LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2013, Page 86

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and pure Gospel-centered message of the saving grace of Jesus,
the Christ.
Shortly thereafter, Liberia became engaged in a brutal civil war,
which resulted in missionaries and other nationals fleeing the
country. The young established church was being left all to herself
to grow and spread the Word. It was at this time that some of her
members also fled to Guinea and the Ivory Coast as refugees to
those neighboring countries. It was in Guinea that I personally
became a confirmed member of this LCMS-related church. At
this point, I like to refer to ELM as “the Church in Refuge and
Mission,” especially the Missio Dei (God’s Mission). This young
refugee congregation in Guinea had no choice but to carry out the
necessary practical ministry, such as extending a call, teaching,
conducting marriages, funerals, leadership and administration,
and the ministry of Word and Sacraments. Later, the LCMS sent
missionaries to work with the church; but at that time, much had
been done and practiced by this young refugee church in mission.
Missionaries Tim and Beth Heiney, along with their four children,
were sent to take on the ministry of Word and Sacraments, and
to also include that of mercy work among the refugees as well as
Guinea, the host country.
Immediately after the Liberian Civil War ended in 2003, many
of these quickly trained pastors returned home and immediately
went out to their towns and villages to start churches. For them,
the training received in Guinea was their call to ministry. In a
very short space of time, we were blessed with over a hundred
congregations that were easily started by these returning refugee
preachers. Let me quickly mention here that the ELM was not only
preserved in Guinea. There were also remnants in the Ivory Coast
and in Monrovia, Liberia, and a fourth group came through the
AIM–USA. All of these various groups of Lutherans were being
considered as LCMS Lutherans in Liberia. We even used the LCMS
triune cross, cooperated and closely worked with the LCMS, and
were even supported by the LCMS. To our amazement, we were
told one day that we were not a partner church of the LCMS. Our
question then was, who are we? We, therefore, began working
toward our unification as a single church body, an endeavor of
which the LCMS became very supportive. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Liberia (ELCL) was formed on May 10, 2009,
from the merger of four different Lutheran groups, each founded
through the diaspora of the Liberian Civil War through different
initiatives of the LCMS, including LCMS World Mission. The
newly formed ELCL has 204 pastors and 16 Lutheran schools and
137 congregations across Liberia.
I believe that most, if not every, opportunity poses a challenge in
itself. With the success of the ELCL, it may surprise you to hear
that 90 percent of all of our pastors are either poorly trained or
have no formal pastoral training at all. This poses a threat and a
serious challenge to the pure teaching of the Word. The content of
doctrine and the conveying of doctrine are two separate things,
yet are inseparable. Good content will not be learned if it is poorly
presented. Our content must be absolutely based and grounded upon
none other but the Bible. If it is Christian, it has got to be biblical,
and I mean absolutely the Bible. But according to Robert Kolb, we
could be teaching from the Bible and yet err in our application or
delivery of the Word. He made reference to C. F. W. Walther, who
said: “Only he is a pure teacher who not only presents all articles of
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faith in accordance with Scripture but also correctly distinguishes
between Law and Gospel.” The fact that we place a valuable price
tag on doctrine means we must be able to correctly and carefully
convey it to our hearers. This is where we will expect much from
our partnership with the LCMS, perhaps more than anything else.
We say, “Please come and help us in Liberia. We need teaching and
training of our pastors. They have much energy and enthusiasm
and are willing to serve, but how can they best serve unless they
are properly taught?” We call on you to provide training opportunities for our pastors and church leaders so that they present the
pure teaching of the Word and Sacraments to our people. We call
upon our seminaries and the Concordia universities to help out
with scholarships for our people to come and study, so they might
then return home to teach others.
We did not need partnership to gain assistance or financial support from you. Why? Because you have since 1978 been providing
financial and material assistance for our church and people of
Liberia. You have always been at the point of our needs. We need
this partnership in order to help us to uphold this pure and unadulterated doctrine of the Holy Scripture. We have had so much
of the Law in Africa; we of the ELCL need the Gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ, crucified and risen for sinners!
We very highly appreciate your biblical and African doctrine of the
Sacraments. I want to restate that the doctrine of the Sacraments
is most African. As Africans, we believe in both the supernatural
as well as the natural. We believe when you teach that the Lord’s
Supper is given as God’s provision of a sacrifice for the forgiveness
of sins. Yet we love to eat and drink that sacrifice so that we may
believe. We believe in God’s working in Baptism for the washing
away of our sins. As we see and hear you speak the Word and
combine that with water, we can certainly believe that we are being
washed and are forgiven of all our sins. If you have ever wondered
why we desire partnership with you, the LCMS, it is because your
teachings of God’s Word are so pure and simple for us to grasp.
Therefore, we have seen and believe that indeed, you are presenting
unto us God’s message of truth and of life.
We are most happy to partner with a church body like you, the
LCMS, as you take a position against such vices as homosexuality,
which is against the clear teaching of the Bible and against the very
core of the African culture and people. I will tell you how, in my
country, Liberia, a young gay man went to one of our radio stations
in order to speak up for gay rights to be considered in Liberia. In a
matter of minutes, the Liberian women—not even the church—were
there to revoke his call and as well as to express their disapproval
for such an unnatural practice to be tolerated in Liberia. You are
aware that every institution and every good government of the
world is built upon family units. For families make up a community,
and communities make up for the formation of government and
nations of the world. Homosexuality will destroy or put to an end
what all Africans consider as their most valuable asset. Children are
considered as our most valuable asset in Africa. We are surprised
that civilized and informed nations of the world would consider
incest to be taboo over and against that of homosexuality, which
is against the natural and biological makeup of the human nature.
We applaud the witness of the Ethiopian Lutheran church for saying to their formal partner church, the ELCA: “We love you but
are calling on you to repent of your stand for same-sex marriage,
C o n v e n t io n E s s ays