LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2004, Page 409

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THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS 409

Supper, and the proclamation of the Gospel the Holy Spirit “calls,
gathers, enlightens and sanctifies the whole Christian church on
earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith” (SC Hf
6).

As it carries out its mission, therefore, the church needs to guard
against any and all confusion of the divinely instituted and solely
efficacious means of grace with humanly devised methods, pro-
grams, strategies, or techniques for carrying out the mission of the
church. It must keep in mind at all times that although God gra-
ciously chooses to use human instruments (together with humanly
devised “plans” and “‘strategies”) to plant and water the seeds of
his Word, it is always God—and God alone—who gives the in-
crease (1 Cor. 3:5—6). “So neither he who plants nor he who waters
is anything, but only God who gives the growth” (1 Cor. 3:7). Once
again, FSCC contains numerous salutary cautions and wamings in
this regard.

At the same time—precisely because of the all-sufficient power
of God’s means of grace—the church should be emboldened and
encouraged to use all appropriate resources that God places at its
disposal to extend and expand the use and distribution of the means
of grace, so that as many people as possible can be exposed to these
precious and powerful means through which God’s Spirit works to
create and sustain faith in the Gospel. This means that the church
should also rejoice in the many and various gifts of creation—in-
cluding the gift and blessing of human reason itself—which can be
brought into the service of the Gospel in “ministerial” ways.

While it is true, therefore, that ““God’s earthly kingdom is sub-
ject to human reason, cultural dynamics and scientific laws” and
that ““God’s spiritual kingdom is subject only to His Word” (FSCC,
445), such a way of “framing” the issue might give some the im-
pression that “human reason, cultural dynamics, and scientific
laws” have no place in the church as “God’s spiritual kingdom.”
While FSCC is certainly justified in warming against the false no-
tion that “the church grows through the application of principles,
prescriptions, programs and other human actions, as opposed to the
work of the Holy Spirit in the Means of Grace” (446, emphasis
added), it is also important to recognize that such reason-based
“principles, prescriptions, programs and human actions” can often
be used in ways that are not “opposed to” the work of the Holy
Spirit through the means of grace, but rather serve the Gospel and
the advancement of Christ’s kingdom (see, e.g., ECG, 40-41; SG,
55-70). ECG says:

If Lutherans use Church Growth materials, they must realize that
the means of grace and mission methods serve different functions and
purposes. Only the means of grace truly build the church. Organization
is clearly not a means of grace and therefore does not itself build the
church or cause it to grow. To be sure, there is a sense in which it can
serve the Gospel. A study of the social, psychological, and cultural
needs of the unconverted can assist a congregation in better under-
standing how to approach them. Such a study can reveal, for example,
their prejudices or biases toward the church and its message and the rea-
sons behind these attitudes. As the congregation formulates goals and
develops strategies it will need to take these factors into account. In
summary, a well-organized mission program is compatible with the
Lutheran doctrine of the means of grace, provided the pastor empha-

sizes that it is the Holy Spirit who builds the church through these
means. (ECG, 41)

God’s Mission Is to and for Everyone

“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that who-
ever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John
3:16). Our heavenly Father “desires all to be saved and to come to
the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). To those who have al-
ready come to the knowledge of the truth Jesus says: “Go therefore
and make disciples of all nations,” baptizing and teaching in ac-
cordance with God’s Word and will (Matt. 28:18-20). Scripture is
clear: God’s mission is to and for everyone.

As it carries out God’s mission, therefore, the church needs to
guard against any understanding of or approach to God’s mission
that would suggest that God, in bestowing the gift of his grace, is in
any way “partial” toward those of a certain race or class or age or
gender, since Scripture clearly teaches that “God shows no partial-
ity” (Acts 10:34). The church itself must take care to avoid all
temptations or tendencies toward favoring some or ignoring others
in its efforts to reach out to people with the Gospel. FSCC prop-
erly reflects this concern when it repeatedly stresses the unity and
universality of Christ’s church, and when it asserts that it is “spiri-
tually harmful” when “the church is divided upon cultural or gen-
erational lines, violating the unity of diverse peoples in the Body of
Christ.” “God’s Word,” says FSCC, “is not culturally-specific nor
culture-bound. Christianity is for ‘every tribe and language and
people and nation’ (Rev. 5:9)” (447).

At the same time, the church should be emboldened and en-
couraged by the universality of Christ’s work and of the unlimited
scope of his call to reach out to all people everywhere with the
message of the Gospel, and to “strive to remove every human or
sinful barrier that would keep others from hearing and taking seri-
ously the Gospel of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 6:3)” (TSM, 21). It should
not hesitate to use all appropriate tools and methods to identify and
seek out individuals and groups who, like the Bereans (Acts
17:10-12), appear to be especially receptive to the truths of God’s
Word (cf. ECG, 38-39). FSCC’s discussion of cultural issues il-
lustrates the challenges and sensitivities involved in maintaining
the universality of the Gospel message while also taking into ac-
count the particularities of various cultures in need of the Gospel.
On the one hand, for example, FSCC wams that it is “spiritually
harmful” when “different messages are devised for different cul-
tures,” when “the church changes with each prevailing culture and
every new generation,” and when “the cultural range of the church”
is adapted to “a single, momentary cultural expression” (447). On
the other hand, FSCC acknowledges that God himself “calls His
church lovingly to adapt her outreach to the culture of the hearers”
(443), that “churches should be sensitive to their local cultures” and
that “local customs should be respected and used as a means of out-
reach into the community” (447).

ECG also addresses this issue as part of its evaluation of the
“homogeneous unit principle,” which “holds that the Gospel is
most effectively communicated within cultural units, among people
who have the same cultural background, and who speak the same
language.” Some take issue with this principle, notes ECG, “on the
grounds that it appears to be racist or separatistic along cultural
lines and therefore contrary to what the Scriptures teach regarding
the unity of the body of Christ. Others have found it to be very use-
ful in mission outreach, provided it is not carried out to extreme.”
ECG concludes that this principle

... can indeed be useful in mission outreach, if it is not raised to the
level of an absolute. Uncritical acceptance and use of the homogeneous
unit principle may cause the church to lose sight of the important fact
that the Gospel is the power of God unio salvation, capable of reaching
across cultural barriers to convert the lost. The book of Acts demon-
strates how a Jew named Paul, under the direction and blessing of the
Holy Spirit, could proclaim the Gospel of reconciliation successfully to
a Gentile world made up of many different cultures, races, and peoples.
(ECG, 46)

God’s Mission Is Our Mission

God has entrusted his mission not to an assortment of individu-
als, but to the “one holy Christian and apostolic Church,” the body
of Christ. “Faith in Christ is not merely a ‘personal’ matter, a pri-
vate relationship between ‘me and Jesus.’ In our individualistic age
and culture, God’s Word reminds us that each individual believer
was born of the Spirit into a family of believers. We are all chil-
dren of the same heavenly Father through faith in Jesus Christ
(Eph. 4:4-6)” (TSM, 23). Gathered around and strengthened by

2004 Convention Workbook