# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1850_S143
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 143 —

given, together with the exhortation to reconcile as soon as possible
with the congregation from which they had separated themselves over this matter.
If they were so accustomed to their Pomeranian Catechism, they could indeed keep
it; only they should also allow the other congregation
members to use the Small Lutheran Catechism, and not let this be the
cause of a split.

Leading Prayer and Prayer from the Heart.

Prompted by a letter addressed to the Synod's president from Pastor
Geier, in which the latter reported the rise of a
disagreement within his congregation — concerning the question whether
praying before and for others, outside the station of the head of a household,
belongs solely to the called servants of the Word and doctrine
or not, specifically whether at least at this or that public
gathering not belonging, in the narrower sense, to public worship, the
governing elders [*Vorſteher*] might be permitted to lead prayer — this
subject was discussed, together with consideration of public heartfelt prayer
in general, at the third morning session, and the
result of this discussion was as follows:

First of all, the public office of leading prayer is to be regarded as an essential
part of the public administration of the spiritual priesthood entrusted to the
called preacher of the divine Word, such that the hearer, by God's
order and command, has surrendered all right in these matters
(except in cases of necessity); wherefore the governing
elders, as men who are not also co-workers in the office of the Word, are
likewise denied the authority to pray publicly, unless, in
cases where the preacher is not present at congregational gatherings, the
elders read, in the preacher's place, a prayer prescribed for them.
Praying before the congregation is not essentially different from
the rest of public preaching and teaching; only to men recognized and
tested as competent for this, who are able to handle the Word blamelessly,
may the former — public prayer — also be entrusted;
indeed, above all, a thorough knowledge of pure doctrine is required for it,
since nothing can spread true or false Christianity more readily
than public prayer; and if chosen men of the congregation are set at the preacher
and shepherd's side as helpers in the office of governance, it by no means
follows that the public office of leading prayer has thereby also been given to
them, unless a special call sets them, or others, apart by God's
appointment as men who are to assist the preacher in conducting
the office of the Word, and so also in prayer.

As for the second matter, the question of public heartfelt prayer
in general, it remains uncontested that, just as prayer in general is a
gift of the Holy Spirit, so also public, free, spoken, so-called
prayer from the heart may rightly be required as one of the necessary gifts of
the Holy Spirit with which a lawfully called and appointed servant of the Church
of the Word is equipped; it therefore also falls to him, in
all cases where the wise usage of the orthodox Church, the mother of us
all, has prescribed no set prayer, to make use, by virtue of the ability
he has for teaching, preaching, etc., of that free spoken prayer as well;
but precisely in liturgical acts, where the preacher has neither special