Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1969 · 48th Convention › Page 36
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Page 36

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

36 MISSIONS

2) Sensitization of District and Synodical Executives.
Two special “sharing” sessions on significant experi-
mental ministries (the one on MAP; the other on urban
ministry in Oakland) were scheduled during the past 2
years. Invited to the daylong sharing sessions were
selected seminary profs and students, mission execu-
tives from five or six Districts for whom the experiment
might have particular relevance, and key executives
from other synodical departments that might be
interested.

3) General Sensitization of Clergy and Lay Leaders.
After much consideration we believe that a suitable
means of communication has been found that will afford
the maximum possible sensitization of professional
church workers and lay leaders of our church at the
lowest possible cost. Starting in the middle of 1969, six
times a year we will publish four one-sheet special min-
istry ‘‘case studies”’ as inserts in or enclosures to Advance
magazine.

The case studies will address themselves to topics
such as these: What sparked or caused concern for min-
istry in a particular area? What considerations led to the
initial design for ministry? When and how was the design
implemented? How and why has the initial design been
modified? What has been learned from the ministry thus
far, both positively and negatively? How might these
insights be utilized by Christians elsewhere, both indi-
vidually and corporately? What potentials for ministry
remain unexplored?

Those who write the case studies—persons directly
involved, with the consultative assistance of their District
mission executives and with editorial assistance from our
staff—are asked to use their ingenuity and creativity so
as to share, sensitize, inform, and free the people of God
in widely separated places for their creative and faithful
expression of their love for Christ to people in diverse
circumstances —to stimulate them for ministry.

g. The Risks of Window Cleaning. Insurance coverage
for a professional window washer is very costly. This is
because his vocation is comparatively hazardous. One
misstep on his part, or a faulty bracket to which he has
attached his safety belt, or a sudden and unexpected
gust of wind, and—. There is risk involved, but that risk
must be taken if the windows are to be cleaned.

The kind of window cleaning we have been talking
about also involves risk —or to be more accurate, risks.
In some instances, whether with or without the consulta-
tive services and financial enablement of the Board for
Missions, Districts have felt it essential to become partici-
pants in interdenominational organizations concerned
with major problems and issues. One such organization
is the East Bay Conference on Religion and Race, which
serves the metropolitan Oakland, Calif., area. Though
the expressed purposes of the organization as well as
its functioning to date clearly indicate otherwise, some
conscientious Lutheran Christians view EBCORR as
either a unionistic organization that violates our synodical
principles regarding pulpit and altar fellowship and/or as

an organization that is fomenting class and racial conflict.
Neither is true. EBCORR serves as a joint instrument of
communication and_ reconciliation between social,
racial, and economic groups. No one church body could
by itself engage in such a ministry. But together, it can
and is being done.

Such a ministry is valuable, is essential in many places
in our country today. But our brethren in the California
and Nevada District do not limit their concern for people
to their temporal reconciliation and communication with
one another. The sensitivities and insights flowing out
of our participation in EBCORR enable the District and
its people to proclaim in all its fullness the Gospel, the
Good News of the love of God in Christ Jesus, in a way
that really communicates. And so our participation in an
instrument of temporal reconciliation equips us for “tell-
ing it like it is,” the much more profound “telling” which
is the very reason for being of the people of God.

And so there are risks, many risks, in window clean-
ing. A brother or sister in Christ may stumble and fall
in the midst of an evil and tempting situation. The partici-
pation of a congregation, a District, or a board of the
Synod in an interreligious organization also involves
risk. Such an organization may at times be unfaithful to
its stated purposes and either express itself or act in a
manner of which we must disapprove. (When such an
organization does stray, it has been our experience that
the participating unit of our church always insists that
its voice be heard and, if the condition persists, with-
draws after giving an appropriate witness.) But without
risk-taking there can be no ministry. The risk must
always be taken seriously, the possible outcomes always
weighed. Other alternatives are faithfully considered.
But if after serious study and prayer the call to minister
in a particular way and in a given situation is unmis-
takably that of our Lord, that call with all its attendant
risks must be heeded. That is the cost of Christian
discipleship.

h. Window Cleaning Within the Body. Another area
of risk we have deliberately saved till last. It is the possi-
bility that those who are directly or indirectly engaged in
window cleaning and the other members of Christ’s
body whose gifts of love have made it possible for the
cleaning to occur will lose sight of their common identity
as brethren in the body of Christ. In short, they may
easily fall prey to the temptation to lose confidence in
one another. Our shortcomings in communication, which
we have mentioned in an earlier section, account for this
in part but only in part. Trust in the brother is essential;
without this there can never be genuine communication.

As human beings we tend to invest and manifest trust
in a person who has shown himself to be worthy of that
trust. Having been “had” in certain transactions, per-
haps with a dishonest appliance repairman or a door-to-
door salesman, we look upon trust as a privilege, not a
right. Realistic as such reasoning may necessarily be in
certain associations, it is totally out of place in the econ-
omy of God. God trusts us, has confidence in us, not be-