LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1989, Page 90

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GREETINGS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH—CANADA 91

Finally, our Confession of Faith lifts up the Gospel as
“the power of God to create and sustain the Church for
God’s mission in the world.”

This is our witness to you, our brothers and sisters in
Christ.

Like you, our first and frequent reason for being is to
“tell everyone what he has done.” But, like you, we are
frustrated over the fact that we are a church that is de-
clining in numbers at a time when the Gospel of justifi-
cation by grace through faith is more needed than ever.
Like you, the decline from year to year has not been as
dramatic as some churches. The first year—less than one-
half of one percent—a fraction of what some critics of the
merger had predicted. Yet the cumulative effect over the
years has been substantial. Like you, we are distressed
that the resources for mission are not sufficient. Like you,
we are searching for ways to grow and to enlarge our mis-
sion and ministry. Like you, we are determined to do so
without selling our Gospel birthright.

At our churchwide assembly in Chicago in August we

will give consideration to a program we are calling “Mis-
sion 90.” Its accent will be on the basics of our life together
in Christ. Across the length and breadth of our church we
will focus on such things as what it means to be a Chris-
tian; the discipline of daily Bible reading; tithing asa joyful
response to God’s grace; the need to become a more diverse
church; Bible study and witness; partnership of our con-
gregations and synods with other ministries around the
world; concern for peace, justice and the preservation of
creation.

Because we have much in common, it is crucial that we
pray for one another. I ask for your prayers for our Evan-
gelical Lutheran Church in America. And we also will pray
for you. The hosts of evil encamped against us are so for-
midable that we cannot afford to waste our precious time
and limited energies in anything other than our common
venture to make the Good News of Jesus Christ known as
far and as wide as possible.

May God give you his Holy Spirit to guide you in all
that you do.

Herbert W. Chilstrom, Bishop

4. Greetings of the President
of the Lutheran Church—Canada

President Bohlmann, esteemed delegates to the 57th con-
vention of The Lutheran Church——Missouri Synod, broth-
ers and sisters in Christ:

In the ‘name of our Lord Jesus Christ, head of the
church, Lord of the nations, I bring you greetings from the
congregations, pastors and teachers of the Lutheran
Church—Canada.

That’s probably the official way of saying it, although
not the appropriate way. It’s too much like a respectful
handshake. But when your children leave home to begin
their own family and then return to visit their parents,
they hurry into the house and shout, “Hi Mom, Hi Dad!”
They do not just shake hands. They embrace. It’s in that
spirit that I come to visit you, like a son or daughter coming
home. On behalf of your sons and daughters in Canada, I
not only greet you, I embrace you sincerely, warmly, grate-
fully. You have been our spiritual mother. We love you,
we think of you often, and yes, there are times when some
of us get homesick.

You will always be our mother and we will always be
your daughter, but not your child. We’ve made the decision
to accept adult responsibilities for the mission God has
given us. And God has blessed that decision. After 30 years
of functioning as a federation of Canadian districts of The
Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, we have finally be-
come an autonomouos synod. Our constituting convention
a year ago brought together pastors and lay delegates from
each of our 334 congregations—plus many advisory pas-
tors, teachers, and hundreds of guests and visitors. Your
synodical president, many synodical officers, and over half
of the district presidents attended our birth. We cannot
find words to express how important your participation
and support have been to us.

I especially want to recognize before all of you the out-
standing assistance we have received from Dr. Bohlmann
and from each and every one of the staff officers, from the
various boards and commissions, the seminaries and the
colleges. You have been a good and caring mother to us.
You have certainly not dumped us in a basket and left us
on somebody’s doorstep. And yes, Mom, we’re doing okay.
There’s a tremendously positive spirit among our people,
especially our laity. Our colleges and seminaries are grow-
ing, and there is an exciting interest on the part of our
people that our new synod be active in carrying out its
God-given mission.

For our part, we are striving to be faithful to what we’ve
learned from you. From you we’ve learned to stand on the
sure and certain Word of God, inspired and inerrant. We
subscribe unreservedly to our confessions. You’ve taught
us what it means both to have sound theology and to con-
fess it clearly.

From you we've learned to see that our primary purpose
is to proclaim the good news of the Father’s love in Jesus
Christ as the only Savior of the world, so that the Holy
Spirit can create saving faith in the hearts of men and
women throughout the world.

. From you we’ve learned to be evangelical in the way by
which we live with each other, to seek to be gentle, com-
passionate, patient, forgiving because we ourselves have
been forgiven.

And in those respects, we will consider it an honor if
someday people say to us, “You’ve grown up to be just like
your mother.”

At the border crossing on the freeway between Vancou-
ver and Seattle, there is a large market with the inscrip-
tion: “Children of a common mother.” The reference, of