LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2004, Page 441

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OTHER PERTINENT DOCUMENTS 441

The Lutheran Understanding of Church Fellowship
A Report on Synodical Discussions
I. The Assignment of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

(LCMS) 1998 Convention:
A Synodwide Study of Church Fellowship

By a substantial majority, delegates to the 1998 LCMS conven-
tion noted “that a growing problem exists among some of our pas-
tors and congregations regarding the understanding, application,
and practice of our Synod’s fellowship principles.” Some laypeople
and church workers ‘‘do not always have a clear and positive un-
derstanding of the basis and purpose of our Synod’s fellowship
posture.” These conditions are “in part due to a lack of understand-
ing of why we are who we are and why we do what we do as Mis-
souri Synod Lutherans” (Res. 3-03B).

To address this important issue, the LCMS asked its President
and Commission on Theology and Church Relations (CTCR) to pre-
pare a Synodwide study of the confessional nature of our church
body and its fellowship principles and practices. In a separate reso-
lution titled “To Endeavor to Keep the Unity of the Spirit in the
Bond of Peace” (Res. 3-10C), the LCMS affirmed its historic posi-
tion on joint worship. To examine biblical and confessional teaching
regarding fellowship, the resolution called for the following steps:
1. That all the District conventions in 2000 make use of the biblical

and confessional study on church fellowship.

2. That during the six months after the conventions each District
President promote and provide for the use of this study by pas-
tors’ conferences, teachers’ conferences, lay/clergy conferences,
and congregations.

3. That the 2001 LCMS convention devote special attention to the
topic of church fellowship, including joint worship, Communion
fellowship, and pastoral oversight concerning the Lord’s Sup-
per. This would require scheduling significant time at the con-
vention for prayer, study, and discussion.

In February 2000 the LCMS President and CTCR prepared and
sent The Lutheran Understanding of Church Fellowship to all Dis-
trict convention delegates. (The full text is included in Appendix
II at the end of the Convention Workbook.) This booklet contained
a 24-page essay with detailed footnotes, a five-page condensation
of the document, six questions for discussion, and five case studies.
To provide feedback a Discussion Reporting Instrument was in-
cluded. All District conventions discussed the document. About
4,300 response forms from convention delegates and other atten-
dees were returned for evaluation. Of this number, roughly 1,900
were submitted by pastors, 2,100 by laypersons and 200 by com-
missioned ministers. About 100 respondents did not identify their
status. The President, the CTCR, and their staffs tabulated the re-
turns and summarized the written comments, which are reflected
in this response.

IL A Summary of The Lutheran Understanding of Church Fellowship

In the New Testament the word for fellowship (Greek koinonia)
Means a joint participation in a common thing and is used in con-
nection with the Gospel, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the one faith, and
the Lord’s body and blood. There is one holy Christian church,
whose members everywhere participate together in these blessings
as they believe in Christ for salvation. They are bound to Christ
by faith, and through Him, with all other believers in this internal
and invisible fellowship. No one can look into the heart of another
to see if faith exists. In the proper sense, the church is made up of
all true believers in Christ. In them the Lord has created and sus-
tains faith through the Gospel and the Sacraments and through
these means of grace He bestows the blessings of salvation. The
means of grace are “the marks of the church” (Art. VII and VIII of
the AC and of the Apology) around which He gathers an external
or outward assembly.

Church fellowship in the outward assembly is based on the con-
fessions of faith made by churches to which people belong (again,
we cannot look into their hearts). The LCMS is prevented from
practicing church fellowship with other church bodies whose con-
fessions or other official positions seriously distort the Christian
proclamation. They do not share with the Synod the same biblical
understanding of the Gospel, and thus we do not share a common
confession with them. Therefore the LCMS and its congregations
do not join with them in proclaiming the Gospel or in administering
and sharing the Sacraments. Under these circumstances the LCMS
properly declines to be in “altar and pulpit” fellowship with these
churches.

Basic to the LCMS practice of church fellowship is faithfulness
to biblical teaching and thus agreement in doctrine. Paul wrote,
“Take heed to yourself and to your teaching [Greek didaskalia];
hold to that, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your
hearers” (1 Tim. 4:16 RSV). While the Scriptures show that the
same biblical message is proclaimed in a wondrous variety of
ways, the apostle exhorts Christians to say in essence the same
thing concerning the Lord and His Word. Since people are saved
through the Gospel (1 Cor. 15:1-2) and freed by the truth of God’s
Word (John 8:31-32), the church must teach what Christ teaches
(Matt. 28:20).

False doctrine distorts the Gospel and so endangers unity with
Christ. Therefore Jesus warns His church against false teachers
(Matt. 7:15 ff.), i-e., those who do not profess the apostolic teaching
(2 John 9-10; see Gal. 1:8). So also Paul says, “I urge you, broth-
ers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and offenses con-
trary to the teaching that you have learned; avoid them” (Rom.
16:17; our translation). Christians are to avoid those who cause di-
visions and offenses by falsifying and misrepresenting apostolic
teaching. Such people are really the ones responsible for divisions
and offenses, not the faithful followers of apostolic teaching. Be-
cause they present themselves as teachers of the Gospel, they can
be more dangerous to faith than those who do not claim to be part
of the church. The alternative to following Christ’s sound words
(1 Tim. 6:3-4) is to fall into incorrect teachings which threaten
faith itself (see 2 Tim. 2:17 ff.). Distinguishing the Good Shep-
herd’s voice from other voices spells the difference between life
and death for believers (John 10:19).

Typical of a few responses to The Lutheran Understanding of
Church Fellowship was the caricature that the LCMS teaches that
only our members can be saved. On the contrary, we hold, as
Lutherans always have, that all who believe in Christ as Savior are
saved and are joined by an invisible bond of fellowship that spans
space and time. This is affirmed above. The Lutheran position on
church fellowship holds that internal unity is expressed in external
church fellowship by faithfulness to the Scriptures’ teaching. A
church consistently proclaiming unscriptural teachings is still a
Christian church to the extent that elements of the true Gospel are
there. (For this reason Lutherans do not proselytize active mem-
bers of these churches.) The presence of the Gospel in these
churches, however, does not negate their false and misleading
proclamation. Practicing church fellowship with them would com-
promise our proclamation of the Gospel. Their false teachings sadly
separate us at the altar and in the pulpit from well-meaning Chris-
tians in these churches.

We do not presume to pass judgment on whether or not indi-
vidual false teachers have saving faith. Nevertheless, their false
teachings exclude them from external fellowship with churches that
hold to the apostolic teachings of the New Testament. First-cen-
tury apostolic churches would hardly have communed with those
who persistently distorted the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Gal. 1:6-9).

The Lutheran Confessions hold that all doctrine must be derived
from the Scriptures. These Confessions understand Christian doc-
trine not in a minimal sense, i.e., a bare message of forgiveness,

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