The 65th Regular Convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod wrapped-up as scheduled on July 25, after nearly five full days of business for the delegates, including Pilgrim’s Steven Sampson, who represented our Circuit #14 as the Lay Delegate. (Our Circuit Counselor, The Rev. David Bergman of Bethlehem, Palestine, was the Circuit’s Pastoral Delegate.)

The Convention theme this year was “Baptized for this moment”, based on Acts 2:38‑39: “And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself.’” Four different Convention essayists spoke to delegates on aspects of that theme: “Baptized for Witness”, “Baptized for Mercy”, “Baptized for Life Together”, and “Baptized for This Moment”.

Steven said that overall the Convention experience was good, though he also said it was a lot of work keeping up with the business before the convention, especially the more tedious details of bylaw revisions, many of which were required by the decision of the Convention three years ago to restructure the Synod. Steven said re-elected President Harrison was enjoyable to listen to and ran the Convention well. Steven also said delegates were respectful of one another and that he was surprised the Convention went as well as it did. He said he was further surprised that about a 75% majority of those voting seemed to be in favor of returning the Synod to a more-conservative position.

Steven said he thought the single-biggest issue that came before the Convention was the matter of Specific Ministry Pastors (SMPs). The SMPs were intended both to be men who could not get to seminary and to serve congregations that would not otherwise have a pastor, but the program has been abused (for example, reportedly 75% are serving congregations with multiple pastors on their staff, and, though the SMPs are technically to be restricted in where they serve, they have not been). Steven said that there were attempts to kill and dilute some of the stronger measures proposed to address the matter of the SMPs, but in the end several measures passed, and he was glad that at least something might be done in the future to address the abuses.

Two resolutions that went before the Convention and were passed by its delegates had Pilgrim connections. The resolution dealing with revisions to materials used for teaching the Catechism primarily originated from our congregation passed only after much debate over which year’s translation of the Catechism text itself was the best to use. The other resolution, which also passed after much debate, dealt with the call process for pastors eligible to serve but currently without calls, the same topic as a resolution Pastor Galler and Steven were involved with that passed the Texas District Convention last summer. This year delegates to the Synodical Convention created a taskforce to study the matter, but the Synodical Convention’s action did not explicitly mention the availability of information to both the pastors and calling congregations, as the Texas District resolution had mentioned.

For more information about the Convention, check back to this page for a more-complete report from Steven, and see the main LCMS Convention page.