Pastor Scott's Message
This Sunday during adult Bible class I’m going to share with you my experience at the National Convention of the LCMS. I was one of 1,000 delegates and I have a responsibility to relay the issues that we voted on and the direction of our church body. I will share with you all of the resolutions and elections.
Last year was my first district convention. At district, every church can send a pastor and a lay person to represent them. The format is the same as national. You sit at a table with a voting remote. The resolutions are made, orderly discussion is opened and finally a vote is tallied. Our District President, Rev. Lee Hagen, set a wonderful tone. Mike Murphy, our lay delegate and I left last year’s district convention feeling encouraged.
I can’t say the same for the national convention. I left Tampa feeling like I didn’t like the direction and tone of the convention. It was such a contrast to the week before when I was at the NYG. There were 21,000 of us in Minneapolis and the streets were alive with Lutheran kids and adults. It was exactly how the church should be living together, encouraging each other, bearing one another’s burdens, serving the poor, praising with our whole body and growing in our faith. The convention felt lifeless and dying. I went from being the old guy at the NYG to the young guy at the convention. The NYG represented all of the generations coming together. The convention was overwhelmingly baby boomers, men, and pastors. I’m two out of three of those demographics yet I wish there were more young people, women, teachers and DCEs there. I also was saddened that not once at the convention was the National Youth Gathering mentioned.
I love the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. I’ve been a part of it all my life. I went to Concordia Irvine and the best word I would use to describe my experience there is “Friendship.” I made friends there that will last a lifetime. It felt like we were being consecrated for a special purpose. The word to describe my experience at Concordia Seminary at St. Louis is “Brotherhood.” The professors mentored me like fathers and my fellow students were like brothers. We were discipled. The National Youth Gathering word would be “Together.” We lived together for a week and invested in each others lives. The words I would use to describe my convention experience is “Luke Warm.” It didn’t have the passion and the love that I’ve felt everywhere else in the LCMS.
I agreed with almost all of the resolutions that were passed. The worship was as you would expect. But if a person walked in off the street, I would hate the impression it gave of our church body. It was so narrow and incomplete. Jesus is living and active and his church is filled with the Spirit. I experience that every day at Glendale Lutheran church. I wish I saw that at the National Convention. But God is working and he will accomplish his good will even when we aren’t at our best.
