LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2004, Page 110

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2. GREETINGS FROM THE BISHOP OF ELCA
I greet you in the name of our crucified and risen Christ.
First allow me, Dr. Kieschnick, to congratulate you on the
renewal of your call as President of The Lutheran Church—
Missouri Synod. In our work together the past three years
on the Committee on Lutheran Cooperation, I have come
to know you as a person with a passion to proclaim the
Good News of Jesus Christ so that all the world might believe. You are a man of prayer who listens, challenges, and
whose commitment to God’s mission is contagious. I pray
that God will grant you continued strength and vision in
the years ahead as you engage in faithful witness to the
Gospel and demonstrate courageous leadership for the sake
of the mission God has entrusted to the Church in our time.
I also want to thank the LCMS for your commitment to
Lutheran schools. Our youngest daughter, Elizabeth, will
begin her junior year as a student at Luther North High
School in Chicago. She is receiving an excellent education
in this Christ-centered environment.
As Lutherans, we stand on the shoulders of giants. We
stand on the shoulders of Dr. Martin Luther. We stand on
the shoulders of the other leaders in the Lutheran Reformation of the 16th century.
But we also stand on the shoulders of our courageous
forebears—those men and women and children who braved
the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean in the sailing vessels
that brought them to the shores of this land.
On the occasion of this 62nd Regular Convention of The
Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, we remember especially those courageous immigrants to Perry County, Missouri. They journeyed in late 1838 and early 1839 from
Bremen, Germany, to New Orleans and then up the Mississippi River by steamboat. Of the five ships in that voyage
of Lutheran pioneers, one ship was lost at sea. The others
arrived carrying that group of some 700 Saxons into what
was for them the “new world.”
The challenges of survival we can only imagine—challenges that were both physical and spiritual. Yet amid
those challenges, C. F. W. Walther emerged as a strong, insightful, courageous leader of those Saxon immigrants. He
appropriately takes his place among the giants of Lutheran
history—giants upon whose shoulders you and I now stand.
I greet you this day on behalf of the 5 million members
in almost 11,000 congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America. With you and people throughout The
Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America confesses “Jesus Christ as
Lord and Savior and the Gospel as the power of God for the
salvation of all who believe.”
Further, like you, we declare in the ELCA’s constitution
that “the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments . . . [are] the inspired Word of God and the authoritative source and norm of . . . proclamation, faith, and life.”
With you, we embrace “the Apostles’, Nicene, and
Athanasian Creeds as true declarations of the faith . . . .”
With you, we accept “the Unaltered Augsburg Confession
as a true witness to the Gospel.” The ELCA acknowledges

as one with us “in faith and doctrine all churches that likewise accept the teachings of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession.”
With you, we accept “the other confessional writings in
the Book of Concord.” With you, we are children of the
Lutheran Reformation whose spiritual forebears ventured
forth from Europe to this land. With you, we have been
richly blessed through the forthright witness and diligent
service of those who have shaped our Lutheran history in
this nation and around the globe.
Yet just as Jesus reminded the disciples at the Transfiguration that they could not stay on the mountain, likewise we cannot dwell only on the heroic dimensions of our
roots.
We face the challenges and opportunities of contemporary witness. The summons to proclaim God’s saving
Gospel is urgent. We need to hear anew the commission of
Christ to go into all the world to make disciples.
I remain grateful for the strategic ways in which our two
churches bodies cooperate in the critically needed service
of care and compassion. Lutheran World Relief is a superb
expression of our churches working together for international relief and development efforts. Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service helps us welcome the stranger
and care for the oppressed. Lutheran Services in America
reflects the strength of our churches in social ministry endeavors throughout this land. Lutheran Disaster Response
is our instrument of caring, both immediately and in the
longer term, for those hit by natural or human initiated disasters in this country.
A special area of cooperation that should be much on our
minds these days is our support of our chaplains in the
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2004 Convention Proceedings