LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 2

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It is this bold witness that we share in our homes, with families,
with friends, with neighbors. It is this bold witness that is the pur-
pose of our congregations. Our pastors give bold witness to the
faith in their preaching and teaching and leading. Our teachers give
bold witness in the classrooms of our schools. This bold witness is
the reason why congregations and schools exist. It is this bold wit-
ness to the faith that is the foundation of all that the Synod does. It
must be. May it ever be! ;

Our bold witness is not telling about ourselves, our accom-
plishments, our achievements, our feelings, or our perspectives or
attitudes. No, we bear bold witness by telling the Good News that
in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting
our trespasses against us (2 Cor. 5:19). It is this message of recon-
ciliation that our Lord has entrusted to the church. It is the bold
witness that Jesus Christ, and Him alone, is the Savior of the world,
the only way, the only truth, and the only life. The only name given
under heaven by which we must be saved. There is no other way to
the Father but through Him. It is the bold witness that every human
being alive on this planet needs to hear. Oh, how desperately
needed is this glorious Good News. this Gospel, in our world today.
What a joy to proclaim that message that has been the hallmark of
the Christian church since its very first days. In Acts 10:31 we have
that bold witness put so clearly and powerfully: “Of Him all the
prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who be-
lieves in Him receives forgiveness of sins.”

Committed to, and united in, the truths of God’s Word, joined
together and supporting one another for the purpose of bold wit-
ness, we then move forward together, committed to providing com-
petent and well-trained church workers for our Synod.

Moving Together into a New Millennium ... Recruiting and Training
Pastors and Other Church Workers

Our Lord’s Word speaks of the need for those who preach and
serve in Romans 10:13-—15:

Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. How
then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And
how shall they believe in Him whom they haye not heard? And how
shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach un-
less they are sent?

Indeed, how shall they preach unless they are sent? And how
shall they be sent if we do not join together to provide the training
and support they need? This too is one of our chief commitments as
we move together into a new millennium: we must continue to em-
phasize the need to recruit young men to serve in the congregations
of our Synod as pastors, to devote themselves to lifelong careers
of service in this very special way. We need many men and women
to serve as teachers in our schools: preschools, elementary schools,
high schools, and colleges and universities. Through such teaching
these dedicated servants support the ministry of the Word. Our
schools have been and continue to be such a tremendous blessing to
our Synod and such an important and vital opportunity for outreach
into the community.

I am greatly concerned by the lack of adequate subsidy our col-
leges, universities, and seminaries are receiving from the unre-
stricted dollars given to our Synod. I am concerned about how we
go about managing those dollars and the way in which we have
chosen to disburse those dollars. We can never afford to simply let
this unrestricted support for our schools slip away. Even as our
congregations can never simply permit their schools to become
“private schools” supported only by the tuition dollars they receive,
so also our Synod cannot and must not permit our colleges, univer-
sities, and seminaries simply to become private institutions of
higher learning or theological education. We already notice dis-
turbing trends in this direction, and we must put a halt to it and re-
claim the importance of higher education in our Synod and the im-

2001 Convention Workbook

SYNODICAL REPORTS

portance of maintaining distinctly Lutheran—Missouri Synod
Lutheran—institutions of higher learning.

Maintaining seminaries and universities for the training of fu-
ture pastors and other church workers is one of our highest priori-
ties and must remain as a very high priority in this church body.
The “For the Sake of the Church” campaign is an important effort
to support and sustain the primary purpose of our colleges and uni-
versities: the preparation of church workers for service in the con-
gregations and classrooms of our Synod.

Together we can and must continue to do what none of us can
do alone: provide excellence in education for our young people,
particularly for those who will be serving as our pastors and teach-
ers and other church workers as we move together into a new mil-
Jennium.

Moving Together into a New Millennium ... Providing Opportunities
to Express Christian Love

As we move into a new millennium, all around us we see human
suffering in so many shapes and forms: poverty, neglect, a growing
disdain toward human life, loneliness, despair, and a general sense
of being lost in a rapidly changing world. We see human suffering
in the poverty-stricken areas of our cities and in the difficult realities
of life in the rural areas of our country. We see human suffering in
the affluent suburbs, where the veneer of success thinly covers the
deep spiritual longing and need that exist. We see suffering in the
impoverished parts of our communities and around the world. We
see the opportunity to express human love in a culture of death that
has permitted, and even now encourages, the destruction of unborn
human life and more and more regards the lives of those who are
sick, feeble, or disabled as lives not worthy of living.

We move together into the new millennium supporting many
organizations and institutions working to relieve human suffering.
Together we join our hearts and hands to express our Christian love
to those less fortunate. Again, the Word of God guides and directs
our common endeavor to express Christian love. In Luke 6 we
read: Love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing
in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of
the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.
And again in Galatians 6 we read: While we have opportunity, let
us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the house-
hold of the faith.

Our congregations join together through our World Relief ef-
forts to provide aid and comfort to those suffering from natural dis-
asters, but our work of expressing Christian love is more expansive
even than this, for we recognize that we express our Christian love
in how we treat one another in the Synod. We treat one another in
love when we speak the truth to one another, even if at times that
speaking of truth is difficult and even perhaps painful for some to
hear. But as we speak that truth, it must be spoken in Jove.

Moving Together into a New Millennium ... Supervising, Protecting,
and Providing for Our Church Workers and Congregations

When I annually send out a survey to our District presidents,
asking them to comment on what is the most pressing challenge
they face, every year the same response is received: dealing with
those unfortunate situations where congregations and pastors or

_ other church workers are experiencing tension and conflict. Now,

statistically speaking, the total number of these situations is rela-
tively small, but they are troubling nonetheless and necessarily con-
sume so much energy and attention, distracting congregations and
church workers from the ministry the Lord has for them to do.
Our Synod was formed with many purposes in mind, one of the
most important purposes being the supervision, protection, and pro-
vision for our church workers. Included elsewhere in this Work-
book is an essay from which portions were printed in two separate
inserts in the Reporter. This paper touches on a wide variety of is-