LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 3

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SYNODICAL REPORTS 3

sues involving the relationship between our pastors and their con-
gregations. Here I would like to underscore a few key points.

I think we need to realize that these issues are very much a two-
way street. On the one hand, it is absolutely imperative that our
congregations recognize that their pastors are the called servants of
Jesus Christ in their midst, and as such they are to be respected and
supported in their duties and responsibilities. A similar attitude
must characterize our congregations’ attitudes toward their other
called church workers. At the same time, our pastors and other
church workers must always conduct themselves in the exercise of
their offices with the respect, love, and humility required of those
who serve the Lord’s people.

Our Synod, particularly our Synod’s elected doctrinal supervi-
sors, the Synod’s President, Vice-Presidents, and District Presi-
dents, are responsible for assuring that our pastors and other church
workers are not being mistreated simply because they are attempt-
ing to be faithful to the biblical and confessional practices of the
Missouri Synod. As long as a congregation is a member of The
Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, it is not at liberty to pick and
choose which of our biblical teachings and practices it is going to
accept and which it is going to reject. Thus, a pastor must not be
put out of office or forced to leave simply because he has worked
faithfully in the parish to teach and conduct his ministry in line with
his ordination vows to be faithful to the Bible and the Lutheran
Confessions and in accord with those promises he makes as a mem-
ber of the Synod to abide by the confessional position of our church
body.

And turning the coin over again, we need also to say that no
pastor or other church worker has any right to impose what is
merely a matter of his or her own personal taste or style on the con-
gregation and insist that all think as he or she does about a certain
matter. When a pastor or church worker begins to lord it over the
flock in this manner, this only leads to divisions and tensions. Pas-
tors are not free to impose new practices on congregations without
their consent, nor do they have any right to treat their congrega-
tions as persons who are there to serve them and to answer to their
demands.

It is important for me to note that our District Presidents play a
vital and important role in all of this, since they are the individuals
charged with the most immediate supervision of the doctrine and
practice of the church workers and congregations in our Synod.
Such responsibility for supervision is a heavy burden on these men.
Let us keep them in our prayers as they go about this important
work on behalf of us all.

Along with supervising and protecting our pastors, church
workers, and congregations comes the matter of providing for
them. Our Worker Benefit Plans here come to mind. The WBP
faces increasing national health cost increases, but they are doing
what they can to keep costs down while continuing to provide ade-
quate health care, prescription medication coverage, retirement, and
disability and death benefits for the members of the WBP.

It is important here for me to underscore something that per-
haps does not receive adequate attention on a Synod or District
level. It is the matter of the salaries our congregations extend to our
church workers. Let me here say that our congregations and
schools really do need to be encouraged to keep giving this need a
high priority as they provide not merely a “get by” salary for our
pastors and church workers, but a truly livable wage, one that re-
flects the typical salary of the members of the congregation. We
cannot expect to recruit and retain competent pastors and church
workers, particularly teachers in our schools, and then ask them to
survive on substandard and even, in some sad cases, woefully in-
adequate salaries. I would here simply like to encourage our con-
gregations to keep this matter before them and do whatever they
can to address and improve the salaries of our church workers.

Moving Together into a New Millennium ... Giving All Thanks and
Praise to God!

Finally, then, as we move together into a new millennium, we
do so giving all thanks and praise to our good and gracious God!
We think back on the many blessings He has so abundantly poured
out on our church. We think back to the early years of struggle as
the founders of our church struggled simply to survive in this new
land. We think of the formative early years of the Synod when Dr.
Walther led us forward, and then the years of growing awareness
and understanding of what it means to be Lutherans in America,
when we moved from being a German church to a church that has
worked hard at reaching out to all peoples and various cultures. We
think of those challenging years during the Depression and into the
years of WWII and then those “boom” years of the 1950s when we,
with most churches, grew by leaps and bounds, and then the chal-
lenge of careful teaching and education required by so many new
converts to Lutheranism. We think back to those years of contro-
versy and turmoil during the days of Seminex and ELIM when we
had to resist the inroads of liberal theology in our circles. We look
at the years since then, when our Synod has had to face a rapidly
changing society and culture. Through it all, because of it all, and,
yes, at times in spite of it all, we have sung and spoken the praises
of our good and gracious God. The psalmist says it best in Psalm
106:

Praise the Lorp! Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever. Who can utter the mighty acts of
the Lord? Who can declare all His praise?

As we now move together into a new millennium, we do so
committed to remaining united in the one true faith, strengthening
congregations and members for the sake of bold witness, recruit-
ing and training church workers, providing opportunity for Chris-
tian love, and supervising and protecting our church workers and
congregations. But finally, we do all this with a great sense of grat-
itude to the Lord God Almighty for all His blessings, chief among
them that great salvation that is ours in Christ our Lord. For all His
wonderful blessings upon our Synod we offer our heartfelt thanks
and praise to God.

As we move forward together we remain united and committed
to that five-fold vision statement that we adopted in 1995 and
which continues to provide a very good and unifying theme for our
walk together. We are committed to being a church body that is
strongly in the Word, Christ-centered and people-sensitive, reach-
ing out boldly with the Gospel, faithful to Scripture and the
Lutheran Confessions, and committed to peace and harmony.

Now let us turn our attention to the second half of our theme,
Telling the Goods News about Jesus.

II. Telling the Good News about Jesus

God be gracious to us and bless us, and cause His face to shine
upon us. That Your way may be known on the earth, Your salva-
tion among all nations. Let the peoples praise You, O God; let all
the peoples praise You. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy;
for You will judge the peoples with uprightness and guide the na-
tions on the earth. Let the peoples praise You, O God; let all the
peoples praise You. The earth has yielded its produce; God, our
God, blesses us. God blesses us, that all the ends of the earth may
fear Him (Psalm 67).

Psalm 67 is all about the great mission task that our Lord Jesus
Christ has entrusted to His church on earth. Ours is the joyful priv-
ilege, the great honor, and the solemn duty and responsibility to tell
the Good News about Jesus. It is because of this fact that in 1995
our Synod adopted the “Tell the Good News about Jesus” empha-
sis, in which we together agreed that we would all the more in-
crease our efforts to tell the Good News about Jesus, spending three
years preparing for an unprecedented ten-year period of time from
2001-2010 for outreach with the Gospel.

2001 Convention Workbook