LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1967, Page 47

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PRESIDENT’S REPORT 47

synodical operation is huge, important, and complex.
This year we are spending more than $26 million for
current operations and debt service through national
headquarters alone. Our Districts are spending many
additional millions.. More than 400 lay and clergy: mem-
bers serve on the boards and commissions of the Synod.
Through our synodical operation we support 1,300 fac-
ulty members and other personnel on the campuses of
our 16 colleges and seminaries in North America.
Through our Synod we support 569 personnel overseas
plus national workers, and with our Districts an addi-
tional 1,584 workers in our North American mission
venture.

In one sentence of 14 words the Handbook says the
Synod wants its President to have its resolutions car-
ried out. Neither my office nor any of the offices
I know is equipped with buttons to press for getting
all this done. And all of our work is being done in
a world that is undergoing changes which now can be
explained only in terms of explosions and revolutions.
Responsible churchmanship demands that we anticipate
and gear to such changes. For instance: factors have
now combined to give us long life, and yet half of our
members are now under 25 years of age; the church’s
membership is becoming increasingly affluent, and yet
those to whom we need to reach out here and abroad
are increasingly the victims of poverty, ignorance, and
oppression. Whether we ever did or not in the past,
whether we like it or not in the present, we cannot
carry on in the church as if we are unaffected by all
the changes that sweep over the world.

Every effort is being made to communicate and to
implement the resolutions. of the Synod. Special meet-
ings and special mailings have been added to normal
channels. The Council of Administrators and the Dis-
trict Presidents have played increasingly significant
roles in this task. Shortly after the close of this con-
vention we will conduct a series of meetings with Dis-
trict leaders in the seven major regional centers of this
continent. Earlier and more directly than ever before
we hope that the will of the Synod, as reflected in your
resolutions here, will be on their way to places, where
high hopes and good words are translated into action.

At other points I have indicated the tentative nature
of the situation in which we are at work. The un-
changing mission of the church ina changing setting
calls on us to alter-our strategy and techniques accord-
ingly. Most of our. members and the vast majority to
whom we ought to reach out as ambassadors of Christ
do not live in the relatively simple rural setting in which
many of us were born. Even the best of prophets can-
not predict the shape of things to come. We must be
prepared to minister to all sorts and conditions of men,
which is precisely the kind of ministry in which our
Lord Himself was engaged.

‘More than ever we need to define and pursue the
goals for which God has called the church into being.
Two marks characterize the life of the church today,
‘also at the congregational level. There is uncertainty
and’confusion about what the church ought to be doing;

there is an unwillingness to be committed to or involved
in doing for others.

In view of the needs that cry at us and in view of
the fantastic riches of every kind with which God has
blessed us for such a time as this, we are liable to the
charge of misappropriating what belongs to God. The
trust we hold is from God, and it is intended for the
world. We have no alternative in this convention but
to call our brethren to the colors. This call should be
for nothing less than all and for the best from each of
us, for this is precisely what God has given us first and
asks in return.

Late in 1965 I convened a special meeting to help
determine how we might be more effective in our min-
istry to minority groups, particularly the Negro Amer-
icans. Later I appointed an Advisory Council on Church
and Social Change. I did so for two reasons: first, there
is a need to comprehend all the dimensions of the social
revolution taking place, and second, we need to discover
methods for implementing the commitments which our
Synod has accepted in its resolutions.

Several comments are in place at this point. I believe
it is necessary to speak even at the risk of being mis-
understood. In fact, even the term “misunderstand” is
not completely adequate. It isn’t wrong thinking so
much as wrong feeling that creates the greatest diffi-
culties in the field of human relations. Facts are of
little help to those who prefer their prejudices.

But the very nature of this difficulty helps to out-
line our challenge. Our dilemma underscores what
Scripture has always contended: that we are still sinful
creatures who need God’s judgment to curb our sinful
passions and God’s grace to evoke love from us. Be-
cause God loves us without discrimination, because He
loves all men without discrimination, we have no alter-
native but to love as He did. As Christians we are in-
volved in human relations just as deeply and as broadly
as He was. Problems in human relations appear on the
agenda of this convention because God Himself has
placed them there.

God has a very precise purpose in mind when He
puts these items on our agenda. The church is always
to be God’s workmanship, His display before the world
so that men might learn to know and trust Him and
His goodness. There are precious by-products, but they
can never be more than the setting for the gem. If we
are faithful stewards of the manifold grace of God, we
would prove ourselves hypocrites and perpetrate a cruel
hoax if we dared to merchandise the setting without
the gem.

God is saying that we are to regard every human
being as God’s own, the creature of God’s making and
the object of His redemption. God expects much more
of us to whom He has given sonship. But He has not
relinquished His place to us, who are merely creatures.
We betray our trust in the power of God’s Law and
Gospel if ever we decide we must take things into our
own hands. I pledge that I will restrain myself from
acting like God in my office or at this convention.
I pledge also to resist every effort by anyone else to