a changing ministry climate, is the goal of Second Wind, a new consulting program offered by WELS Parish Assistance and Forward with Lutheran Schools.

“The idea of Second Wind is to focus on several critical issues [in a school], to go to work on those issues, and to help make the school as strong as it can be,” says Greg Schmill, a school consultant and developer of the program.

Schmill developed Second Wind in 2007, modeling it after a program in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod. It begins by a participating school filling out a survey identifying its critical issues. Schmill then assembles a consulting team with experience in those issues, and an intensive three-day consulting session with school leaders and parents follows.

In 2008, Schmill received a grant from Thrivent Financial for Lutherans to pilot the program in four schools. Our Savior Lutheran School, Grafton, Wis., was the first school to participate.

The ministry at Our Savior was changing. The congregation had decided to add a gymnasium, classrooms, and offices to the school’s building in 2008. According to Joel Grulke, principal of Our Savior, this addition would present many new opportunities for inreach as well as outreach in the community.

“It was great to have some very experienced gentlemen come in from outside and give an objective, unbiased, independent look at what we were doing and what we were getting into with having a new building,” says Grulke.

Starting before- and after-school programs and developing more extensive outreach efforts were just two of the recommendations Our Savior received from the Second Wind consultants, recommendations that the congregation is pursuing.

“It helped to bring a focus to our future ministry direction and gave us a list of improvement objectives that, Lord willing, will help our school reach the greatest potential that we have for gospel ministry,” says Grulke.

Schmill’s original goal with the program was to help schools that were struggling, but it was determined that the program also would be helpful for any school in transition, such as Our Savior. 

“Schools need and can benefit from an outside perspective, from support, and from accountability,” says Schmill. “My prayer is that Second Wind can meet the needs of more WELS schools in the future.”

To learn more about Second Wind, contact Greg Schmill, 920-638-1741; greg.schmill@sab.wels.net.