LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 63

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REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT
We continue to be encouraging toward those ELCA
Lutherans who now find themselves increasingly unable
to identify with the positions of the ELCA. When they approach us, we make every effort to welcome them and encourage them. While we certainly do not want to give the
impression that we are “sheep stealing,” at the same time
we cannot simply ignore or turn our backs on those
Lutherans in the ELCA who are feeling that their church
has left them.
Another way in which we continue to maintain contact
regularly with the ELCA is through the Committee on
Lutheran Cooperation meetings that are held a few times
each year, either in St. Louis or in Chicago. During these
meetings there are discussions of programmatic issues
and information sharing between our two churches.
Communication and Encouragement to the Synod

An ongoing effort of the President’s Office has been regular communication to the Synod using a variety of media
formats. I would like simply to walk through these and review them with you.
Printed Materials

Monthly columns in The Lutheran Witness provide me
with the opportunity to communicate pastorally and devotionally with the readership of that publication, primarily the laity of our church. The President’s Newsletter
is mailed three times a year to all pastors, teachers, and
other church workers in our Synod, along with various lay
leaders of our congregations. It provides me with the opportunity to offer commentary and reports on various issues facing our Synod. The Noble Task is an occasional letter sent just to pastors of our Synod, offering them words
of encouragement and support. The Tell the Good News
about Jesus newsletter has been produced by my office as
well, as a regular supplement to the Reporter in order to
offer encouragement for this effort.
The What About pamphlets continue to be produced
and distributed throughout the Synod. These have been
extremely well-received, and by the time of our convention, there will be over 12 million copies of the What About
pamphlets in print. The goal of these pamphlets has been
to provide our pastors with brief, clear, and to-the-point
presentations of key teachings of our faith, as well as brief
presentations on significant issues facing people today.
There are presently 34 titles in this series:
(1) The Gospel
(2) The Bible
(3) The Small Catechism
(4) The Ten Commandments
(5) The Apostles’ Creed
(6) The Lord’s Prayer
(7) Holy Baptism
(8) Confession and Absolution
(9) The Sacrament of the Altar
(10) Being a Lutheran
(11) Lutheran Worship
(12) The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
(13) Telling the Good News about Jesus
(14) Christian Families

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(15) Angels
(16) Death and Dying
(17) Pastors
(18) Attending Church
(19) The New Millennium
(20) Differences between the ELCA and the LCMS
(21) Fellowship in the Lord’s Supper
(22) Homosexuality
(23) Abortion
(24) Jehovah’s Witnesses
(25) The Lodge
(26) Living Together without Marriage
(27) Gambling
(28) Islam
(29) Jehovah’s Witnesses
(30) Mormonism
(31) Ordination of Women to the Pastoral Office
(32) Christian Stewardship
(33) Creation and Evolution
(34) Suicide
Electronic Media

During the past triennium we concluded a project to
send out regular videos to be used at pastoral Circuit conferences and moved to an annual video to the congregations of the Synod, released around the time of Epiphany.
Two of these videos have been produced. The first, titled
Y2Day, dealt with the beginning of a new millennium and
offered encouragement and suggestions for our congregations as they move forward with outreach efforts. The second video, titled Now What, dealt with the synodically designated “Year of the Child,” with a focus on post-baptismal
instruction and nurture of the children of our parishes.
The World Wide Web continues to increase in popularity by leaps and bounds. According to recent statistics, it is
estimated that there are presently 192 million Englishspeaking people using the Internet, and that figure is estimated to increase to 230 million by the year 2004. Obviously, this is a rich resource for communication. In many
ways, the church is ideally suited to using the Internet to
provide information, since so much of what we do involves
written documents and other such information. I appreciate the fact that our Synod has pursued the Internet as a
communication medium, and I hope and anticipate that
we will be seeing more and more of this in the years
ahead. The President’s Office maintains a Web site on the
Synod’s site: www.lcms.org/president.
Doctrinal Supervision

The President’s Office exercises supervision of the various entities of the Synod primarily through our Synod’s
District Presidents. Our District Presidents are charged
with the supervision of the doctrine and practice of the
church workers and congregations in their District. Our
Synod’s Bylaws provide for an orderly process where, if
and when it is necessary, charges may be brought against
members of the Synod. In these rare cases, the procedure
involves the District President investigating the situation
and, if warranted, suspending the member from the
Synod. The President of the Synod becomes involved in
200l Convention Proceedings