LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2013, Page 52

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52

SYNOD REPORTS

admission counselors who connect directly with their local communities. They approach their work as ministry, recognizing its missional
purpose and potential. Begun in 2006 as a pioneering effort with one
of our oldest congregations, this ministry has become part of almost
every school in CNH and has spread to several other districts. Due
to its success and increasing demand, our education executive, Joel
Koerschen, formed an independent 501(c)(3) corporation, Enrollment
Management Network, to continue promoting and equipping this ministry throughout the Synod.
A growing number of CNH congregations are no longer able to
sustain regular Word-and-Sacrament ministry through traditional
full-time pastors, especially in the rural and urban areas. To address
this challenge, we dedicated staff resources in the person of Rev.
John Whaley to walk alongside these congregations to plan how best
to sustain their ministries and connect to their larger community.
CNH deeply appreciates the ministry of both seminaries—Concordia
Seminary and Concordia Theological Seminary—in developing innovative approaches such as the Specific Ministry Pastor (SMP) program
to assist us in caring for the found and reaching out to the lost.
While we see an overall decline in congregational membership
among Anglo populations, missionary work across cultural and linguistic lines is growing. Outreach among Chinese (Mandarin and
Cantonese), Hmong, and Hispanic populations continues on a strong
course, with both congregational growth and the emergence of men
being trained for pastoral ministry. We give thanks for the combined
theological education contributions of our district pastors, along with
the cooperation of the larger Synod through the Ethnic Immigrant
Institute of Theology (EIIT), the Center for Hispanic Studies at
Concordia Seminary, and our pastoral colloquy process. Six new
outreach/church-planting ministries have begun among our growing
Hispanic and East African populations, along with the emergence of
several ordained workers.
Like the Jewish exiles in Babylon, CNH congregations have
entered a period in our history where we Christians do not direct
the affairs of our world in any significant way. We take heart in the
fact that Jesus owns this part of history too. His promises cannot be
shaken; His strong arm cannot be shortened as He moves triumphantly
to the completion of His Father’s will—“that all might be saved and
come to the knowledge of the truth.” This post-churched era provides
us with new and great opportunities to be His faith-filled people. We
have the opportunity, even the necessity, to grow in faith and rely
less on human sight; to choose the adventure of following our risen
Lord into the world, rather than clinging to the fleeting safety of our
own human plans and structures. Regardless of how shaken the foundations seem to be in this post-churched world, we are anchored by
Word and Sacrament to the unshakable cross of Christ.
Robert D. Newton, President
R3-03-03

Central Illinois
The more things change, the more they stay the same. The Central
Illinois District always holds the “caboose” convention, the very last
of the district conventions, a long-standing practice dating from when
farmers had more free time in the mid-summer than in the spring. Our
2012 convention was held in early July, under the theme Scripture
Alone, Grace Alone, and Faith Alone. As President Bueltmann noted
in his convention report, this theme “points to the fact that everything
we do as a church body, and as a district, is to be based upon God’s
Word. That Word tells us that we are saved, not by what we do, but
solely by the grace of God. … We receive this gift of God through
faith.” President Bueltmann ended that statement with the simple
quote with which we are all catechetically familiar: “For it is by grace
2013 Convention Workbook

you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it
is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.” Our pastoral, worship, and mission life is simple and ancient. Those who
have God’s Word must speak it faithfully. We, and all, are saved by
the universal atonement of Jesus, and not by the works of the Law.
Trusting in Jesus, a product of Word and Spirit, accrues to us every
spiritual blessing. Wherever the Word of the Lord is cast, it springs
up into a harvest of souls.
During this convention, we strongly supported traditional Wordand-Sacrament ministry, traditional marriage as God instituted it, and
the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms, especially as regards the recent
stir created by the mandate from the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human
Services attempting to cause church-run insurance programs “to provide sterilization, hormonal and abortive-inducing drugs, and IUDs.”
The most “controversial” resolution dealt with a change in term limitations within the district praesidium which increased to three terms
of service among the district vice-presidents and reduced from unlimited terms for the president to three terms. This resolution passed by
a three-vote margin.
At this convention, a change in leadership occurred when on the
third ballot the Rev. Mark A. Miller, senior pastor of St. John, Pekin,
Illinois, was elected to become the 16th president of the Central Illinois
District (“16th President” and Springfield, Illinois, together ring rather
ominously). Although a new president has been elected, it does not
change the desire or direction of this district to be faithful to the
Scriptures and our Confession, or to the task of making disciples by
baptizing and teaching.
One of the challenges that looms before us, in the face of the
secular and the satanic ever encroaching on the spiritual, is that our
predominately rural congregations must still do what the Lord of the
church has called us to do: “urgently preach the Word in season and
out of season.” This we must do even if the demographics are not on
our side. The larger urban congregations have no different charge.
They must not succumb to the fiscal pressures of watering down
the message for the sake of worldly peace and prosperity. All must
trust in the promise of God, “My Word will not return empty,” and
His unfailing track record “to add to the church daily those who are
being saved.”
The bedrock and heartbeat of our district remains our 159 congregations, their pastors and their people. The church in this place is
the 75,000 or so baptized members of our congregations. Our outreach includes 76 of our congregations involved in the operation of
22 full-time elementary schools and three high schools. Another 30
congregations are operating early-childhood programs. The Lord has
worked mightily as the Word is proclaimed and taught by our ordained
and commissioned ministers, as our laypeople give testimony of the
goodness of our God through Christ Jesus, and by the various ways
the Lord’s mercy has been extended through us in the context of where
and the vocation in which that same Lord has placed us.
Our budget, even in this difficult economic period, soli Deo gloria, has remained stable, and we are still forwarding on 30 percent to
support the Synod, the seminaries, and worldwide missions. Fifty percent is still being used to support and extend our local mission efforts
throughout central Illinois. The district staff was reduced by one and
one-half in the last triennium as the Rev. Wesley Reimnitz took a call
back into the parish and our part-time CID gift planner, Mr. David
Rohe, retired from this position. Mr. Rohe still continues as the executive director of our CID Church Extension Fund.
Our joint work being done among the Latino population in Central
Illinois is bearing fruit. In the Quad Cities, under the Rev. Pablo
Dominguez, the Lord has blessed. New efforts are underway in the
Beardstown area and St. John’s congregation to reach out to the
Latinos who have settled and are employed in the area. The model