LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1977, Page 110

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ADDRESS OF THE LCUSA GENERAL SECRETARY 111

Address of the General Secretary, Lutheran Council in the U.S.A.

It would be easy for me to compile an extensive list of
reasons to speak words of gratitude to you for your
cooperation with The American Lutheran Church and
the Lutheran Church in America in Christian ministry
through the Lutheran Council in the U.S.A. I know that
your agenda is full and that a number of important
issues remain to be discussed and decided. Consequently
I intend to limit my remarks to just a short series of
selected subjects for which many people would want me
to say “thanks” to you on their behalf.

Before I begin with that series, I want to say that the
fervent hope for a greater expression of Lutheran unity,
on which the Council was founded almost eleven years
ago, has not vanished, although we must confess if we
are to be honest with each other—and we must be—that
that hope now burns with less intensity than even five
years ago. We can bemoan that fact, and some of us do.
But I prefer to seek enlightened and constructive ways of
reversing that unwelcome trend, and I shall have more
to say about that later.

Now to the subjects for which I express hearty
thanks.

1. First of all, as General Secretary of the Lutheran
Council in the U.S.A., I can say thanks to you for the
men and women from The Lutheran Church—Missouri
Synod who are serving so effectively in staff positions
in our New York. Washington, and Chicago offices.
They bring their expertise, their creativity, and their
theological balance to the inter-Lutheran team that is
doing your work in the cooperative sphere. And thanks
for the numerous Missouri Synod persons, nominated by
your church, who give much time and energy to their
assignments on various standing committees and
decision-making policy groups. There is no major
decision made within the Lutheran Council that does
not represent the thinking, point of view, and construc-
tive voice of the one third of our partnership that is your
church body. If you have questions about what the
Lutheran Council is and what it does and what it stands
for, I encourage you to address them to those who
represent you. Many of them are right here at this
convention. They are responsible people—when they
criticize what we do or how we do it, they do so around
the same table with their counterparts in The American
Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church in America,
and we work it out. When they affirm our work, they help
us to know that the Missouri Synod is responsibly
supportive of our programs.

2. One of the purposes of the Lutheran Council is to
provide the participating bodies with the means to work
together in whatever common tasks of responsible
Christian service they desire and find to be feasible.

Since the Anaheim convention of The Lutheran
Church—Missouri Synod, the three church bodies
participating in the Lutheran Council have established
or relocated approximately 150 congregations. Almost
half of those congregations are members of The
Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

Through its Division of Mission and Ministry, with

Or. George Harkins is welcomed by President Preus
and Secretary Mueller

the cooperation of its Office for Research, Planning, and
Development, the Council has developed processes and
procedures for assisting the three church bodies in their
planning of mission and ministry.

Members of all these newly established or relocated
congregations thank you for participating in these
processes and procedures. Without them, it would have
been possible, perhaps even likely, that there would
have been three competing and struggling con-
gregations established during these past two years in
one community after another. But with those processes,
undue duplication of effort and wasted resources were
obviated.

3. As of the first of this month, the three par-
ticipating bodies had assigned 282 chaplains on active
duty in the military who minister to more than 45,000
Lutheran men and women in uniform, as well as to
others. Of these 282 chaplains, 98 are members of The
Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod; 87 of The American
Lutheran Church; and 97 of the Lutheran Church in
America. I have been told that between 50 and 60
chaplains are present at this convention. All of these
chaplains say “thank you” for the support you give them
through personal visits from staff members of the
Division of Service to Military Personnel, for the annual
retreats which that division conducts for them, for other
in-service training opportunities to which they
themselves give high priority, and for the printed
materials which the division makes available for their
use as they minister in your behalf to men and women in
the armed forces and civilian occupations related to
military installations overseas.

The Division of Service to Military Personnel also
relates to and supports five independent Lutheran
congregations overseas (Frankfurt, Germany; Guam;
Seoul, Korea; Okinawa, Japan; and Tehran, Iran), each
of which has been “recognized” by all three par-
ticipating church bodies.