wfn.org | Lutheran Church Missouri Synod Begins 61st Convention

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@wfn.org>]

July 15, 2001

Contact: Bruce Kueck (314) 342-5715

C-01-No.2

Rev. Roosevelt Gray Encourages Convention Delegates to Keep the Convention 
Theme in Mind

Delegates to the 61st regular convention of The Lutheran Church Missouri 
Synod began their first full day of work Sunday, July 15, by singing "Lift 
High the Cross" in a Matins service that began at 8 a.m.

The preacher for the service was Rev. Roosevelt Gray, congregational 
ministry facilitator of the Missouri Synod s Michigan District. In an 
encouraging sermon, he told the delegates that the Missouri Synod is "a 
sleeping giant; and if she were to awaken, the world better bar the doors, 
because the pure Word of God would roar from the mountain top and pour down 
in the valley of sin."

He said he was "delighted to see that one of the first resolutions proposed 
for our church body to consider (Resolution 1-01) is to "Tell the Good News 
About Jesus" which is the convention theme.

"I knew from the theme that, the leaders of God s church had set the sails 
of the Gospel ship Missouri on the right course." Then, as his sermon title 
states, we can be, "Good News for a Bad-News World," Gray said.

He quoted the Apostle Peter, who lived in a pagan world and who encouraged 
Christians then to keep the faith, even though they were persecuted, until 
the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Gray told about a four-year-old child 
in Detroit who was killed in a "drive-by [shooting]." A vicar had to tell 
the mother the bad news. But he could also give his grieving mother hope 
because of Jesus Christ.

"The good news that Peter spoke of and we believe in," Gray said, "rests on 
faith in the completed act of God s redeeming work in His Son, Jesus Christ 
& which endures even when all else fails."

"So tell the good news about Jesus, Missouri," Gray said in closing. "Tell 
it to your brothers and sisters sitting next to you; tell it to the 
inner-city dwellers; tell it to the rural dwellers; tell it on the farm 
lands; tell it to the urbanites; tell it to suburbanites; tell it in your 
homes; tell it on your jobs; tell it to your friends; tell it to every 
ethnic group; tell it from the mountaintop; tell it in the valley, but tell 
it! You have the message straight, Missouri. Now tell the message out, 
Missouri!"

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