LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Page 46

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PRESIDENT’S REPORT

For your sake and mine I begin this report with an
introductory statement. In these comments I want to set
forth the nature of this report. Then you and I will be
able better to understand what is being said and what is
meant.

This report is shaped by two elements. The Synod
has outlined the responsibilities of the office of the
President in its Constitution and Bylaws. It directs the
President to “give an accurate report to Synod of his
administration” (XI, B, 5b). Obviously, however, the
Synod does not work in a vacuum. In my report I in-
tend to give an accounting of my administration in the
light of the responsibilities assigned to the office of the
President and to do so with an awareness of the setting
in which we live and work as a church body.

When I accepted the present term of office in 1965, I
described the office of the President as that of under-
shepherd and servant. I quote from the statement I
made at that time:

As God’s undershepherd I am pledged to lead you to the
green pastures of God’s Word and to the still waters of His
forgiveness. But I will fail as undershepherd if I do not call
you away from what is false and dangerous. I will seek to
arouse you from sleep and indifference, to stir you to keep on
the move, and, if it please God, I will guide you nearer to
other sheep God is gathering into His fold.

As your chief servant I will seek to fill your needs by
providing, directly and indirectly, for a full and faithful min-
istry. But I will also prod you on to develop and use the
gifts God has given you for the ministry to which He has
called you. The President’s office will not rest until the
people of God in our Synod are sharing the richness of
God’s gracious blessings with people everywhere... .

Tension develops in the office of the President when he
seeks to be both undershepherd and chief servant. The
President is at the same time God’s man and the people’s
man. I plead with you, for the sake of God’s people in our
fellowship and those whom God would reach through us,
that you help me fill this double role to the highest po-
tential God gives.

Now, four years later, I testify at the outset that
God has not failed me. He has been my own Good
Shepherd. He has served me. He has faithfully sustained
me with forgiveness and with every blessing of His
grace. I confess that where I have failed you as a
Synod, I have first failed my God. Where there has
been success—and God alone rightly knows that —
it is only because God has been faithful to us for Jesus’
sake.

In the high office entrusted to me I have learned
little but awe for the high honor in which God holds us
and the perfect grace with which He always deals with
us. I have learned to appreciate more deeply what it
means that Jesus was our Shepherd and Servant and
furthermore what it means for us to be that for each
other and for the world He has loved unto death.

It is necessary to say also how much I have learned
from those who have gone before us. In a special way
I think of those who were first called Lutherans and of
our early forefathers who claimed that name with pride.
They have helped me to understand the nature of the
Gospel and what it means to be an evangelical Lutheran
Christian. The Word of God is never clearer or surer or

46

more glorious than when Jesus Christ enlightens, se-
cures, and blesses it.

But this report is not an autobiographical sketch.
The administration of this Synod is a joint effort, and
many have shared with me all that such leadership im-
plies. You have given me to stand at my side five Vice-
Presidents and thirty-seven District Presidents. They
have stood at their posts to listen, to speak, and to act
in the name of the Synod. Let me single out two in
particular. Doctor Roland P. Wiederaenders, our First
Vice-President, has served us all quietly, diligently, and
effectively. And until God called him home, Doctor
John W. Behnken always served far beyond the call of
duty.

My office is also more aware than most how the
Synod owes a debt of gratitude to those who are called
to manage the affairs of the Synod. I call attention to the
Board of Directors, which always faces difficult and
heavy responsibilities. I mention Doctor Walter F. Wol-
brecht and the Council of Administrators, together with
our various boards and commissions and their staffs.
I dare not fail to mention the faithful and dedicated
service of my administrative assistant, the Reverend
Arnold A. Wessler. All across the land are our sixteen
colleges and seminaries with their administrations and
boards of control, our Districts and their officials and
staffs. Everywhere behind the scenes are the thousands
of unnamed workers who make the calling of God a
high career. Finally, I am constrained to call attention
to those like Doctor W. F. Bulle who have so nobly led
us into fields of service on behalf of those who suffer the
anguish of war, the hurt of handicap, or who plead the
cause of the voiceless ones whom God has placed at our
feet for healing and help.

The Synod directs its President to supervise the
doctrine and life of the members, to supervise the man-
agement of synodical affairs, and to represent the church
to others. All these tasks must be viewed in the context
of the objectives which prompted the formation of this
Synod and which induced us to become members of it.
These objectives may often seem discredited and to be in
disrepute. Yet they have a sanctity all of their own.
They are consistent with the Scriptures. They are de-
signed to give assurance that God will exert His blessed
influence through these Scriptures among us and
through us.

If there is any crisis at all that seems to be facing the
church in our time it is this: The church has apparently
forgotten the place and the power of the Gospel. Law
and judgment now are being preached to the church by
prophets from within and from without. After all, God
has His own way at all times of making us feel our
frailty and our failure. Now, as always, prophets are
unpopular, and God’s Word of judgment is distasteful.
Now, as always, the Word of God is a living force. It
produces resentment and anger. None of us wants to
be told or to be shown what he really is like.

Evangelical Christians, above others, ought to know