LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1995, Page 64

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64 REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT

assertion: We are a family! First and foremost, we are
members of that special family we confess to be: one, holy,
Christian and apostolic. We are members of the holy Chris-
tian church, by virtue of the fact that God has called us in
Christ to be His very own sons and daughters. We are also
members of the special family of Christian believers we
know as Lutherans, and we are members within this
Lutheran family of the beloved Synod we call The Lutheran
Church—Missouri Synod.

As a family, our two equally important priorities are:
strongly and boldly confessing the faith of the Scriptures

and the Lutheran Confessions and reaching out, strongly
and boldly, with this magnificent confession of the full
truth of the Word of God.

As a synodical family we face many important issues as
we approach the convention in St. Louis. Let.us pray that
God would bless our synodical family richly as we move
into the weeks ahead. Please study this convention work-
book very carefully, particularly if you are a delegate. God
bless and keep us all in His mercy and grace through
Christ Jesus our Lord.

Part Il: Speech to the Floor Committees
Opportunities and Challenges for Our Synodical Family

Introduction

Let me begin my presentation this evening with the
words of the apostle Paul, “Grace, mercy, and peace to you
from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ.”

First of all, I want to thank you for agreeing to serve our
Synod as a member of a convention floor committee. I want
you to know how deeply appreciated your service is and
particularly your willingness to give up your Memorial Day
weekend to serve in this way. So again, thank you.

Our synodical family over these past three years has
heard repeatedly the five-fold vision statement which I
have been holding high before our Synod. My heartfelt de-
sire for our Synod is that it be strongly in the Word, peo-
ple-sensitive and people-centered, reaching out boldly with
the Gospel, faithful to Scripture and the Lutheran Confes-
sions, and then, finally, united in peace and unity in the
Lord. This five-fold vision statement summarizes the key
opportunities and challenges for our synodical family.
These five points must remain our Synod’s highest priori-
ties as we move into the years ahead. The vision statement
is not a program, it is a vision—a vision of where we as a
Synod must be if we are to remain a genuinely Lutheran
Synod, a family of Lutheran Christians united in a common
confession, agreeing to walk together in both word and
deed. And so tonight we gather to begin the work of formu-
lating resolutions for the consideration of the delegates
elected to serve as the representatives of our Synod as it
gathers in convention.

There is one key thought that I want to share with you
as you begin your work. It is this: Ours is a time of un-
precedented opportunity and challenge in the Lord. I gen-
uinely believe that I cannot underscore this fact enough
with you or with the nearly 1,000 other delegates who will
be attending our Synod’s convention in July.

In my presentation tonight, I want to point out to each
floor committee what I perceive to be some of the key issues
which your committee faces. I do not want to tell you what
to do, but instead to offer you some observations which you
may find helpful as you go about your work. I have shared
some of these thoughts with your committee chairmen in a
letter I sent to each of them. I do this in the tradition of my

predecessors in this office, Dr. J. A. O. Preus and Dr. “Ralph
Bohlmann. Obviously the final decision in all these matters
rests in your hands, and ultimately the delegates to our
convention will make the final decision in all of these mat-
ters. So, let me begin my walk through the Workbook,
pointing out important issues as I would view them.

Committee 1: Missions

Members of Committee 1, ours is a time of unprece-
dented opportunity and challenge in the Lord! The fact that
there are not many overtures in the area of missions should
not cause you even for a moment to think that the congre-
gations of our Synod are not committed to missions. This is
not at all the case. When you consider that at this conven-
tion we will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of our
Synod’s world mission program, and when you stop to con-
sider that the world’s population as of 1995 is 5.3 billion
people, of whom only 1.8 billion claim some association with
a Christian church, you cannot help but recognize the truth
of the statement that indeed ours is a time of unprece-
dented opportunity and challenge in the Lord.

There are at least 3.5 billion people living today who do
not have a saving relationship with our Savior Jesus
Christ. At the present time our Synod’s mission program
has 155 career missionaries and 92 volunteer missionaries
serving in 51 different countries in the world. But we can,
and we must, be doing more, much more, for the sake of
world mission outreach. And directing our attention to
those who live within our own borders we see the masses
of people who here also are like “sheep without a shepherd.” :
We hear the words of the Master who said, “The fields are
white, ready for the harvest; therefore pray to the Lord of
the harvest that He send out workers into the harvest
fields.”

Committee 2: Congregational Services

To the members of Committee 2 I say: Ours is a time of
unprecedented opportunity and challenge in the Lord. The
matter of the proposed formation of the new Board for Con-
gregational Services and the concern as to whether or not
the Commission on Worship should be a part of this new
board or should be permitted to remain a free-standing