LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1995, Page 89

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CONVENTION ESSAYS 89

contend with poverty, disease, lack of Christian materials,
shortage of workers, and slow communication. And, lest we
forget, we thank God for the too often unmentioned hero-
ines and little heroes of the faith: their wives and their chil-
dren! Praise God for these faithful families, many of whom
died young, but who had full confidence that their labor in
the Lord was not in vain (1 Cor. 15:58). If they were with us
today, they would understand and concur with our theme:
Grow in Outreach.

While the early history of our church is interesting and
instructive, we cannot dwell there. As the news commenta-
tor Charles Osgood said recently, “Yesterday’s future is dif-
ferent from today’s future. Yesterday’s is past; today’s is to-
morrow.”

That brings our theme, Grow in Outreach, closer to
home, closer to today—on the edge of tomorrow. And it con-
fronts each one of us. And so it is, back to the “1995 Free-
way” which speeds on to destination 2000 and beyond into
eternity.

Grow in Outreach. That’s easier said than done. Never
before in the history of the world have changes been so
swift and dramatic, invading every area of home, society,
government, and the church. Even the vocabulary contin-
ues to change: global village, Inter-Net, information super-
highway, cyberspace, paradigms, electronic culture, PC’s,
incubator industry, optronics, and the like.

A special report in Time magazine, January 30, 1995, ti-
tled “The State of the Union,” presented a 21-page
overview, complete with startling statistics and colorful
graphs, covering population shifts, distribution of wealth,
crime, education, health, faith, and a new category, the
electronic culture. ;

Our world has become a global village. Distant nations
and peoples are nearby neighbors, brought into proximity
by satellite communication, FAX messages, E-mail, direct-
dial phone, international business, electronic banking, jet
travel, foreign-student exchange, guided tours. Major
events, yes, even terrorist tragedies are relayed live over
global television networks right into our living rooms—and
the terror can happen in our own cities! Add to this the poor
and hungry of the world and the alarming number of
refugees—one in every 115 of the world population. That’s
123 million international refugees and 24 million more dis-
placed inside their own countries,”

The internationalization of our world has brought with
it a new mix of cultural and social sharing, confrontation,
conflict, and concern. This is true also in the realm of reli-
gion. J. Gordon Melton, who is editing a new edition of En-
cyclopedia of American Religions, observes that though
Christianity still dominates by sheer numbers, the U.S.
“now has a greater diversity of religious groups than any
country in recorded history.”* Dr. Melton will be listing
1,600 denominations, 44% of them non-Christian. “Half of
these have come into being since 1960; some are home-
grown, others imported by immigrants. Some experts say
ethnic Jews will be outnumbered by ethnic Muslims early
in the twenty-first century. Judging only by the best seller
lists, one might imagine that the spiritual focus in the US.
had shifted to New Age phenomena and various patented
forms of self-improvement.”

As much as ever before we still see all around us the
tragic results of the fall of Adam and Eve into the sin of dis-
obedience to God’s commands and the consequent separa-
tion from God’s plan that mankind was to be a reflection of
God’s perfect holiness, righteousness, and love. In this in-
herited spiritual predicament, it is the natural inclination
of the human being to become his or her own measure of
all things. Motivated by Satan’s temptations and the at-
tractions of the fallen world, man is driven by a lust for
pleasure, power, success, chiefly for selfish ends—and can
become quite sophisticated in the art of living apart from
the one true God. To satisfy inner longings people may set-
tle for substitute religions, philosophy, or secular human-
ism or outright materialism without sure answers to the
problems of pain, suffering, death, and eternity.

But none of this should be surprising to the Christian
who is firmly anchored in God's Word. Our Lord has graph-
ically described the signs of the times for these latter days
of the New Testament age. One need only read Matthew 24
and 25 or Mark 13 or Luke 21 and other references
throughout the New Testament. Jesus is coming again. He
will return for the final judgment.

Rather than becoming alarmed or dismayed, we should
be startled by the swiftness of all the changes that are tak-
ing place, and by the fact that these changes are global. We
should rather be aroused to a new heightened awareness
of the great urgency of our unfinished mission task. We
need to rise to the great challenge of communicating the
Gospel (the whole counsel of God) to post-modern man in
language he can understand within the context of his cul-
tural setting.

Through the prophet Jeremiah in the Old Testament
God has a message that is as relevant today as when it was
first given to him by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It con-
tains an admonition and an appeal. It has good news for all
those who put their trust in Him.

This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise man
boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his
strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him
who boasts boast about this: that he understands and
knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness,
justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I de-
light,” declares the Lord (Jer. 9:23-24).

How can we as God’s people bring the Good News of
Jesus Christ to the people of the secular world in a loving,
meaningful way? With the whole world on the move, with
immigration of foreign peoples into the United States at an
all-time high so that we now speak of the United Sates as a
world-mission field, the question of how to share the Good
News has become one of major importance for every Chris-
tian, whether pastor, teacher, DCE, deaconess, lay evange-
list, or a regular church member. Yes, it is important for
every Christian—whether that be in the nuclear family,
blended family, children in the neighborhood, integrated
schools, or adults in the work place or in public places of
amusement and recreation, or wherever. This calls for cul-
tivation and practice of greater love, a healthy curiosity,
and sincere interest in the well-being of our fellowman; a
willingness to be open, hospitable, ready to reach out with
the extended hand of welcome.

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