# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_2019_S163
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

OFFICER, BOARD, AND COMMISSION REPORTS
mission trips have been a great blessing in making that church
plant in the Dominican Republic a reality. I thank the pastors
and members of congregations like Bethlehem Sun Prairie, St.
John’s Plymouth, St. Paul’s Oconomowoc, Brookfield Lutheran, and others; I thank all who have helped!

3. This is our time to embrace our communities.
As I am sure you know, times have been changing in South
Wisconsin. Growing up in SWD, most everyone shared the same
Northern European heritage. But no more. Go into a restaurant
and take a peek at who is cooking. Who is working the jobs that
our ancestors used to work; in the barns and behind the lawn
mower, doing the house keeping? The faces are different. Hispanic. Karenni and the Hmong from Southeast Asia. Chinese.
African immigrants from the Congo and other places in Africa.
And the list grows. Do you see them? Are you concerned about
their spiritual well-being? Our Lord Jesus is.
As a result of your generous mission gifts, we are able to
have pastors working among each of those immigrant groups
right here in SWD.
I commend the three Sheboygan circuits, their pastors, and
people. Those three circuits have come together determined to
reach out to a growing people group in their midst, the Hispanic
immigrants. They noticed that Hispanics are a growing demographic in Sheboygan County. With the help of a few friends in
Northern Illinois, we were able to make arrangements for David
Blas who was studying at the Concordia Hispanic Institute in
St. Louis to serve as a vicar, to reach out to the Hispanic community. David has spent time in barns and bakeries talking with
Hispanic immigrants about the Gospel. Because of the passion
of those three circuits, later this Vicar Blas will become Pastor
Blas, ordained June 24th to be associate pastor at Good Shepherd Sheboygan, tasked with planting a Hispanic congregation
in the midst of all of Sheboygan’s historically German congregations.
Then, there is Trinity Lutheran Church in Freistadt. You
know their heritage. 1839. German Pomeranians. [my heritage].
They have opened their school to the Karenni, a very small people group from Southeast Asia. The Karenni children board a
bus very early in the morning and are transported to Trinity’s
elementary school. This has happened as the result of several
pastors: sainted Rev. Peter Kelm, Rev. Carl Lehenbauer, Rev.
David Zuersen, and Rev. Phil Hillenbrand. Thank you, brothers, for your vision to see the need to share the Gospel.
Farther south St. Martini Lutheran Church MKE, daughter congregation of Trinity Milwaukee well over 100 years back,
is embracing its community with Law and Gospel in its LUMIN
administered school with 210 students, nearly all of Hispanic
descent. There are currently about 60 Hispanics who gather for
divine service every Sunday.
Next, the members of Berea Milwaukee, served by Pastor Jeff Mueller have done much the same as they opened their
doors to Hmong Hope Lutheran Church, served by Rev. Fai
Neng Herr. Under Pastor Herr’s ministry, the congregation has
continued to be blessed with members.

4. This is our time to plant new congregations
and schools.
You may have heard it said by some that we don’t need to
plant any more congregations; that we have enough churches

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scattered around. Such thinking is rather perplexing. For as you
know, we have a different confession than the Baptists. We are
not Roman Catholic nor are we non-denominational. We are
not even like the other Lutherans be they to the right or the left
of us. We are Missouri Synod Lutherans, with a unique confession of faith, based upon the Holy Scriptures.
Over the past few years several of our SWD congregations
have closed their doors. The closing of a church is a sad journey, but sometimes a necessary decision. But we dare not merely
close congregations and schools. This is our time to plant new
congregations and schools.
Throughout history Lutherans have planted new congregations wherever they have been. Your congregation may have
been planted by the church at large a couple generations ago, or
by missionaries sent from faraway mission societies like those
organized by the likes of Rev. Wilhelm Loehe from Germany.
Each of us is reaping the blessings of the generosity of faithful
generations before us. Now it is our time to pass that blessing
on.
There is no doubt that the world in which we live desperately needs the Gospel, the good news of forgiveness and life
for the sake of Christ Jesus. Look around, we find ourselves in
a culture where up has become down, where wrong has become
right, where the gross sins formerly scorned are now openly paraded for all to see. To exacerbate that situation, we live in a society where the church, our Christ-centered confession of faith,
a proper distinction of Law and Gospel, our Christian morality
are increasingly challenged, and even despised. In this kind of
world, it bears upon us as church to proclaim, to confess, and
to plant.
Our Lord provides us direction in Luke 12, “What you have
said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have
whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from
the roofs.”
In his 1879 essay to the Iowa District, titled “Duties of an
Evangelical Lutheran Synod,” C. F. W. Walther quotes Martin
Luther who states:
Our beloved Luther cries out, “Help, whoever is
able!” Second, he reminds us to remember our
descendants. It is a shameful thought if a congregation says, “We have our church and school
now, so let others worry about [their churches
and schools]!” No, God demands that we assist
others in getting churches and schools. A Christian and also a congregation are plants that have
grown from the seed sown by other Christians
and congregations. Therefore this congregation
and every individual Christian is to be a seed
from which new Christians and congregations
can ever again grow. That is why the apostle says
so emphatically, “The church is the mother of
us all” (Galatians 4:26; [Luther Bible]). Just as
surely as we are now members of the Church, so
surely we should also be fruitful mothers; and
if we are unfruitful mothers, i.e., we do not produce spiritual children, or fail to do those things
whereby such children can be produced, then we
are not obeying our calling, and God will not
say, “You pious and faithful servant,” but rather,
“You unfaithful servant!” God grant that we
never need to hear Him say those words to us! 4
2019 Convention Workbook