LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1986, Page 76

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76 REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT

7. How can we hold high the pastoral office, giving it
the support and encouragement that it needs, par-
ticularly when the men who serve as our shepherds
and preachers and organizers and friends and leaders
are increasingly subjected to all kinds of stress and
strain?

Just a few weeks ago, as Americans celebrated the new
face of Liberty in events all across the land, I heard a
quotation from Thomas J efferson, spoken many years ago
about the young American nation, that also applies in
many ways to The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. He
wrote, “I like the dreams of the future better than the deeds
of the past.” The deeds of the past, as Jefferson knew, were
glorious. In fact, it was his very patriotic pride in those
deeds associated with the founding of a nation that caused
him to be so optimistic as he dreamed about America’s
future.

And so it is with us. The deeds of the past are something
we can view with pride in The Lutheran Church—Missouri
Synod, especially those great deeds of our good and gra-
cious God for our salvation. When you compare any other
kind of accomplishment, it simply pales into insignificance.
But I pray that our dreams of the future, God’s future, will
excite and motivate this convention and indeed our entire
beloved church body. For the past teaches us that the pres-
ent is also God’s gift and that the future, no less than the
past and present, is in His good and gracious hands. We
realize and confess with joy that Jesus Christ is the same
yesterday, today, and forever!

In these weeks from mid-July to mid-August, the Synod
is engaged in a number of important meetings that illus-
trate the great and good things God is doing in our midst.
Last Sunday, for example, under the theme, “Strong in
Grace—Faithful in Teaching,” several thousand Sunday
school teachers gathered in St. Louis for the ninth Sunday
School Convention of our church body. What a loyal, ded-
icated group of volunteers these 80,000 teachers are as
they teach our young people to grow in grace and service
on behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ! We need to support
them and our other teachers of the Word, especially at a
time when our children, our young people, and our families
need all the help and support from the Word of God that
we can give.

Just a few days ago, the black brothers and sisters of
our Synod had a very important convocation in this very
city. Several of them attended our worship service last
night as the final act of a wonderful meeting. We praised
God in that meeting for the gains we have made in sup-
porting black ministry in our church body and beyond it.
As Dr. Dickinson of the Commission on Black Ministry put
it in very, very moving words, “We’ve moved from Grum-
bling Street to Praise the Lord Avenue!” Again, this is an
open door of opportunity that we must address with
strength, flexibility, and openness—and God has equipped
us to do it well.

In just a little more than a week, the International Lu-
theran Laymen’s League will convene in Orlando, Flor-
ida—again reminding us of the tremendous excitement for
mission our auxiliaries, the Lutheran Laymen’s League
and the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League, are bring-

ing to our church body with their passion for reaching peo-
ple with the love of Christ and for the use of electronic
mass media in the service of the Gospel.

And, in only a few weeks, in one of the last great events
of this convention cycle, 15,000 young people from all over
the Synod will gather in Washington, D.C.—as on wings
of eagles, to paraphase their theme—to celebrate the new
life in Christ and to commit themselves in new ways to
serving Christ and country as they return home to their
congregations all over North America.

These are exciting times, filled with opportunity! Times
that call for the best that we have to give—whether young
people or teachers or minorities, men and women, people
alive in Christ! Times that call on us to refrain from ma-
joring in minors and to focus instead on the great gifts God
has given us to meet the needs and challenges of our time.

Ours is a wonderful church body, a “beloved” Synod, as
our founders and parents often used to describe it—beloved
because of our Lord, our strong doctrine, our zeal for mis-
sions, and our grand people! As we now turn to a visual
portrayal of the work we do together in the Synod, may
the Lord of the church fill our hearts with gratitude and
thanksgiving for all His blessings. And, then, dear people
of God, let’s go to work, as people who are alive in Christ,
grateful for the deeds of the past, but as those who can
also say, because we are in God’s hands, “I like the dreams
of the future better than the deeds of the past”!

Ralph A. Bohlmann, President

Appendix A

Greetings to the Lutheran World
Federation Seventh Assembly,
Budapest, Hungary, 1984

Mr. Chairperson, President Kibira, President—Elect
Kaldy, Doctor Mau, Friends in Christ:

The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, with its
2,600,000 members in the United States and Canada, is
deeply honored to bring greetings in the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ to this distinguished assembly of fellow Lu-
therans from all over the world.

Although our church body does not belong to the Lu-
theran World Federation, our official representatives (in-
cluding four of our presidents) have attended every
assembly since Hannover in 1952. It is good for us to be
here, not only to learn from your important proceedings
and deliberations, and not only to visit personally with
Lutheran friends and fellow Christians from all over the
world, but also to symbolize that, in spite of whatever dif-
ferences may separate us, we retain a strong spirit of
friendship and good will for all of you, and—above all—
that we share with you the common bond of faith and hope
in our Lord Jesus Christ.

The theme of this seventh assembly, “In Christ —Hope
for the World,” reminds us all of the two most vital tasks
facing Lutheran churches today: evangelism and confes-
sion. The world’s population now exceeds four and one—
half billion people, but only 26% of us—a little more than
one billion—confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. In
this world marred by sin and its ugly consequences—such

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