# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1896_S44
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

44 Proceedings of the sixteenth convention

free the apostles' hands, so that they might devote themselves undisturbed and unhindered to the chief part of the preaching office, the auxiliary office of the deacons was established. The Christian congregation does not have two commands, the one: "Preach the Gospel"; the other: "Make church orders"; but the one command: "Preach the Gospel, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." And where the congregation sets up church orders, it does so in the sense and with the concern that it may fulfil precisely its chief purpose, for which it exists, and carry out the chief task set before it. The arrangements which the congregation makes are to serve this end, that the Gospel may be in vogue in its midst, that the power of the keys may be rightly administered, that the pastors and teachers of the congregation may rightly attend to their office, that the task of the congregation toward the outside also may be fulfilled rightly and diligently. To this the orders are to serve which the congregation establishes and maintains at its own free discretion. Now it may well be that an order served this purpose at one time, but that then another time comes when this order no longer serves this purpose at all and is even a hindrance. With good reason a congregational constitution from olden days could say: "In the church of this congregation preaching shall be done only in the German language." In its day this was held to be necessary and beneficial for the safeguarding of the congregation, so that a new preaching office should not arise in a few years. But times have changed. There are young people who no longer understand German properly. Marriages have occurred through which families have now arisen in which one partner was German but has now become English; for as a rule the English partner draws the family after him in language. One sees then that an element has grown up in the midst of the congregation to which that also ought to be offered for which the congregation exists, namely the preaching of the Gospel. It is then quite right if the congregation alters that paragraph or strikes it out altogether and leaves the pastor a free hand. There may have been a time when the congregation, quite rightly on account of its circumstances, laid upon the pastor in his call the obligation to keep school so and so many days; but the time may have come when this would be wrong: the congregation grows large, the number of children increases, and if the pastor then had to devote himself to the school, it would happen to the detriment of the congregation. Then it is right to take this provision out of his call and to call a teacher who is to take special care of this part of the flock. But it can also go the other way; a congregation can have declined in membership and in the number of school children. It may have come to the point that the congregation cannot keep a teacher, or that the pastor can quite well instruct the few children himself. Then one cannot say that the congregation is