LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2004, Page 203

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS 203

Summary

* The CTCR’s Review encourages congregations to read and study For
the Sake of Christ’s Commission, but demonstrates a preference for its
own documents. Over one half of FSCC was largely neglected in the
CTCR’s Review.

* FSCC provides guidelines for discernment toward Church Growth
presuppositions, methods, and resources not found in CTCR docu-
ments.

¢ A previous CTCR report condemns “soil-testing” as unscriptural, but
this CTCR Review seems to endorse the concept.

¢ In general, the CTCR counsels a much more permissive approach to-
ward Church Growth methods than FSCC. The CTCR also expressed
particular concern to promote ‘“‘diversity in worship,” which was not
part of the Church Growth Study Committee’s assignment.

I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So
then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything,
but God who causes the growth (1 Corinthians 3:6-7 NASB).

How shall the church engage her surrounding culture, and how
should this shape the way Christians order their own life together
within the church? To what extent should the culture outside
Christ’s body influence the culture within?' How does the revealed
truth of the Holy Scriptures actually “norm” our behavior and prac-
tice? Are we modifying what we say we believe in order to justify
what we want to do?

The 1995 convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri
Synod adopted Res. 3-09, “To Address the Church Growth Move-
ment” (see Appendix). The Synod thereby called for the creation
of the Church Growth Study Committee (CGSC) and delineated its
assignment.

The CGSC delivered its final report, For the Sake of Christ's
Commission (henceforth referenced as FSCC) to the 2001 Synod
convention (2001 Convention Workbook, pp. 442-50). FSCC can
also be found online.” .

Without first reading the convention resolution and then the
FSCC report itself, the CTCR’s review of FSCC cannot be fully
understood and assessed. In its conclusion the CTCR itself stated:
“The Commission recommends that FSCC be read and studied.”

Overall, the CTCR found much to affirm and reemphasize in
FSCC. Not one point in FSCC is specifically condemned, but the
CTCR did highlight contrasts between its own documents and
FSCC. This Minority Opinion provides an alternative assessment
of FSCC and takes issue with the critique and qualifying statements
adopted by the CTCR.

From the outset, the CTCR misconstrued the assignment given
to the CGSC. The Review states that “For reasons not explicitly
stated in the report, ... little attention is given in FSCC to the
Synod’s request to ‘in fairness show how some [Church Growth]
materials and practices may be used in the service of the Gospel
and the advancement of the Kingdom.’” The CTCR truncated this
quotation. Read the beginning of the sentence, and the reason why
“Jittle attention is given in FSCC” becomes perfectly clear:
“Resolved, that The Lutheran Witness, Reporter, and other publi-
cations of the Synod report on the errors in some Church Growth
materials and practices and also in fairness show ...” In other
words, that assignment was given to “publications of the Synod,”
and not to the CGSC. No fault can be found with them for failing to
address someone else’s assignment. The Committee’s own task
was delineated in the following paragraph:

Resolved, That the President of the Synod consider appoint-
ing a committee to study and address how the truth of the Scrip-
tures and the Lutheran Confessions might be clearly proclaimed
in light of the Church Growth Movement and the influences of
American culture and pluralism.

The CGSC fulfilled this assignment and did not go beyond it.
Upon the pretext that CGSC failed to adequately address its as-
signment rests the CTCR’s justification for supplying its own al-
ternative interpretive framework beyond a simple review of FSCC.

FSCC begins by answering the question “What Is the Church
Growth Movement?” and notes that “it can be correctly understood
and defined ... only on the basis of its own recognized standards

and texts.” The CTCR evidently accepts FSCC’s answer to this
question. Its Review offered nothing beyond FSCC to our under-
standing of the Church Growth Movement.

The CTCR did direct attention to its own previous documents
and quoted itself extensively while reviewing FSCC. In particular,
it cited Evangelism and Church Growth (1987), A Theological
Statement of Mission (1991), and Spiritual Gifts (1994). These doc-
uments were already available in 1995 when the Synod adopted
Res. 3-09; in fact, that resolution cited ECG several times. Evi-
dently these documents were not considered adequate to address
the assignment given to the CGSC. The Synod in convention
clearly defined the scope of the Report it still needed and did not
yet have, and authorized a special Committee (not the CTCR) to
complete this task.

Yet now, curiously, the CTCR has produced something ap-
proximating an alternative Report—what it might have written had
it received the CGSC’s assignment. This seems to exceed the
CTCR’s own assignment to simply review FSCC. The CTCR’s
document deserves its own attention, and its method will be as-
sessed below. But FSCC was the topic of the Commission’s own
assignment, and it must not be neglected here.

FSCC is organized in two parts. Part | addresses the “Theolog-
ical Issues” of the Church Growth Movement (CGM), and the
CTCR focused its Review almost exclusively upon this section.
Part 2 of FSCC (which is longer than Part 1) addresses the “Cul-
tural Issues” of the CGM. The CTCR neglected to comment upon
this half of the Report in any substantive fashion. Those who are
truly interested in evangelistic outreach ought not overlook what
FSCC has to offer here, because it makes a refreshingly bold claim:

The Lutheran church is blessed with a theology that offers a
specific, comprehensive framework for addressing the relation-
ship between church and culture. The doctrine of the two king-
doms can help us address the cultural issues raised by the
Church Growth Movement in a positive way.

FSCC’s conclusions from Part 2 are worth repeating here in sum-
mary form:

|. The Lutheran theology of the two kingdoms teaches that God
reigns in all cultures, but that the church is to be ruled by the
Word of God alone, and not by the culture. ... It follows that the
culture is not to set the agenda for the church.

2. American culture offers many blessings, but it currently includes
features that can undermine the faith. ... It follows that adjusting
the church’s practice to appeal to today’s American culture, as
advocated by the Church Growth Movement, will be particularly
problematic.

3. Cultural pluralism does not mean cultural relativism; rather, it
means that the church has the opportunity to reach out to human
beings in all of their God-given diversity. ... It follows that, ina
climate of cultural diversity, the church must recover its univer-
sality.

The Commission took issue with this last point. The CTCR asserts:

This proper and scriptural emphasis on the unity of Christ’s
church in its confession and worship must not be played off
against the freedom granted to the church in both Scripture and
the Lutheran Confessions for God-pleasing diversity in worship
forms and other ecclesial rites and practices, so long as this di-
versity does not compromise or undermine God’s Word. ...
FSCC warns against recent trends toward diversity in worship,
but it is important to emphasize that a keen sense of balance is
needed when addressing this difficult and sensitive issue (p. 14).

In fact, FSCC does not address trends in diversity of worship
as such. Rather, it addresses trends in the diversity of culture,
which the church must engage. Some elements in the church today
express great impatience with anything that might be perceived as
limiting the freedom of an individual congregation to experiment
with more creative worship styles.* It comes as no surprise that
FSCC has not met with their approval. To label “diversity in wor-
ship forms” as “God-pleasing” would seem to require more than
bare assertion in the face of authoritative synodical statements on
this “difficult and sensitive issue."