Great Stuff Found on the Web — Cross Focused Leadership for Missouri

CrossFocusedLeadership.org

Cross-Focused Leadership for Missouri

When you are “fishing around the Web,” you never know what new “fish” you might “catch.” My latest “catch” is “Cross-Focused Leadership for Missouri.” You can find it here: crossfocusedleadership.org.

It is apparently designed for LCMS convention delegates, that is, those going to Houston this summer. There are a couple of letters addressed specifically to delegates. But it also has a fair amount of useful information for people interested in what’s going on in the Missouri Synod today. It has a number of posts in the Overtures and Resolutions section about the Blue Ribbon Task Force proposals, including some “real, live” overtures. The Issues section has some interesting posts too. The posts allow comments, and there are also a couple of feedback sections. RSS feeds and Email subscriptions are offered.

The writers or editors don’t appear to be taking any extreme positions on any issues. They say they “just want to be Lutheran.” That sounds good to me. See below for the urgency of some of these overtures — if your congregation is holding a voter’s meeting in the next week read over the overtures at the site and get them passed and submitted to the synodical president.

 


 

Nominations and Overtures due ASAP

This from Pastor Simcak that was posted on the ConcordTX email list:

NOMINATIONS: The nominating ballots for President, First VP and other VPs must be sent to the Secretary of the Synod to arrive no later than March 10, 2010, four months prior to the opening date of the convention.

OVERTURES: Need to be submitted in triplicate to the synodical President not later than March 6, 2010. Overtures submitted after the final deadline will not be accepted for convention consideration unless a committee consisting of the President, First VP, and Secretary adjudge them to be of overriding importance and urgency and not adequately covered by documents already before the convention. The President of the Synod will decide which overtures will be published in the Convention Workbook. He will determine if any overture contains information that is materially in error or contains any apparent misrepresentation of truth or character and will not approve its inclusion.

 


 

I found the following on my facebook this morning:

“…Do you know you are saved?” is not, “Yes, because I have faith” but rather, “Yes, because Christ Jesus died for me…”

This comes from Paul McCain’s posting at Cyberbrethren:

We are Christians not Faith-ians

I have, over the years, conversed with many Calvinists, in person and over the Internet. I always ask them, “Do you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are among God’s elect and are saved?” There are generally two reactions to that question: (1) A long and rather painful pause after which they say, “I hope I am. I do believe in Christ.” or (2) A quick, “Yes, I believe in Christ.” Now, let’s be honest here and admit that many Lutherans would answer in somewhat the same way. But here is the problem.

If our feelings of certainty in our salvation is based on our feeling that we have faith, we will flounder. The answer we must always give to the question of “Do you know you are saved?” is not, “Yes, because I have faith” but rather, “Yes, because Christ Jesus died for me” and of course, in my opinion, the very best answer of all is simply to point people to Luther’s explanation of the Creed and say, “Here, this puts it very well.”

Point yourself, and others, not to faith, not to subjective feelings that there is faith in your heart, but always, always, always, point people to Christ and what He has done for you and the whole world. Do not confused faith in faith, with trust in Christ. There is a key difference.

We are Christians, not Faith-ians.

 

Comment 2 on this post has the following reminder from the Small Catechism:

from Luther’s Small Catechism:
The Third Article.
Of Sanctification.
I believe in the Holy Ghost; one holy Christian Church, the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.
What does this mean?
I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith; even as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith; in which Christian Church He forgives daily and richly all sins to me and all believers, and at the last day will raise up me and all the dead, and will give to me and to all believers in Christ everlasting life. This is most certainly true.
From BookOfConcord.org

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.