LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 67

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REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT

Part II
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God the Father and
from our Lord Jesus Christ!
I want to begin my remarks tonight with two words:
thank you! Thank you for your willingness to be here this
weekend—this Memorial Day holiday weekend—to serve
your Lord and His people in The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. I am well aware that many of you are giving up
family activities and other such commitments this weekend.
Your service this weekend is very important. You will be
providing resolutions for the delegates to our convention
this summer to consider as they make decisions about how
best we are going to carry out our work together as we
move into the next three years. There are nearly 600 overtures that you will be dealing with in your various committees. To that we need to add all the reports submitted by
the various entities and agencies of our Synod. Indeed,
friends, you have your work cut out for you this weekend!
For some of you, this weekend is a new experience. And,
for me too, this is a new experience. We are still trying
to get used to the fact that our friend and brother in Christ,
A. L. Barry, is no longer with us. The past two months have
been challenging and interesting, to say the least. I think
you will understand why I truly do wish that he were here
tonight delivering this speech, not me. But the Lord had
other plans for him and for us. Dr. Barry would be the first
one to tell us tonight that our Lord wants this Synod, and
each of us here tonight, and all those who are coming to the
convention in a few weeks, to keep moving ahead! To quote
him from the past, “Keep the message straight, Missouri!
Get the message out, Missouri!” Keep moving ahead—with
hope, joy, and confidence in the Lord who has promised
never to leave us nor to forsake us—with trust in the One
who has called each of you, and me, to be His sons and
daughters through our Savior, Jesus Christ!
Therefore, in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, let
us go about our work this weekend, praying that He would
bless all the decisions made that they might serve the
church well and bring glory to His name and might facilitate the ever-greater spread of His Gospel message as together we move ahead as a Synod, telling the Good News
about Jesus. Let us move ahead as genuine, confessing
Lutheran Christians, who are unafraid to stand before the
world and say with great boldness, “This is what we believe. This is what we teach. This is what we confess.”
Back in April, I had the privilege of meeting with the
chairmen of all eight floor committees that are meeting
here this weekend. While we did not discuss details of each
committee, we did discuss procedure for this weekend as
well as some suggestions as to how to deal with the mammoth task ahead of you.
What I intend to do in this presentation is to underscore
and highlight what I believe are some of the key issues that
the overtures in the Workbook are raising. I want to offer
some thoughts, counsel, and encouragement as you go
about your floor committee work. I will be available to you
throughout this weekend, to answer any questions you may
have or to respond to any concerns or comments you may
wish to share with me, as you decide how best to prepare
and present resolutions for our convention’s consideration.

67

I do not have all the answers, but I usually know where to
get the answers.
Obviously, some of our committees here this weekend
have more work than others, due to the number of overtures they must deal with. The length of my remarks for
each floor committee will reflect this reality.
Committee 1: Missions
It is only appropriate that the Synod’s “Tell the Good
News about Jesus” emphasis be duly considered. In his report, Dr. Barry, who envisioned it and did more than any of
us to bring this emphasis to the convention in 1998, shared
some of the great things happening in connection with it.
Surely our congregations and all the entities of the Synod
need to encourage our people to be ready to give an account
of the faith that is in them.
Your committee has a number of overtures (Ov. 1-07 to 113, 1-15, 1-23) that deal with evangelism efforts to specific
groups. While I appreciate the commitment to targeted
evangelism efforts reflected in such overtures, I believe that
it is important to remember during our convention that the
Lord has commissioned His church to bring the Gospel to
all nations and to all peoples. I, therefore, encourage the
floor committee to bring to the floor of our convention resolutions that speak of evangelism not only in reference to
Jewish evangelism, but also International Student Ministry,
prison ministry, and others. I question the wisdom of creating additional staff positions in our Board for Mission Services, when there is good work being done by existing task
forces under the umbrella of North American Missions.
Committee 2: Congregational Services
The Board for Congregational Services has been involved in self-study during the past triennium, carefully
considering issues of restructuring and how best to go
about its work. One of several catalysts causing this was
the $600,000 budget cut experienced during the recent fiscal year. This reconsideration has been taking place in consultation with our Synod’s Districts and also with the National/District Synod Relations Task Force. The board for
Congregational Services is less than 10 years old. The key
question is: how can we make it better? The board has presented an overture (Ov. 2-01) which offers a step in the
right direction; however, I encourage the floor committee to
review carefully the task force’s comments on pp. 113–114
of its report. Your challenge is to ask the “how can we make
it better?” question and then propose to our convention this
summer a way to make that happen.
Overture 2-02 deals with the question of whether or not
the Department of Stewardship should be under the Synod
itself. When a change was made to move the Department
of Stewardship over to the LCMS Foundation, the Synod’s
Bylaws were not borne in mind carefully enough. I believe
there is wisdom in keeping the Department of Stewardship
under the Synod itself and not giving that function over to
an incorporated entity, such as the foundation.
The report of the Church Worker Recruitment and Retention Action Group is another area for your committee’s
consideration (Report R1-8-01, Ov. 2-04 to 2-22). Many
overtures in this area concern themselves with the chal200l Convention Proceedings