Originally known as Lutheran Cursillo of Central Michigan, LVCCM was organized in 1979 and held its first pair of weekends in 1980 in Midland, Michigan, with the help of the Catholic Cursillo community in Saginaw, Michigan, and Lutheran Cursillo communities in Florida. Subsequent weekends have been held mostly in Midland and Saginaw, with a few pairs in the Upper Peninsula’s Marquette area, one pair in Howell, Michigan and one pair in Monroe, Michigan. The weekends in Howell eventually resulted in the formation of the Good News! VdC community in southeastern Michigan and northern Ohio.

LVCCM is an ecumenical community with participation by Lutherans from both the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS), as well as Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Reformed, Catholic, Assembly of God, Church of God, and many other churches and denominations. LVCCM is not affiliated with any specific Lutheran denomination.

In the mid-1980s, the community affiliated with the National Lutheran Secretariat (NLS) of Via de Cristo and changed its name to Lutheran Via de Cristo of Central Michigan. In 1999 LVCCM celebrated its 20th year of organization and 50th pair of weekends by hosting the annual meeting of the NLS in July at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Saginaw.

The Cursillo method includes three distinct phases:

• Preweekend, during which Christians who are or have the potential to be leaders are recruited by sponsors to be candidates on a weekend retreat, and a team of laity and clergy is selected and trained to put on the weekend retreat.

• Weekend, during which the team members present a three-day weekend retreat consisting of fourteen or fifteen talks to the candidates on basic Christian principles. Each talk is followed by small-group discussion and sharing. Special events and activities, worship and singing throughout the weekend emphasize the major themes of God’s undeniable and unconditional love, His gift of Grace through Christ, and our response to God through true piety, study and action. In short, participants learn about  “the way of Christ” or Via de Cristo.

• Postweekend, during which the members of the “community” return to their churches as more active Christians, participate in weekly accountability groups (called reunion groups) and monthly community gatherings (called ultreyas).