LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1986, Sheet 107

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106 OTHER PRESENTATIONS

2.07 This church confesses the Gospel, recorded in the Holy

Scriptures and confessed in the ecumenical creeds and
Lutheran confessional writings, as the power of God to
create and sustain the Church for God’s mission in the
world.

We in the ALC are thankful to God for the solid confes-
sional undergirding of this latest venture in Lutheran
merging.

While we regret that the LCMS is not part of this new
church, we are glad for the many ways which Lutherans
continue to work together. We especially treasure the great
services we together provide through two of our jointly
sponsored organizations, Lutheran World Relief and Lu-
theran Immigration and Refugee Services. Feeding hungry
people, helping impoverished people to make a start in
agriculture, health care, and education, as well as minis-
tering to the myriad needs of refugees driven from their
homes is basic to the life of Christian discipleship. Lu-
theran people provide these ministries most effectively
when we do them together. I have had opportunity to view
the work of these two agencies, and they are magnificent
instruments for showing concern for people in need.

The most important work we share does not reflect itself
in our organizational life. That is the great work of evan-
gelizing. Whenever our witness to the Gospel of Christ is
clear, we are sharing in the most fundamental task of the
church. A new believer is not baptized into The American
Lutheran Church or The Lutheran Church—Missouri

Synod, but into the great church of Christ, into the very
body of Christ.

Someplace up toward 50% of US. people have no mean-
ingful relationship with the church of Christ. That means
our work is cut out for us. Last December I visited the
Mekane Yesus Lutheran Church in Ethiopia. They can
teach us about evangelism. It is taken for granted that a
part of becoming a baptized Christian is to become an evan-
gelist. They have a handful of clergy compared to us, but
they have a church full of evangelists. As a result they
grow at a rate of 15% a year. Their worship services are
jammed with people. In 1940 they numbered only 25,000
people. Now they are about 700,000. This in spite of ter-
rible drought, civil wars, and a Marxist government that
frequently makes trouble for the churches. When I was
greeted by the lay president of a jam-packed Addis Ababa
congregation, we were within sight of huge street pictures
of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. He said to me, “This is a con-
gregation of people who have committed their lives to
Christ, no matter what.”

This is the sort of witness to Christ that we must find
in easygoing America. We cannot and do not want to bring
on the miseries of war, famine, or tyranny. But we must
find the spirited witness that claims lives.

May God give you in the LCMS and us in the ALC and
soon the ELCA the compassionate and courageous heart
for Christ that will make us infectious witnesses to His
grace and glory.

David W. Preus

3. Greetings of the Secretary of the Lutheran Church in America

President Boh!mann, sisters and brothers in Christ, part-

ners and colleagues 1n mission:

IT come to you as a representative of the Lutheran
Church in America and of the Rev. Dr. James R. Crumley,
Jr., Bishop of our church. It was impossible for him to
accept the gracious invitation of President Bohlmann be-
cause of gall bladder surgery a week ago last Tuesday from
which he is now recuperating. He asked me to represent
him and to extend his personal greetings to you, the del-
egates and visitors to this Lutheran Church—Missouri
Synod convention.

Our two church bodies have had a long relationship
through the members of congregations, district and syn-
odical leaders, and national or churchwide leaders. That
relationship has resulted in joint undertakings in some
communities by congregations, common endeavors by
some districts and synods, and evidences of partnership in
some activities by our church bodies. We have shared in
the projects to which I allude because of a common confes-
sional affirmation and because of a recognition and desire
to enhance the impact of the kingdom of God on the world
and in the society of which we are a part.

Now the Lutheran Church in America is participating
with two other Lutheran church bodies to form the Evan-