LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1992, Page 93

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2. Farewell Address by President BohImann

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

As I have struggled to find the right words for this time,
in prayer, my thoughts have gone over so many speech
handles that I can’t begin to tell you about them. I know
there will be many opportunities to reflect on the past and
focus on the future, so I shan’t try to do it all right now.
But I found my thoughts going back to three plaques, or
pictures, that hang on the walls of my offices, two of them
in the International Center and one in my basement office
at home. I'd like to structure my comments around those
three plaques, because they've been with me, I guess,
pretty much every day for the last several years.

One of them is a beautifully done calligraphy presen-
tation of a passage from the Word of God that has been
there, every day, to remind me of whom I serve and of all
of you, too: Philippians 1:3-6: “I thank my God every time
I remember you, in all my prayers for all of you I always
pray with joy because of your partnership in the Gospel
from the first day until now, being confident of this, that
He who began a good work in you will carry it on to com-
pletion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

It has always seemed to me that the words ‘ ‘partnership
in the Gospel,” expressed in the context of thanksgiving
and trust for the future, were particularly meant for people
such as us, and not only for the New Testament Christians
to whom the words were first written. I thank my God,
and I want to express that to you this morning, for our
partnership in the Gospel in The Lutheran Church—Mis-
souri Synod, and I do so in that same context of trust and
good will, because we, too, are in God’s hands for the future.
I want to thank you, The Lutheran Church—Missouri
Synod represented here and represented by many others
throughout the world, for honoring me these years by al-
lowing me to serve in this pastoral ministry. It’s been la
tremendous privilege to be able to say, in various places,
that I speak, or attempt to, at least, for the two and half
million members of The Lutheran Church—Missouti
Synod, whether that’s in the offices of the president of the
United States (which has happened, I suppose, some eight
or ten times), with cabinet officers of the government, at
large assemblies of Lutheran bodies all over the world,
with the heads of churches; or what I have really enjoyed
much, much more than that—preaching in your congre-
gations as you celebrate an anniversary, as you bury a
pastor, as you dedicate a building—as we celebrate those
times together, I want to thank you for the high honor and
the wonderful privilege to represent this great church body
in those ways.

Thave always felt that my position was a very humbling
one. I have been in awe of it for a long, long time—I suppose
since I was a 13- or 14-year-old boy, and my pastor-father
used to team up with the President of the Synod, Dr. John
Behnken, in Oak Park, IIl., whose office was an expanded
porch on Kenilworth Avenue (how times have changed!).
Then, during World War II, they would get in the old Chevy
on weekends; and, because they both spoke German and
had pastored people in German, they would visit German
prisoners of war in the Chicago area. I am just as much
in awe of the office now as I was then.

, Ithas always seemed to me that it’s an office that should
seek the man, and that God should lead the church to that
choice—not the other way around. It is not a political office,
and being chosen for it is not like what goes on in the
conventions of the political parties of our nation. It’s God’s
way of surfacing individuals who are then chosen, elected,
and called by the church through the convention.

| And again, I honor the office as a pastoral office, as one
that must serve the whole church, not just some of it. It
must be respectful of the diversity in the church, of the
needs of the church, an office that is able to listen while
still providing a measure of guidance—whether that’s ad-
monishing a board or commission that does not appear to
be following what the church has asked it to do, or whether
that means supporting a board or commission or District
President or some other group of the church that is making
a hard decision that appears to be fully in keeping with
the doctrine and constitution of the church.

, I don’t believe that any President, whether it be I, or
the President-elect, or any President still to come, or any
district President, should ever be maligned for attempting
to do his duty under the Constitution. And J say that not
for the sake of the President, but for the sake of the church.
Help those who supervise the doctrine and administration
of the church to do their task, and 1 pray that you will do
that.

: Philippians speaks of “partnership in the Gospel.” The
church is not a one-person show. This day, I thank par-
ticularly my wife and family; my wonderful office staff