LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2010, Page 58

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• That the Scriptures teach that women are not to hold the pastoral
office, but are free and encouraged to use their God given gifts in
service to the Lord and His Church in other biblically appropriate
roles .
• That Holy Communion, Holy Baptism, and the Word of God are
the means through which God conveys to sinful human beings His
grace—His undeserved love and forgiveness—and through which
the Holy Spirit calls individuals to faith in Christ .
This is what we believe, teach, and confess . This is what I
believe, teach, and confess . It’s what I first learned at home from
my father and mother, what was reinforced by my grandfathers and
grandmothers, what I was taught in confirmation class in the 7th and
8th grades at St . Matthew Lutheran Church right here in Houston,
and what I have learned throughout my life since then . Anyone who
alleges otherwise is simply misinformed or misled .
The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod for 163 years has been a
solid, faithful, evangelical, biblical, confessional, Christian church,
and I pray to God it always will be . I don’t want to hand down to my
grandchildren anything less, and I know you don’t either .
One of our greatest challenges in the LCMS is to figure out how
to transfer what we believe, teach, and confess from our head to our
heart and from inside the walls of our beautiful sanctuaries to the
people of the communities in which those sanctuaries are located .
In this radically different, secularized, pluralistic culture of ours,
the time has come to adjust outreach methods or ministry models if,
when, or where it’s necessary to do so—for the sake of the Gospel .
We must continue to work, faithfully and creatively, to reach the
millions upon millions of lost souls in this country and the billions
of people around the world who live and die without Christ .
Our Synod has a great history, and I pray to God we will always
learn from that history . We stand on the shoulders of giants who
bequeathed to us a magnificent theology . It’s a theology that does not
change, and yet it’s a living and breathing theology . It’s what makes
the LCMS a living and vibrant church .
But are we as alive and vital today as we ought to be? Will the
church we hand down to our children and grandchildren be as strong
as the one our parents and grandparents gave to us?
In some respects we’re not as robust as we used to be . We’re stuck,
plateaued, running in place, falling behind, and shrinking in size and
relevance . The statistical facts show that total membership in the
congregations of our Synod has fallen by some 600,000 people over
the past 40 years—I repeat, 600,000 people over the past 40 years .
There are many reasons for this decline in our membership, and
some of the blame lies at our own feet .
This spring at a pastors’ conference in Minnesota I talked
about the report of our convention-mandated Task Force on Synod
Harmony, specifically, the seven “Aspects of the Present Disharmony
in Synod .” As I listed them, you could hear a pin drop . The men in the
room sat silently, some with heads bowed . I think what made them
so still, so pensive—even melancholy—was that they realized just
how much truth was contained in these points . Here are those seven
aspects of disharmony among us:
1 . An inability to deal with diversity in such issues as admission to
Holy Communion, worship substance and style, the Office of the
Public Ministry and the role of laity, and the service of women in
the church .
2 . A lack of civility that leads to rumors, lies, slander, sarcasm,
and cruel satire, doing violence to the Eighth Commandment and
sorely wounding our church .
2010 Convention Proceedings

3 . A politicized culture that has turned our Synod into “a denomination of parties .”
4 . These problems “are primarily a clergy problem . Pastors are in
the forefront of practices and attitudes unbefitting God’s people .”
5 . Poor communication across the lines that divide us hampers the
ability, or the will, to listen to one another .
6 . A lack of accountability for sinful attitudes and behaviors, falling
on the shoulders of district presidents and circuit counselors to
counsel, admonish, teach, encourage, and model churchmanship .
7 . Distrust, particularly among clergy, resulting in increasingly partisan politics .
Delegates to this convention have witnessed or experienced some
of these firsthand . As disconcerting as these aspects of disharmony
are, it is important that we acknowledge them . For only by facing
up to our problems can we hope to fix them . Unity, harmony, and
concord among us are not what they ought to be and need to be
improved significantly .
This will not be accomplished by changes in structure and
governance, but by the Spirit of God working within us through
Word and Sacrament . That does not make structure and governance
improvements insignificant or unnecessary . All problems we face
must be addressed . A person who has both heart disease and kidney
malfunction cannot ignore either of those conditions .
If our grandparents’ church had problems with unity, harmony,
and concord, I don’t think they ran as deep as they do today . Still,
the church of our parents had problems . So did the church of our
grandparents and their parents .
Let’s go back just 40 years . Many of you remember the early
’70s—the most outwardly turbulent period in the long history of
our church .
The challenge back then was upholding the faithfulness of our
Synod to Holy Scripture . That challenge was daunting: to save our
Synod, in the words of one author, “from succumbing to the winds of
liberalism and unorthodox Biblical interpretation .” But we succeeded
in doing just that .
Back in the ’70s, James Adams, the author I referenced, wrote
that the “Missouri Synod longs to scale the highest mountain and
breathe the pure but thin air that leaves others gasping .” He called this
“the Missouri Synod mountaintop .” That’s a beautiful image: “the
Missouri Synod mountaintop”—like “a city on a hill .”
We must defend this mountaintop, for we will always be Christ’s
“light of the world,” and “a city on a hill [that] cannot be hidden”
(Matt . 5:14) . At the same time, Jesus calls us to proclaim His Gospel
not just on the mountaintop but also in the valleys below .
If we never come down from our heights, if we stay where the air
“leaves others gasping,” we risk building ourselves an ivory tower .
We risk wrapping ourselves in a self-righteous pietism and becoming
sectarian . We risk isolating ourselves from the rest of the world and
the work our Lord would have us do .
I believe our grandparents would agree, that they would say, “You
are the light of the world! You are a city on a hill! You are Christ’s
ambassadors, and to be His ambassadors, you have to engage the
world . You have to meet people where they are .”
They would urge us, I believe, while retaining the most highly
cherished and meaningful of our time-honored traditions, to be
creative and flexible in our ministry and outreach, using all the
gifts and tools God has given us for work in the 21st century . And
by “flexible,” I don’t mean flexible in our doctrine but responsibly
flexible in how we proclaim the Gospel .