LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 68

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68

REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT

lenge of church worker recruitment and retention. You can
see from the action group’s report that it is in the midst of
developing a number of proposals for our Synod. I therefore
recommend that your committee refer the overtures concerning these issues to the action group through an omnibus resolution. Dr. Karl Barth, the chairman of the action group, is here with us this weekend, and you may wish
to consult with him further on these issues.
I strongly encourage the floor committee to adopt the
recommendations of the RSO Task Force report. The simple
and plain reality is this: The ELCA has chosen to enter into
church fellowship with non-Lutheran churches. We cannot
cooperate with ELCA congregations on a “business as
usual” basis. The ELCA has willingly and knowingly moved
away from its commitments to Lutheranism and the
Lutheran Confessions as an exclusively correct and true
understanding of God’s Word. We cannot, therefore, have
associations operating Lutheran schools that give an ELCA
congregation an equal controlling interest.
Here is just one illustration of the potential problem.
The RSO Task Force asked some RSO school administrators if Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, or Episcopalian clergy serving ELCA congregations would be permitted to lead chapel at their schools. None of the
administrators was comfortable with this possibility, but
acknowledged that given the nature of their present structures, there was nothing to prevent this from happening.
Similar issues arise when it comes to making decisions
about religious instruction at these schools.
I believe the Synod needs to move ahead with the proposals and bylaw changes brought by the RSO Task Force,
which spent hundreds of person hours in its study and recommendation.
Committee 3: Theology
and Church Relations
You will be dealing with a number of important issues.
At our last convention, the Synod committed itself to a
process of study on the subject of church fellowship. It
called for the synodical president and the CTCR to develop
and promote a biblical and confessional study document
that would be used at District conventions and in conferences and congregations during the year 2000. It also
placed prayer, study, and discussion on church fellowship
on the agenda of the 2001 convention. These are the steps
our Synod adopted in 1998. This effort was not pursued by
the Synod for the purpose of trying to determine what it is
we believe about church fellowship, but to help the members of the Synod better understand why we are who we
are and why we do what we do.
At this point, I would encourage the floor committee to
prepare resolutions that commend for guidance to the
Synod the CTCR documents titled Admission to the Lord’s
Supper and The Lutheran Understanding of Church Fellowship (Convention Workbook, pp. 359–387). In 1995, our
Synod adopted Resolution 3-08, which very clearly stated
our position on altar fellowship. This remains the most definitive statement ever adopted on the issue of the Lord’s
Supper and fellowship in the Lord’s Supper. I recommend
200l Convention Proceedings

that your committee refer all overtures concerning close
Communion to an omnibus resolution.
Your committee also has before it the excellent report of
the Church Growth Study Committee. I recommend that
this report be commended to the Synod for guidance on
these important matters.
The Assisting Pastors Proposal is a very significant
issue with which your committee will need to grapple. I
support the concept of providing a lesser-trained pastor in a
more timely fashion for the two situations specified in the
late report and overture. I support the proposal, recognizing that some changes will be needed to improve it and to
bring it to the Synod for action. For instance, I do not believe that men who enter the pastoral office in our Synod
in this manner have the education to assume roles of doctrinal oversight in Circuits, Districts, or the Synod. Therefore, I recommended that they be restricted from serving as
Circuit Counselors, or as clergy members of any District or
Synod agency or entity, board or commission. I urge your
committee to bring to the floor of the convention something
that can be voted up or down. In other words, in my opinion, we are at a point where further delay will be of little
benefit. People are needed for ministry. Souls are going to
hell without hearing about Jesus. We cannot just talk about
this anymore. We need to take action!
“Renewal in Missouri” is another area of concern that
your committee needs to address. President Barry and the
five men appointed by him (Pastor Robert Dargatz, Professor Jerrold Eickmann, Pastor William Kilps, Dr. Samuel
Nafzger, Pastor Timothy Scharr) met with six participants
chosen by the organization known as RIM (Pastors James
Ackerman, Ferdinand Bahr, David Dorpat, Paul Koehn,
Donald Miles, and Delbert Rossin). They met three
times during the past triennium (Oct. 27–28, 1999; Jan.
31–Feb. 1, 2000; and Sept. 27–28, 2000). According to 1998
Res. 3-12A, the President is to “report to the next convention of the Synod regarding the results of these continuing
discussions and bring a recommendation so that a Godpleasing conclusion may be brought to this matter.”
As a result of the three dialogue sessions, there are some
56 pages of single-spaced notes on the conversation, and all
12 dialogue participants had opportunity both to check these
notes for accuracy and to offer corrections. There also is a set
of “Concluding Affirmations and Rejections,” commonly
agreed upon by the participants at the last meeting. These
“Concluding Affirmations and Rejections” will be included as
an appendix to this report and will be printed in the first
issue of Today’s Business. Your committee has a copy of them.
What needs to be said at this point is that it is extremely
difficult to say exactly how much progress has been made
with the members of this charismatic organization that
continues to exist in our Synod. The notes on the conversations record that participants expressed a certain tentativeness about some of the areas of agreement. Further,
both presidential appointees and RIM representatives
stated during the discussions that there are no common understandings of key terms such as “tongues” and “prophecy”
and “revelation.” No one expressed disagreements with
these statements when they were made. At the end of the
last dialogue session, there was some discussion about—