Pres. Kieschnick Shares His Dreams for the LCMS

 Editor’s note:  The following are excerpts from President Gerald Kieschnick’s presentation to the Synod’s National Circuit Counselors Conference in Milwaukee,  September 12–14.

As we “sharpen our tools” in preparation for fulfillment of our roles as faithful and effective leaders of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod in the years ahead, I respectfully and unapologetically share with you several hopes, dreams, and objectives for the years ahead that I pray we will work together to achieve.

1.  Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing.

Our Lord’s mission to reach lost people for Christ is and must remain the central focus of our life and reason for existence. As individual Christians and congregations, we are gathered together in Word and Sacrament, freely and voluntarily bound together by Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions. Our commitment to Christ and to God’s kingdom is fueled by the grace of God in Christ our Lord. The apostles in Acts 4 had it right: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved… we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

If we are to remain a confessional church, our confession must be heard. It’s no longer sufficient to advertise the times of worship services on the church sign outside the sanctuary, expecting people to flock in by the droves. Our Synod’s Mission Statement says it well: “In grateful response to God’s grace and empowered by the Holy Spirit through Word and Sacrament, the mission of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod is vigorously to make known the love of Christ, by word and deed, within our churches, communities, and the world!”

2. Restoring Health and Vitality in Congregations of the Synod.

In my travels across the Synod, I am continually struck by and concerned about the number of LCMS congregations continuing to shrink and, in many cases, facing the imminent possibility of closure. While many pastors and lay leaders are serious about intentional strategies to reverse the trend of decline and possible demise, many others appear either unwilling to consider or uninterested in making the significant commitment of time and energy required for restoration of congregational health, strength, growth, and vitality.

A very real challenge facing the LCMS is helping congregational leaders refocus significant effort and reallocate adequate resources for taking the Gospel beyond the four walls of sanctuary and classroom. This concern must be and is being addressed by our national Synod, districts, circuits, seminaries, and universities.

3. Powerful Preaching of Law and Gospel.

All too often I hear about generally poor preaching in stories and reports from lay men and women who visit LCMS congregations in their travels and from retired LCMS pastors and their wives who visit congregations other than the one from which they have retired. These reports and stories usually reflect lack of clear articulation of both Law and Gospel from LCMS pulpits and absence of meaningful application of God’s Word to the human condition. . . . 

Somehow there is a disconnect between the cerebral and the visceral, the theoretical and the practical application of God’s Word to the lives and hearts of people, both within and outside the church. Homiletical renewal begs attention from seminary, district and national Synod leaders.

 

4. Training, Compensation, and Retention of Professional Church Workers.

Concordia Plan Services reports that 50% of currently active LCMS pastors will reach or surpass retirement age in the next 10 years. That’s an average attrition of 250-300 pastors per year for the next 10 years. Add to that the need for pastoral missional leaders to meet the Ablaze! challenge set before the congregations of our Synod to begin 2000 new missions by 2017, an average of almost 200 per year for the next 11 years. These two realities combined yield a “demand” for 450-500 pastors per year for at least the next 10 years. Yet in 2006, from both seminaries combined we placed 187 seminary graduates in congregations and mission stations of the LCMS. The gap is obvious! . . . 

Proper compensation of professional church workers needs to and is receiving attention at all levels. Jesus said, “The worker deserves his wages” (Luke 10:7). Yet many professional church workers, especially commissioned ministers of the Gospel, leave full-time church work in search of vocations and professions with greater financial remuneration.  . . .

 

5. The Mission.

The report of the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Funding the Mission, created by the 2004 Synod convention, has recently been released. It places heavy emphasis on stewardship education and motivation in the congregations of our Synod. I recently learned from a significant segment of our District Presidents that 70-90% of the congregations in their districts do absolutely nothing regarding individual or congregational stewardship!

That statistic is both incredible and unacceptable, not merely for the sake of generating sufficient revenue for funding the mission at all levels, but also for the sake of the spiritual health and vitality of individual Lutheran Christians. . . .

 

6. Doctrine and Practice.

By God’s grace, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod enjoys a solidarity in doctrinal formulations that is the envy of most other parts of the Body of Christ. As previously indicated, we simply do not disagree with one another on major articles of faith. Our greatest difficulties and disagreements stem from lack of similar solidarity in putting those doctrinal formulations into practice. In many cases, conflict within our Synod can be traced to congregational and pastoral disparity in such matters as who should be allowed to commune at our altars, the role of women in congregational life and mission, diversity in worship methodology, lack of clarity in implementation of the doctrine of church and ministry, and differing perspectives on inter-Christian relationships.

Continual and even accelerated attention must be given to these questions, specifically, to what degree are our congregations and professional church workers free to decide how to proceed in such matters and to what degree are we bound to uniformity in practice?