# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1908_S32
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

32 Proceedings of the twenty-second convention

pretation explain away God's Word. To be sure, in order to be able to abide by God's Word, our Christians must diligently learn God's Word and diligently occupy themselves with God's Word, diligently practice the Catechism in their families, read suitable books and periodicals, etc.

But Papacy and many other sects will, as Scripture predicts, remain in the Church until the Last Day. So the sad fact will also remain that Christians are held captive in erring communions and that we remain deprived of their fellowship as brethren in the faith. All the more diligently should the Christians who are in the orthodox church cultivate fellowship among brethren in the faith with one another, both within the congregation and beyond the individual congregation.

Within the congregation, fellowship among brethren in the faith is to be cultivated, above all, by regularly attending the public services of worship. Attendance at the public services is God's will and order, as we have seen. Deficient attendance at the public services is the most dangerous and harmful neglect of fellowship among brethren in the faith. In a congregation in which that prevails which has been called, with a coarse expression, "church-roaming" [Kirchenbummelei], things stand badly. Even the most active so-called club life cannot replace the divine order of the public service. Also the congregational meetings, in which the local congregations conduct the business entrusted to them, are God's order and belong to the cultivation of fellowship among brethren in the faith. Christians of one place should also diligently and gladly associate with one another in a Christian way. Christians also have civil intercourse with worldly people. That is no sin. But their refreshment Christians find in intercourse with their brethren in the faith. With worldly people they associate in order to transact honest worldly business, etc. They associate otherwise with brethren in the faith. Their brethren in the faith are the people with whom they walk hand in hand on the narrow way through this wicked world into eternal life. The poorest brother in the faith stands nearer to them than the richest and most distinguished worldly man.

But fellowship among brethren in the faith reaches, as we have seen, beyond the congregation. It would stand very poorly with a congregation that had no churchly interest beyond its own fences. Every local congregation should have a lively interest in the weal and woe of the sister congregations. It is a divine prescription that those who confess the same faith also recognize one another heartily and sincerely as brethren in the faith, pray for one another, rejoice from the heart over the successes and prosperity of the sister congregations and sister communions, bear sorrow together, regard and ward off attacks on one part of the orthodox church as directed against the whole orthodox church, etc.