Convention
Update
Sunday, July 11
TEAM
KIESCHNICK – One Mission, One Message, One People!
Great leaders
share many things in common.
Included is the satisfaction leaders receive from
surrounding themselves with others who can take direction and
yet fulfill responsibilities without close oversight.
This is particularly important when a leader undertakes
massive programs.
The Synod’s
ONE MISSION ABLAZE!
is a robust plan to reach 100 million people with the
Gospel. In the true spirit of Second Corinthians, NOW
is the time for the people of the LCMS to take action. The team this Convention elects to support Jerry Kiescknick
in accomplishing ONE MISSION ABLAZE! will form
the support system necessary to hit the ground running.
Each team member must be capable of taking direction
and fulfilling the responsibilities of their elected
positions.
Key among all
members of TEAM KIESCHNICK is First Vice-President.
Bill Diekelman, currently the Pastor of Faith in
Owasso, Oklahoma, while also serving as President of the
LCMS’s Oklahoma District, is the leader fully equipped for
the task. As a
Pastor he continues to baptize and bury, preach and pray.
As a District President he leads a district that has
both rural and urban congregations with challenges heightened
by the plight of farmers as well as the effects of changing
neighborhoods and cultures in urban areas.
Alongside
Jerry and Bill are the Secretary of the Synod and four
additional Vice-Presidents. The Secretary of our Synod
performs an important support role as the keeper of Synod’s
official records. He serves as counsel and advisor to the
President and in addition sits on almost all of the Synod’s
boards and commissions, as advisor or member. David Mahsman, as Executive Editor of the Lutheran
Witness and Reporter,
is well known for serving with discretion and integrity. We recommend strongly that delegates vote for David to serve
the church in this essential leadership position.
The Second-,
Third-, Fourth- and Fifth-Vice-Presidents function as additional
eyes and ears across the Synod for the President, as well
as performing official acts at his direction. They are his official representatives. Nominees for this position are exceptionally qualified and
have all agreed to serve if elected.
Four trustworthy men best qualified to serve our
beloved Synod and the President in these very important volunteer
roles are Pastors Paul Maier, David Buegler, Tom Zehnder and
Dean Nadasdy. Each has affirmed publicly his support for ONE MISSION
ABLAZE! and President Kieschnick’s leadership.
We are very thankful for the high level of servant
leadership shown by each nominee!
Vote TEAM
KIESCHNICK: Diekelman, Mahsman, Maier, Buegler, Zehnder and
Nadasdy!
_______________________________________
Understanding
Floor Nominations
Jesus First
Leadership supports the historic right of convention delegates
to nominate from the convention floor. In the past some fine
men and women have served the Synod after being nominated from
the floor and later elected to office.
The process
of floor nominations does come with some difficulties for the
convention delegates. In order to have floor nominees, a
delegate must make a motion to open the slate for nominations
from the floor. If seconded, delegates vote on this motion without
debate. Once the floor is open for nominations, there can be
any number of nominations from the floor for each position.
Jesus First encourages delegates to consider two things:
1) The
Synodical Nomination Committee is not like any other Floor
Committee in that it is the most representative of the entire
Synod. Seventeen districts sent representatives to consider
over 1,000 suggested nominations. 2) If there are numerous
floor nominations, the process will start to bog down with so
many nominees for each position.
We
believe that the nomination committee has done a fine job of
selecting the nominees to all elected positions. We believe
that in all positions, delegates have great choices. Consider
adopting the slate and the hard work of the Nominations
Committee for a smoother election process.
_______________________________________
The
Making of a Churchman
As
great statesmanship is essential for a nation, so great
churchmanship is critical for the church.
Great statesmen have led our nation since its founding
228 years ago. Great churchmen have blessed our Lutheran
Church-Missouri Synod in the past. The need for them now is
great.
Common characteristics of great leaders include:
·
viewing a
cause as being greater than oneself
·
willingly
making great personal sacrifice for the common good
·
understanding
that while they may not be remembered, the cause for which
they stand must not fail
·
being aware
of their own limitations
·
being
unwilling to see those who oppose them as evil
·
willingly
seeking counsel from many different quarters
·
cultivating
a deep appreciation for history
·
greatly
thirsting to know everything about the circumstances that
shaped them
·
having
great sensitivity for the process of change
·
greatly
appreciating the traditions that shaped them
·
having the
courage to express and live their convictions
·
appreciating
those movements that could bring destruction to the nation
·
making
their convictions clearly known, while
respecting those who hold opposing/conflicting views
·
leading by
example
·
nurturing a compelling vision for that which might yet
be
May the Lord of the Church continue to grant us noble,
virtuous, courageous churchmen in every facet of our life
together. May the churchmen who lead our congregations, our
various components of ministry, our Districts and our Synod be
known as "great churchmen," writing, speaking,
serving, leading so that the name of our Lord may be
glorified, his people served and his church honored. And may
the Holy Spirit grant us the ability to recognize, choose and
follow genuinely great leaders.
_______________________________________
The
Reason to Adopt Overture 7-02
The
structures of our federal government and of the State of
Missouri both provide for a separate arm — the Supreme Court
of the United States and the highest court of the State of
Missouri — to interpret their respective constitutions,
rules, laws and ordinances. The LCMS follows this model by
empowering the Commission on Constitutional Matters (CCM) to
act in the same capacity, interpreting our Constitution and
Bylaws.
Recognizing
that matters often include both secular and ecclesiastical
aspects, the CCM intentionally has included in its membership
qualified secular leadership as well as qualified clergy.
That the
synodical President appoints people to the CCM would be of no
surprise because the joint responsibility for ecclesiastical
and administrative matters rests with him.
This well
thought-out empowerment within the LCMS’s time-honored,
doctrinally based, organic governing structure should neither
be disturbed, challenged nor (especially) confused by an
attempt to interpret as secular the multitude of events that
are clearly ecclesiastical, even though they surface in a
secular atmosphere. Attorney Martin Nussbaum’s report makes
it clear that what may appear as secular (such as budget
items) is at the core ecclesiastical and remains as such.
If the
LCMS’s organic governance documents need clarification in
order to preserve the CCM as the independent arm to interpret
and apply the LCMS articles of incorporation, Constitution and
Bylaws, then so be it. The interpretation of purely
ecclesiastical, purely secular, or a hybrid of each must
remain independent of any arm of our governing entities, just
as our country and the State of Missouri have done.
Therefore, in
the interest of all parties, Overture 7-02 needs to be
adopted!
_______________________________________
All
Nations Sent to Us
Pentecost 2000 Celebrates God at Work
I
know You said, “Go to all the nations.”
But this is more difficult.
Lord, You didn’t say You were going to send all
nations to us.
It’s a prayer that many American Christians have
prayed in the last three decades as the United States has
moved from being a Northern European, predominately Caucasian
nation to being a multi-cultural nation of many faces.
It’s a prayer that many LCMS Christians have prayed
as they have looked around their cities, their communities and
their neighborhoods at the changing faces of people they know
God loves.
During the last three decades of the 20th
century, immigration accounted for 70 percent of U.S.
population growth. By 1990 there were three times as many
immigrants in this country as in 1970. The last decade—the
1990s—recorded the highest level of immigration in U.S.
history as people from Africa, Asia, Central America, South
America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Eastern Europe
emigrated to this country.
Within 30 years Anglo-Americans will be a minority
nationwide.
Deeply committed to missions, even when the mission has
come to us and when the mission field is our own back yard,
the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod met in 1999 to develop
goals and objectives for culture-specific ministries.
They decided to call the endeavor “Pentecost 2000,”
setting a goal of 1000 new culture-specific ministries before
the year 2000. “To
date, 1011 new culture-specific ministries have been
registered on the Pentecost 2000 website and over 1000
additional ministries are in operation, but not yet
registered,” comments Marie Biesenthal, Director of
Pentecost 2000.
“It takes courage to share the gospel,” Biesenthal
declared, “We’ve been helping people actually take the
step! Although
Pentecost 2000 was conceived by the LCMS and has been solidly
supported by our national church body, one of the most
exciting aspects has been that it has been lay people who have
been leading and lay people who have stepped up to the plate
to share faith in the communities in which they live.
“Lay people have looked around their communities and
assessed the needs of often confused and fearful people, and
said to these people God loves, ‘We are interested in you
and you are not alone. How can we help?’
That simple question and the answers they heard have
led Pentecost 2000 servants into various ESL, blind, deaf,
Sudanese, Bosnian, African, Japanese and Korean ministries, to
name but a few,” declared Biesenthal.
Dr. Gerald B. Kieschnick, President of the Lutheran
Church—Missouri Synod comments, “What will heaven be like?
Let us pray that the countless numbers of people from all
nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues will be even greater
because God, by His grace, has granted us this time and place
to be faithful instruments of His Gospel.”
Pentecost 2000, our local community Gospel ministry,
launches the LCMS global event, ABLAZE!
Pentecost 2000 celebrates God’s faithfulness as we
pray, Thank You, God, for sending all nations to us.”
_______________________________________
BOARD
OF DIRECTORS OPEN HEARING
“Tell Them to Stop the Stupid Fighting!”
At
the same time that various Floor Committees held open hearings
on Saturday morning, July 10, the Synod’s Board of Directors
(BOD) also held an open hearing in room 126 of the convention
center. The 40
chairs and several tables in the room immediately filled.
Since it was obvious that there were far more people
than chairs, America’s Center staff quickly removed the
tables and brought in additional chairs.
These chairs also quickly filled, as did the standing
room behind the chairs.
Board Chairman Kuhn announced that we were in violation
of the fire code due to the number of people in a room of its
size with only one exit door operable.
Eventually, the room was expanded to twice the size,
with people still standing.
An estimated 300 people were in attendance. A microphone brought in one half hour into the session
greatly aided communication.
A “Conversation”
Board
Chairman Robert Kuhn opened the session by inviting attendees
to participate in a “conversation.”
There was no lack of questions from the audience.
The very first question was why the BOD did not seek
the advice of Synod’s general legal counsel rather than the
special outside counsel of Bryan Cave.
A
second questioner remembered that the BOD in December 2003 had
said in Board Briefs I, “The Board, which greatly values
the trust and support of Synod members, will share the [Bryan
Cave] opinions fully with the church when the appropriate time
comes,”and asked when would the appropriate time come.
These
questions seemed to set the tone for much of the session.
Responses were given to these questions and to many
others by the two attorneys on the BOD (Christian Preus and
David Hawk). But
simple, specific answers were sometimes difficult to find –
even when a subsequent speaker might ask the identical
question a bit later. Overall,
it seemed that the questions challenging recent actions of the
BOD outnumbered statements of support for the Board by a
margin of three to one.
Board Minority Speaks
Approximately
one half hour into the session a questioner asked if he might
hear from a member of the Board “minority” (four people
who have consistently voted as a minority against the Board
majority on several issues) to speak.
Jean Garton, one of the Board minority members, shared
the frustration felt by minority Board members because they
have not been permitted to speak publicly or publish a
minority report. “The
voice you hear from this Board will always be the majority
voice,” she stated. Dr.
Garton also made the point that minority Board members had
seen none of the ten Board Briefs published and distributed by
the Board until after they had already been written and
distributed. (These
Board Briefs were mailed to all convention delegates.)
Eventually
Ed Trapp and Betty Duda, two additional minority Board
members, were given the opportunity to speak and made the most
of their opportunities to be heard.
Ed
Trapp, for example, spoke of how the minority members had
received no notification of the executive committee meeting
held in July 2003 at which the decision was made to seek an
outside legal opinion. He
also indicated that the minority members had not received
minutes of the executive committee meeting.
(According to the Board Policy Manual, minutes of
executive committee meetings are to be made available to the
entire Board within two weeks). Mr. Trapp later stated, “I have never served on a board
that would not permit negative votes to be recorded as a
matter of conscience.”
Minority Board member Betty Duda received a positive
response from the audience for beginning her remarks by
saying, “I’m not an attorney and I’m not a pastor.”
And
in response to Board member Karl Barth’s lamenting the fact
that Board members were not appointed as members of convention
floor committees, Dr. Duda told that audience that, in fact,
President Kieschnick had given permission to all Board
members to sit in on any floor committee meetings.
“As
far as the Bryan Cave opinion is concerned,” stated Dr. Duda,
“I did not know about it until Ned Fryer [the Bryan Cave
attorney] walked into the August
[2003] Board of Directors meeting.”
A Tense Moment
There
was a tense moment when a member of the audience asked the
Board whether it had discussed if it has the authority to
dismiss the synodical President with or without cause. Perhaps
the tension was the result of having two differing definitions
of the word “discuss.”
Overall,
the two-and-one-half hour session gave the board minority the
opportunity to publicly address several issues for the first
time. It also
demonstrated the tension that exists between the Board
minority and the Board majority as there was wrangling over,
for example, whether or not a vote taken at a BOD meeting
earlier Saturday morning was “unanimous.”
The Board majority said that a vote had been unanimous,
while the Board minority said it was not, since there were
several abstentions.
A Valuable Comment
Perhaps
a comment from a voting pastoral delegate was the most
valuable comment of the morning.
This delegate said he had spoken with his elderly
father before he headed for St. Louis, asking him if he had
any advice for the Synod.
“Yes,” his father said; “TELL THEM TO STOP THE
STUPID FIGHTING!”
Reelecting
Gerald Kieschnick as synodical President and electing a team
of Vice-Presidents and a Board of Directors who will work with
him to lead the Synod into ONE MISSION with ONE
MESSAGE as ONE PEOPLE should quickly
bring a lot of the “stupid fighting” to an end.
_______________________________________
JESUS
FIRST regrets that Dr. Paul Schilf finds our endorsement of
him for a Commissioned Member of the Board for Higher
Education an embarrassment. We continue to encourage delegates
to vote for the very best candidates available, no matter who
endorses them.
