# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_2019_S137
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

OFFICER, BOARD, AND COMMISSION REPORTS
fidelity and often in the face of trial and tribulation.
For all of you pastors and commissioned workers who continue to serve and toil in your respective duties and functions
within the Indiana District, thank you and SDG.
Then there are the often unsung heroes, the laity and volunteers within our over 230 congregations and our approximately 100 schools. Without you men and women this district
could not function. We give you thanks for your faithful financial support, and even more so for your constant prayers and
your diligent assistance and encouragement to the workers in
your midst. Thank you for realizing the necessity for faithful
distribution and reception of Word and Sacrament. SDG.
Our Lord has wrought many wonderful works through His
people here in Indiana. SDG for all of these. One such work
that has involved Synod joining with and in our district is the establishment of a missionary-at-large in the Gary area. Rev. Delwynn Campbell, called by Synod as such a missionary, has been
faithfully doing mission work as well as serving God’s people in
the Gary area. May the Gospel of our Lord Jesus continue to
grow and be magnified! SDG.
Finally, though our Indiana District is in transition—a
transition that will continue as other individuals retire in the
next three years—the Lord has continued to bless us with that
eternal stability which comes from the unchanging Christ, who
is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and from His abiding
Word. Truly SDG—to God alone be the glory!
Daniel J. Brege, President

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Iowa District East
Iowa District East is comprised of 119 congregations with
144 active, candidate, and emeriti pastors. We also have eight
Lutheran elementary schools, one high school, and 27 preschools. The commissioned workers are 24 principals, DCEs,
and parish workers. Our schools are staffed with 110 commissioned or contracted teachers. The geographical setting of IDE
is the eastern half of the state of Iowa. This district office currently employs four workers (two ordained and two contracted).
In reference to the resolutions passed in the 2016 convention,
IDE remains faithful to the use of the historic liturgy in Divine
Service as each congregation prepares to receive the Holy Supper of our Lord. While we have been blessed to have very few
vacancies in the last triennium, we have used men on candidate
status to comprise call lists for calling congregations. The pastoral and lay leadership in each parish highly value the Lutheran
Confessions and conduct Divine Service as well as their baptized lives in accordance to what we believe and confess is true.
Our goals each year are to assist our pastors in preaching
and emphasize visitation in the homes of their members. The
same is true of the district president. Our intent is to exemplify visitation by being present in our congregations, attending
the needs of our church workers, and assisting each parish to
live the baptized life that our culture so desperately needs to
see and hear. We have not planted any new mission starts this
triennium and have had two closings. The challenge to IDE is
the demographic changes to our population and in some cases
pure apathy of its citizens to the Word of God. Farms are being
purchased by corporate industry and what used to be 10 family

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farms is now cultivated by one or two people. While there are
fewer families who remain in Iowa and tend the farm, there are
still plenty who have no relationship with Christ Jesus as members of His Church. There is as much opportunity for harvest
in the populace as there is in the fields planted with grain. It is
a matter of value for what God gives us as free gift of grace.
What we receive is worth inviting others to come and participate
in as well. Encouraging our membership to invite their neighbors from all capacities to Divine Service is a focus we must emphasize. We have the Holy Treasures of our Lord. Our pastors
preach and teach pure Word of God. Our schools prepare our
children rightly. We have everything Pentecost gave the Early
Church. The same Word and Sacrament that grows the Church
in every era is at our disposal. We have work to do and by God’s
grace we will do it. God help us all and bless us with the promise
of eternal life in Him until we rest securely in the resurrection.
Brian Saunders, President

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Iowa District West
“Bound Together in Christ’s Love”
The theme for the 40th convention of Iowa District West
was Bound Together in Christ’s Love. The theme was based on
Colossians 3:12–17 (ESV):
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and
beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one
another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above
all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of
Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you
were called in one body. And be thankful. Let
the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching
and admonishing one another in all wisdom,
singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And
whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything
in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to
God the Father through him.
Paul begins with good news. You are Chosen! We are chosen by God to be His people. In the book of Ephesians it says,
“even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Ephesians
1:4 ESV). Paul reminds us that from the very beginning of time,
from the foundation of the world, God has chosen us to be His
people. God sent Jesus for us! “For God so loved the world, that
he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not
perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 ESV). Whoever believes
in Him has eternal life. Christ Jesus lived, died, and is risen for
us! This is the Good News of God’s Grace. In Christ Jesus, God
chose you to be one of His own sons and daughters. Our identity as the people of God is that we have been chosen by Him to
be His people and to share in His glory forever.
This identity as people of God is lived out over and over
in the congregations of Iowa District West (IDW). Pastors are
2019 Convention Workbook