# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1986_S117
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

REMARKS OF THE CHAIRMAN OF THE COUNCIL OF PRESIDENTS 117

whom we might differ, and to recognize that only as we
walk with the mind of Christ will we be more than con-
querors.

It’s a time for healing, and that means that it’s a time
to face our problems together. I have to believe that not
one of us enjoys, relishes, seeks, or wants tension and lack
of trust. We do not want this because of what it does to us
personally, because of what it does to our expression of
unity in Christ, and because of what it does to our witness
to the Gospel.

But there is only one solution. And that, my brothers
and sisters in Christ, is to go together to the foot of the
cross, and to see all our sins on Jesus laid, the Lamb who
once was slain. His blood can make the foulest clean, His
blood avails for me. Only there can we see and recognize
what we have in common, and only there can we find
strength to walk humbly before God, and in love with one
another.

Dear people of God, we have such a great opportunity.
And we have such great potential, as people redeemed by
the blood of Christ, entrusted with His Word of reconcilia-
tion, and sent forth to be living proof that the love of God
dwells in and among us. May we all, by the mercies of God,
reflect, repent, examine, pray, forgive, so that in every
thought and word and deed God is glorified and we are
edified, and that also through us, unworthy as we are,
knees might bow and tongues confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord to the glory of God the Father.

There is a great day ahead for this part of God’s church
which we call The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. And
our great privilege, as God beckons us to walk with Him

into that great day, is to be partners with Christ in His
great deeds of love and salvation for all people. The call
from and the expectation of the God whose we are and
whom we serve is nothing less than that. Amen. And Amen.

August T. Mennicke, D.D.