For Those Who Don’t Know JESUS FIRST

By Charles S. Mueller, Sr.

JESUS FIRST is an association of certified and rostered members of The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, in addition to many lay members of LCMS congregations, to  promote Gospel-centered, mission-driven, future-oriented leadership within our church body. Wherever such leadership exists, we support it. Where it is developing, we encourage it. Where it is absent, we lament it, but always within the letter and spirit of our Synod’s Constitution and Bylaws. Where we have been wrong, we have apologized and corrected the record. JESUS FIRST has encouraged the ministries of past and present LCMS Presidents Barry, Kuhn and Kieschnick in matters related to our three-fold objective. We believe that all who have been selected to serve the church, at whatever level, should be respected.

Is JF a Political Group?

JESUS FIRST does not have a membership list. The closest thing to one is the names of hundreds of LCMS members on our website who support our three-fold objective. Furthermore, each issue of the JESUS FIRST newsletter carries the names of its   publication team and the writers of all articles are identified. JF is not a political party.

What draws many to JESUS FIRST is the three letter word in its masthead: “for.” We are not much into opposing things. Throughout the last half century the LCMS sadly has been defined more often by what it is against than by what it is for, and by the relations/programs from which it is withdrawing rather than those we are trying to establish. Many feel we have lost the “go” in Gospel and have paid scant attention to Christ’s mission call, with the result that many congregations are dormant or declining. Most of the Synod has been on a fifty-year membership decline.

What are JF’s Guiding Principles?

Since JESUS FIRST budded and blossomed a decade or so ago we have carefully adhered to a number of internal guidelines:

• JESUS FIRST will not attack people, nor do we concede another’s right to do so. The Eighth Commandment is the Eighth Commandment. When we have pointed out our differences with others, we have consistently tried to put the best construction on all things.

• If we are slandered we will keep our peace and not respond in kind.

• We will live within the wonderful margins of the Constitution and Bylaws of the Synod and urge others to do the same. There are plenty of legitimate ways spelled out in these documents to help positive change happen.

• We do not believe it is proper to absent ourselves from the Synod’s gatherings or withhold financial support from Synod’s joint efforts. Such actions are tantamount to resignation.

• We will tell the truth so that the only thing between the lines of what we publish shall be either white spaces or someone’s vivid imagination.

     How will JF Prepare for Houston?

Today, as we prepare for the Houston Convention our message and methods will be those the LCMS has established over the years:

We urge all congregations to get involved in selecting the electoral circuit delegates so that those chosen as delegates reflect the spirit of the congregations involved.

We urge congregations to nominate candidates for various positions as they are asked.  To that end, at the request of many, we offer for congregational consideration the names of some whom we believe would serve us all well. We do so recognizing that there are others whom we do not know as well who would be just as much a blessing.

Leading up to and during the coming Convention we will regularly share with the delegates, and others, a JESUS FIRST perspective on Convention  matters. We believe we owe delegates as much information and insight as we have so that they can make good and godly decisions.

What is JF’s Future?

What will happen to JESUS FIRST after the Houston Convention? Who knows? But no matter what happens, those who associate with it will keep working to help whatever leadership our church chooses to be Gospel-centered, mission-driven and future-oriented. Given my ancestry, together with many others, I really can do no less.

My paternal ancestors were German immigrant farmers who sold their few holdings in Germany and sailed in November of 1838 for New Orleans. In early 1839 they worked their way up the Mississippi River via the Missouri River to Booneville, Missouri. From there it was a forty mile trek following ox-cart to a homestead near Cole Camp, Missouri. They got busy clearing land and building homes. Then, with others of like mind, they founded a Lutheran congregation that a few years later joined the church body which today is called The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

Now, one hundred sixty-eight years later, as a fourth generation member of the LCMS, I follow in their train, committed with them to the Scriptures, the Lutheran Confessions and a Gospel-centered, mission-driven, future-oriented Lutheran dream of keeping Jesus first in all things.