LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1983, Page 118

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120 OTHER PRESENTATIONS

the English do the cooking, the French provide the
police, the Italians do the organizing, and the Germans
provide the entertainment. I don’t know that everybody
would agree, but I know that at least some-would agree
that Jack provided a great deal of entertainment for the
Germans during his tenure.

Seriously, the people of The American Lutheran
Church send you their affection and warm regards.
Especially in this Luther year, we are aware of our
common ancestry in the faith. We join you in claiming
anew the Reformation theme of “Grace alone! Faith
alone! The Word alone!” ,

Wejoin you also in seeking to be consistent, incessant
evangelizers. The major emphasis of The American
Lutheran Church is outreach, the proclamation of the
Gospel, making disciples, telling the story of the in-
carnate, crucified, resurrected, and living Lord Jesus.
ALC priorities are the starting of new congregations,
the sending of more missionaries, and the calling of our
existing congregations to new zeal for Gospel witness. I
want to say a special thank-you to you in the Missouri
Synod for providing the kind of leadership on the front
of creating new congregations, and gathering funds
that we refer to as Church Extension funds, and setting
a mark for the rest of us Lutherans that we will havea
tough time catching up to. It’s been the leadership role
that has not only been good for you, but good in
stimulating us. We intend also to continue strong in all
other areas of Christian witness, striving to bring the
whole of life under the Lordship of Christ.

The American Lutheran Church is glad for every
way in which The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
joins us in fulfilling our Christian responsibilities. We
believe U.S. Lutherans maintain outstanding services
through the Lutheran Council and through Lutheran
World Relief. We are glad too for the strong bonds that
exist between so many Lutheran Church—Missouri
Synod and American Lutheran Church individuals and
congregations. We appreciate the strong efforts of so
many of you to maintain the highest possible level of
common Christian expression between our churches.

As you know, the ALC, LCA, and AELC are moving
toward the creation of a new Lutheran church. Both the
LCA and ALC are products of long histories of church
unions. We believe God has blessed those previous
unions, and we live in the confident expectation He will
bless this one also. I speak for the vast majority of the
peoplein The American Lutheran Church in expressing
our sincere hope that one day soon The Lutheran
Church—Missouri Synod will also be a party to the
union.

Returning to the church’s evangelizing priority: this
generation offers extraordinary opportunity for Gospel
ministry. For one thing, it is a time of amazing change,
incredible technological development, a Buck Rogers
reality that challenges the adaptability of the people of
God. There is the temptation to think that everything is
up for grabs, that God and the moral order are the
products of human ingenuity, to be tinkered with, and

changed, and used according to human wisdom. Th
is also the temptation to clutch our traditions so tightly
that we are paralyzed even when God wants us to mo
Finding a disciple’s way through the 20th centurye
even being so bold as to witness to Him who is th
ultimate truth in any generation, and to maintaitim
global missionary effort, saying “(Him We Proclaim”
is as exciting a challenge as human beings have ever
had. edi
For another thing, this century provides a settin
that makes the Bible so incredibly relevant. The Ney
Testament writers lived with a lively sense of
imminence of Christ’s return. The transcendent char
ter of the kingdom of God was so starkly apparent. No
we who are older can remember only a few decades a:
when common wisdom invested this earth with p
manence, with progress toward a planetary Utopia.
more is it so. Those palisades of nuclear weapons,.
onrushing population explosion, the threats to it
environment, the discovery that medical science js RB
going to find the fountain of youth, all point-to
fragility of human existence, to the inability of hum
beings to control their existence. These facts need n
lead to despair or discouragement today any more th
they did for the Lydias and Linuses of an early chur ;
God is God, Christ is Savior, the kingdom of our Lord igs
secure, and He is with us, in Word proclaimed and@
Sacrament shared. The message from Bethlehem ands
Nazareth and Jerusalem is just as convincing to human:
beings today as ever it was. We have reason to rejoi¢é
life no matter what the threats to that life may be.
Tonight I leave for Geneva to help piece next-yea
Lutheran World Federation Assembly together. We
meet under the theme, “In Christ—Hope for the World
Ten days later I will attend the World Council
Churches Assembly in Vancouver, where we will
under the theme, “Jesus Christ—the Life of the Wor! i
I do not know what the press will make of those even
or what the public perception will be. I do know t
will be a vast array of Christ’s followers, some hi:
politicized, some whose Christian faith is suspect int
eyes of others, all of us appearing as heretics to som
the others who are gathered, but overwhelmingly
will be assemblages of devoted disciples of ‘C
seeking together to understand, appropriate, and
what it means to confess Jesus Christ, the hope, the:
of the world.
That is our common task, our common joy. That
where Christians find their unity, in pointing t
under whose banner we march—Christ, the hope,
life, of the world. ;
The American Lutheran Church prays God’s
blessings on The Lutheran Church—Missouri S
and all of its members as we stand together, whatevé
our differences, pointing to the Christ, crucified |
risen, for the salvation of all of us, sinners.
together, we proclaim.

David W. Preus, D.D