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LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2007, Page 10

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

10 SYNOD REPORTS

District Conventions 20
District Pastors Conferences/

All Workers Conferences ; 8
Visits to Seminary, College,

and University Campuses 28
Congregational Anniversaries,

Dedications, etc. . 44
Other Conferences, Miscellaneous

Conventions, etc. 31
Miscellaneous Events—Out of town 65
Miscellaneous Meetings/Events—St. Louis 82

Meetings with Individual Pastors,
Lay, Staff, etc.

Visits from, to, or with Current or Potential
Partner Churches
American Association of Lutheran Churches

Canada

Countless

Germany

Haiti

Indonesia

Kenya

Latvia

Lithuania

SELK

Sudan

Meeting with President George W. Bush

— ea eS ND SS eS Of

Concluding Comments

Based on my extensive travels throughout the Synod these past

6 years, participating in many district pastoral conferences and con-

ventions, meeting with district presidents, boards of directors, dis-

trict staff members, pastors, teachers, and lay leaders from many
congregations of the LCMS, IJ have a number of observations to
share:

1. The LCMS has a tremendous opportunity and virtually
unlimited resources from the hand of God to experience a
reversal of the trend of the past 30 years that has marked us as
a declining church body. I believe that excellence and
faithfulness in Christian education endeavors, human care
opportunities, and re-energized mission strategies in our
Synod, centered in Word and Sacraments, will result in the
LCMS being recognized worldwide as a dynamic, Christ-
centered movement and a vibrant, vital gathering of biblical
and confessional Christians in mission to the world. We are a
biblical and confessional church. Our confession must and will
be heard.

2. The LCMS is being refreshed with a renewed spirit of zeal for
the mission of our Lord Jesus Christ. At times, this zeal is
hampered by a partially fractured party spirit. But the presence
of God in Word and Sacrament among us, the hope of Christ
that is alive in the hearts of our people, and the mission focus
that is welling up in so many of our congregations, institutions
and entities give me great hope for the future of our beloved
Synod,

3. The LCMS is held together by the grace of God. The commit-
ment of her pastors, teachers, people, and congregations to that
grace of God is increasingly evident. In response to God’s
grace, the peopie of this Synod are being compelled and
propelled by the love of Christ to engage passionately the
billions of unsaved people in this world with the confession of
God’s grace in Jesus Christ our Lord.

In the midst of such a time as this, we must seize the opportuni-
ties provided by the Spirit of God, overcome our challenges by the

2007 Convention Workbook

grace of God, and boldly move ahead in the mission given us by
the Son of God. As our mission statement declares:
“In grateful response to God’s grace and empowered by the Holy
Spirit through Word and Sacraments, the mission of the LCMS is vig-
orously to make known the love of Christ by word and deed within our
churches, communities, and the world.”
“Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move
you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because
you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (1 Cor. 15:58)

Respectfully submitted,

lace

President’s Report Part I, Addendum A

ELCA CHURCHWIDE ASSEMBLY GREETINGS
From Gerald B. Kieschnick, President

The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

Orlando, Florida

August 12, 2005

Presiding Bishop Hanson, Assembly Members, Special Guests,
Friends in Christ:

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, Savior of the world and
Lord of the universe, through whom alone we have forgiveness of
sin, life, and salvation!

I couldn’t help but observe during your assembly proceedings
that you are no strangers to the joys and sorrows of parliamentary
procedure. As a matter of fact, there was an occasion on which I
closed my eyes and felt absolutely certain that I was at a conven-
tion of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod!

Seriously, it is my privilege today to bring you greetings on be-
half of the 2.4 million baptized members of The Lutheran
Church—Missouri Synod. Even in the midst of our endeavor to
reach 100 million unreached or uncommitted people with the
Gospel of Jesus Christ by 2017, the 500th anniversary of the Re-
formation, we have been praying for the guidance of the Holy
Spirit upon your assembly gathered here as children of the heav-
enly Father, “Marked with the Cross of Christ Forever.”

In our liturgy for Holy Baptism, we speak these words, “Re-
ceive the sign of the holy cross both upon your forehead and upon
your heart to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified.” In
Baptism, we are marked with the Cross of Christ forever.

Luther wrote in this regard what we also confess, “Since the
water and the Word together constitute one Baptism, body and soul
shall be saved and live forever . . . No greater jewel, therefore, can
adorn our body and soul than Baptism, for through it we obtain per-
fect holiness and salvation, which no other kind of life and no work
on earth can acquire” (LC, Baptism, 46, Tappert).

As Lutheran Christians, we cherish this great jewel that adorns
us and marks us with the Cross of Christ. Likewise, we treasure the
holy, precious Word of God that reveals the perfect law of God and
the merciful Gospel of Christ—the light for the path of the Chris-
tian Church. With the confessors, “we believe, teach, and confess
that the prophetic and apostolic writings of the Old and New Tes-
tament are the only rule and norm according to which all doctrines
and teachers alike must be appraised and judged” (FC, Epitome, 1,
Tappert).