LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2010, Page 126

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126

SYNOD REPORTS

will forward 43 percent of the contributions received by the district
to the national Synod office. Over and above their regular offerings,
our congregations and people have adopted special mission projects
through Mission Central. In 2008, we conducted a series of “Mission
Ignition” events to raise mission awareness and encourage participation in Fan into Flame.
Our district’s own missionaries joyfully serve students from our
communities and from around the world at Iowa State University; they
also serve deaf, Hispanic, Asian, and African people in small towns
and suburbs. Through our support for the Los Angeles Nehemiah
Project, we have served with our sister congregations in Los Angeles.
Our members continue to serve the victims of hurricanes on the
Gulf Coast, floods in eastern Iowa, and poverty in Mexico. They volunteer in hospitals and nursing homes. They teach English as a Second
Language. They serve in food banks and soup kitchens. They sew
quilts and make health kits. They sort clothing, gather medical supplies, and pack containers for shipment around the world. They build
houses. They donate toys so that children can celebrate Christmas.
They volunteer at Camp Okoboji. They host booths at county and
state fairs. Some serve as volunteer firefighters and EMTs, while others serve in the armed forces. They financially support the work of
Lutheran Family Service, Lutherans For Life, Orphan Grain Train,
Lutheran World Relief, Lutheran Disaster Response, and a host of
other charities. In the name of Jesus, our people serve in their communities, and they find great “Joy in Serving.”
Paul G. Sieveking, President
R7-02-10

Kansas District
“The Servant mission of The Kansas District is to equip, empower
and encourage each congregation in its mission vision and Christcare ministry.”
Grace to you and peace, from our God and Father, and our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ, the resurrected Lord! Amen.
The mission moves forward. Or more appropriately, it journeys
toward the cross. That is His story and the story of the last triennium in the Kansas District. There are countless stories to tell about
what the men, women, and children of God are doing in this corner
of the Kingdom. Space and time do not give allowance for them all.
However, this is an opportunity to highlight some of the ways that
God has worked through us. I could go on in this report with statistical information and specific reference, but you can get that anywhere
in our church. Let me share with you a report which had its beginning
in the report that I gave to this corner of the Kingdom in our district
convention. I believe it reveals to the church at large, our Lutheran
Church—Missouri Synod, what we strive to be as a part of the body
life of our church.
I would like to spend a few moments drawing the vision for what is
a part of our work together proclaiming that message of life and hope
into tomorrow. We are formed in our ministries by the three Ms. Those
are message, mission, and THE means. The good news I have for you
is that we don’t have to spend much time defining any of them. Each
is a gift of God to His Church. If anything, it is our goal together by
the work of God’s Holy Spirit to discover and pursue them.
Too many times the church, meaning individuals, congregations,
and our organizations spend way too much time planning and considering what they are going to do, and then turn toward God and ask
Him to bless it. I believe that we must be a church that spends our
energy discovering what God is blessing, and then commit ourselves

to doing it. That is my prayer over the work of the Kansas District
in these days.
There is no doubt that these are formidable days for our work. We
begin with the first quotient; the message is the unchanged Gospel
of our God. We shall always and only stand upon the pure, inerrant,
and inspired Word of God. It is the constant as well as the norm for
all that we own. We had many references to the Book of Acts in our
latest convention, and especially during our devotional time. But one
that I would refer to now is also a reference to the Preamble of the
Constitution of our LCMS. In the first point of the “Reason for the
Forming of a Synodical Union,” it lifts up “The example of the apostolic church. Acts 15:1-31.” From that portion of Scripture we find
the pivotal passage in verse 11, “We believe it is through the grace of
our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”
It is the “they are” that propels us from the message into the
mission.
Three years ago I stood before the Kansas District convention
and said that as I look around our mission field I see three areas that
I believe draw us into the harvest. These are the areas that I believe
invite and should command our investment of energy, emphasis, dollars, staff, and most importantly, the attention of all of our people,
even beyond our current levels of work.
At that time I said that they were:
• Advancement in Ethnic Outreach and Embracing the New
Mission Population among our Boundaries, including the
Military Buildup.
• The Care and Keeping of Workers in the Church.
• Investment in the Spiritual Growth of the Lay Leadership.
I did not suggest any change in those targets, but I did add at
least two. The first of those is the “revitalization of our existing congregations.” I have been encouraged by the number of our local
congregations who have moved beyond the “how can we survive?”
mentality to the critical question of “why should we?” I appreciate
the work that the vital church has done to offer help and hope to congregations and ministries to look at themselves and their community
with “new eyes” and mission hearts. I honestly believe that this is
one of the birthing areas of the mission of the Kansas District, and the
“mission hearts” of our DNA is already prepared for this challenge.
In the words of a great churchman, “Bring it ON!”
In more than one of our congregations I have visited in the last
three years, our congregations considered the struggles of being a
“small ministry” with “limited resources.” We have heard these words
before. If there should come a day when we have to close the doors as
one of the last churches of our community I pray that it is a day that
the entire community mourns. If not, why wait? And if that is true,
the Lord will grant you new life every day.
Within the second point, and actually it is an expounding of a
previous point, is the care and keeping of our workers. I believe that
the investment that we all have made in our Kansas District Retreat
Place will pay exponential dividends for the ministry of this district.
I am not going to steal anyone’s fire from the reports that are part of
the larger picture, but I do believe that we have provided a space and
a place that will fulfill the theme of that place: “A place where the
workers of Kansas District and their families can reconnect to their
God, their family, and to themselves.”
The nature of the Kansas District of the LCMS is MISSION. Please
don’t think that if I don’t mention them all here that any one is less
important.
But I didn’t want to close without also speaking the third quotient.
We talked about the message, the mission, and we must also put all

2010 Convention Workbook

2010 Convention.indb 126

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