Good morning from Fort Wayne, Indiana. I am here at the request of our District President who normally takes this trip. Four times a year, he and his fellow District Presidents come to the midwest and meet with the national Synod President and others about the state of the denomination. But our District President couldn’t make it this meeting because he is celebrating his daughter’s wedding, so he sent me in his stead.
I am told that this is the best of the four meetings because this is the one in which we attend the vicarage and call day celebrations for both of the seminaries. That is why I’m in Fort Wayne, Indiana, home to the “other” Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod seminary, the one I didn’t graduate from. Last night I met two vicars coming to our Florida-Georgia District. By the time the trip is over, I will have met five vicars and three pastors that will be coming to places like Blairsville, GA and Naples, FL. They will pack up their stuff (and in many cases wives and young children) and will leave to minister to people with the Word of God.
You can’t be a pastor at one of these things and not think about when you were that vicar or newly called seminarian. I likewise can’t help but to think of the three men that we are sending to the seminary this year from University Lutheran: Andrew, Richard, and Scott. Nor can I help but to think of the men we have already sent, guys like Kyle Will and Adam Douthwaite.
But more than that, I can’t help but think of you all. We pastors and church workers are necessary for the church, but we simply serve the church. More than pastors, God wants a Church. There will come a day in the Resurrection when my job is completely evaporated in the glory of God living with His people-made-sinless-in-Resurrection. But there will never come a day when the Church evaporates. Christ died on the Cross to assure us that we will live on with Him into eternity.
When we are gathered at that throne, we will perfect thank Him a little for pastors — but that will only last a little while, and for the rest of eternity, we will simply than Him that He saved all of us, His Church.