LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 101

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

A Pastoral Reaction to Dr. Carl Fickenscher’s Essay
“Church Fellowship and Telling the Good News about Jesus”
In reading Dr. Fickenscher’s essay, I thought of a mother’s
love for her children. Dr. Martin Luther, in the Large Catechism, describes the church as “the mother that begets and
bears every Christian through the Word of God.”1
Having four children of my own, I have seen the loving
care their mother has shown them over the years. I have
seen the joy in her face at the knowledge that she is the
bearer of new life. I was present at the birth of our children
and saw the immediate bond that existed between her and
her babies. Her nurture of our children flowed out of the
fact that she was their mother and had a special and vital
relationship with them.
The church is the same way as the mother of God’s children. She rejoices at being the means by which God gives
life to His children through Baptism and the proclamation
of the Gospel to unbelievers. She approaches the subject of
giving life with joy and great zeal.
In the same way, the church, like earthly mothers, nurtures God’s children as a natural outflow of the fact that
she is their mother. She does not nurture them in spite of
her giving them life. She nurtures them because she has
given them life. Birth and nurture are not contradictory,
but complimentary.
The practice of church fellowship, the desire that people
receive the Word and Sacraments in a worthy and Godpleasing manner, is not a contradiction of our desire to “Tell
the Good News about Jesus”; it is a complementary part of
it. Pastoral care in teaching people the truth of God’s grace
is the heart and soul of evangelism. A mother gives food to
her baby for the benefit of the child. She does not give an
infant a large chunk of an apple, because the baby would
choke. Apples are obviously good. But in love for her children, a mother nurtures with what will be the greatest
blessing for the child at that time and stage of their lives.
This is the essence of pastoral care.
One of the things that has impressed me about my wife,
and her role as mother, is her willingness to sacrifice for
our children, often at her own inconvenience. In our practice of fellowship, the church should sacrifice to minister
grace to visitors. The church should find loving ways to
seek out visitors and minister to them, not have them seek
us out. Your congregation may want to have brochures that
explain the service for the day and give the Gospel reason
for why we hold our position on the sacrament. Our congregation has such brochures, entitled “What’s Going On
Here?” These explain our orders of worship and the reasoning behind our Communion practice. Our visitors have
found these very helpful. The response to our practice has
been very respectful of that practice and has led to good opportunities for witness.
Some congregations are afraid that those not receiving
the sacrament might be embarrassed because they sit there
while others commune. I am aware of a congregation that

excuses everyone prior to the service of Holy Communion,
after which the communicants return to the sanctuary to
partake of the sacrament. This places the burden on the
members of the congregation, not on the visitors. It removes the circumstances under which the visitor might feel
uncomfortable, while remaining faithful to Christ and our
confession of faith. If this is a fear your congregation has,
you may want to adopt this, or a similar practice.
People who bring visitors to church sometimes face a
personal dilemma: “Do I go to the sacrament and leave the
visitor sitting here?” When faced with this situation, most
people assume that they have only two options. One option
is to simply leave them. The other option is to try to get the
congregation to change their Communion practice. Are
these choices sacrificial? Do they inconvenience the member or the visitor? One sacrificial option is to take the time
to witness God’s grace in the sacrament and to ask for their
understanding. Another option is to commune at another
service, if one is offered, and simply sit with the visitor
through the service you have invited him/her to. Why would
anyone sit through a second service? It is inconvenient. But
what is our convenience compared to the souls of others? We
can, and must, be faithful to God as we administer the
means of grace. We can, and must, witness our faith by our
words and self-sacrificial love. Christ made Himself of no
avail for us. The church, as the mother of God’s children, responds to Christ by sacrificing for the sake of those we have
the privilege to share the Gospel with.
These are examples of how a congregation might place
any inconvenience regarding fellowship practices on her
own shoulders, not on those of the visitors. Look for how
you can faithfully nurture and reach out as you do the work
of evangelizing. We have received abundant grace from our
heavenly Bridegroom. He laid down His life for His bride,
the church, “that He might sanctify and cleanse her with
the washing of water by the word, that He might present
her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle
or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without
blemish” (Ephesians 5:26–27). We are that bride of Christ.
We respond to His act of love by offering ourselves as the
vessel through which He gives and sustains life. Giving life
to God’s children and caring for them through the means
of grace are not two tasks, but one. This is the great work of
evangelism. May God grant the church the love of a mother
as she participates in telling the Good News about Jesus.
David A. Shadday
St. Paul Lutheran Church
Indianapolis, IN

Notes
1. Martin Luther, “The Large Catechism,” The Book of
Concord, ed. Theodore G. Tappert (Fortress Press:
Philadelphia, 1959), p. 416.

101