“As you have sent them into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” John 17:18

2006 Synod Assembly May 19-20 at BGSU Preliminary Agenda [PDF] 2006 Synod Assembly Changes I Pray And Wonder...Why Go To The Assembly?

You will receive this newsletter about the time that the 2006 Northwestern Ohio Synod Assembly is taking place. It is easy to think about such an assembly as simply being a big church meeting that one is better off ignoring if at all possible. I suspect that some assemblies have given justification to that assessment. And our memories are long.I hope and pray for more from our Synod Assemblies. Yes, we do need to attend to the “business” of Lutheran Christians who are a part of the ELCA in northwestern Ohio. Where two or three gather in the name of Christ you also have an institution, a structure that will consider and act upon what it means to be the Church in a given place and time. That does mean the hearing of reports and learning about what is happening, or not happening in the ministry our Lord has entrusted to us. That does mean that, sometimes, votes need to be cast and decisions need to be made in order that we might move forward. But I hope that is not the end of the story.

These words of our Lord point us to God’s intention for us. As God sent Jesus into the world for the life of the world, even so Jesus sends his disciples, then and now, into the world. We are sent into the world in order that Jesus’ presence might be lived out in our words and deeds. God desires to work through us in order that others might belong to Christ.

Jesus recognizes that such a “sending” has its risks. Because those who follow Christ belong to Christ they do not “belong to the world.” (17:14) Sometimes, “the world has hated them.” (17:14) And, Jesus points out, to be in the world is to be vulnerable to “the evil one.” (v.15)

The hazards Jesus describe all “ring true.” We need only examine much of what takes place in our personal lives, in the church, and in the world to find an abundance of examples that illustrate how we so often fall prey to these hazards. The result is that we can become preoccupied with ourselves, forget about the Christ to whom we belong, and then forget that we are sent to signal Christ’s presence in the world.

The great comfort in John 17 is the announcement that Jesus prays to God on our behalf. Isn’t that as good as it gets? Jesus prays that the unity between himself and God be reflected in the lives of those who belong to him (v.11). He prays that his joy may be in us and reflected in our life together (v. 13). He prays that we be “protected...from the evil one” (v. 15). And, he prays that we may be sanctified, set apart, “in truth,” that is, in him.

Worship of the God who is made known in Jesus Christ clearly is the chief thing that we do at the Synod Assembly and in any congregational gathering. In the presence of all of the hazards that we face, in the context of worship we are reminded of our identity, that we belong to Christ. We learn of God’s will for us-for our unity, for our joy, for protection from “the evil one”, for our being “set apart” as the people of God in the world.

Our worship primes us to attend to the other work of the Synod Assembly, name, to look at what it means for us to be “sent into the world.” We will look at how we are doing that through the ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. We will consider how we are doing that within the context of the Northwestern Ohio Synod and in the congregations, agencies, and ministries of this Synod. We will discuss resolutions that have to do with what it means to be “sent into the world.” All of that will serve to encourage us to think, discuss, and pray about what it means for our congregations and for us individually to be sent into the world as those who belong to Christ.

If, by God’s grace, we succeed in this work of the Synod Assembly, it will be worth attending to with all diligence, joy and thanksgiving. We will have some stories to tell. Those stories will have to do with the identity that God has given to us in Christ and with what it means to be “sent into the world.” Those stories, in turn, will shape us as we return to our congregations, our loved ones and our daily work. And, most importantly, God will be glorified. (v. 10)