# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_1969_S42
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

42 MISSIONS

Many congregations have undertaken the study of
the Mission Affirmations as they were urged to do by
the New York convention. Some congregations have
undertaken a study of their objectives and structures
in the light of the affirmations and have drawn up new
constitutions which express the missionary character
of the church in the world.

Several Districts of the church have also initiated
a self-study of their entire structure and objectives
with a view to emphasizing the “outreach” nature of
their organization.

Various papers relating the implications of the Mis-
sion Affirmations to different aspects of the church’s
work have been presented at conferences and work-
shops.

We feel that special recognition should be given to
the fact that the Board for Parish Education has pro-
duced a large number of materials which have contrib-
uted to a wider understanding of what the Mission Affir-
mations say.

We would also call special attention to the action
of the Commission on Worship in the production of
a supplementary hymnal which speaks more directly
to the situation in the world today than many of our
traditional hymns.

The actions which have been taken with respect to
the concern for housing by the Board for Social Minis-
tries are another way in which the spirit of the Mission
Affirmations is being implemented.

As the commission reviewed the work which it has
done in the past biennium, it came to the conviction
that there are certain areas in the life of our church
which must be carefully examined from the point of
view of what we believe God is saying to the church
today. In saying what we say in the following para-
graphs, we do not wish to be either judgmental or criti-
cal but, we hope, helpful.

This is the church through which God has called us
to the joy and freedom of the Gospel. It is the church
which we love and through which God has called us
to serve Him. We would not be faithful to the assign-
ment which the Synod has given to us if we do not in
all love and humility point to those areas of the church’s
life which appear to us to fall short of what God’s peo-
ple should be in His world.

The Self-understanding of the Laity

It is not too much to say that the heart of the entire
problem lies in the individual Christian's self-under-
standing. No amount of change in the structure of the
church, no multiplication of boards and commissions
will have any lasting and radical effect on the church’s
mission if the individual Christian does not come to
a proper Biblical understanding of his calling in the
body of Christ and in God’s mission to and in the world.

In our official publications and pronouncements we
often place great emphasis on the work which this or
that commission has done when it has reached a certain
amount of agreement with another church body or when
we have been able to make a doctrinally correct state-

ment on some issue. These are important and necessary,
but must we not ask ourselves to what extent these
have any effect on the daily lives of people?

The real battles of faith today are being fought in
factories, shops, offices, farms, in political parties and
government agencies, in countless homes, in the press.
radio, and television, in the relationship of nations, as
Christians are constrained to make a witness to their
faith in the midst of the tensions of everyday life.

It is not the ‘program of the church” which makes
the greatest impact on the life of the world around it
but the day-to-day decisions when the people of God
realize and earnestly seek to discharge their responsi-
bility to witness to Christ.

We must in all honesty and earnestness ask ourselves
the following questions:

1. Does the teaching and preaching given in our
churches provide the lay people with an adequate prep-
aration for their ministry in the world?

2. To what degree do the activities of our churches
prepare our members for or divert them from their
ministry in the world?

3. What is implied for their training when we say,
“It is the task of the pastors and other professional
church workers to prepare the laity for their distinctive
ministry”?

4. How can the clergy and laity improve communi-
cation between them so that they are “in dialog” with
each other and thus fulfill their particular functions?

5. How can the congregation, when it gathers for
worship and on other occasions, listen to its members
as they recount what they have seen and heard in their
ministry out in the world so that its teaching may be-
come more relevant?

These questions call us to a serious examination of
everything we are doing in the local parish. As long
as the laity is considered as or considers itself to be
a passive element in the church, to be served by the
professional clergy, the institutional self-interest of the
church is bound to be dominant over the essential char-
acter of the church as the mission of God to the world.

There is much cause for thankfulness that attention
is being given to this subject in many areas. But we all
know that much, much more needs to be done. And
it needs to be done again and again. It is the nature
of human institutions to use men for their own ends,
and insofar as the church also has its human element
as a socioreligious institution in the world, it suffers
from the same temptations that beset all other human
institutions. For this reason the nature and function
of the church must be clarified for each succeeding
generation of Christians in order to make meaningful
the words of our Lord, “As the Father has sent Me,
even so I send you.”

The Congregation Is God’s Mission in Its Community

Closely related to the above concern is the situation
in the local congregation. In far too many places ‘the