wfn.org | Partner-church leaders greet LCMS convention

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

Title:

The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod
Board for Communication Services
1333 S. Kirkwood Road St. Louis, MO 63122-7295

61st Regular Convention St. Louis, Mo. July 14-20, 2001

July 19, 2001 #36

Contact: Bruce Kueck (314) 342-5715

Partner-church leaders greet LCMS convention

ST. LOUIS -- Representatives of The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod s (LCMS) 
"partner" church bodies in Canada, England, Nigeria and Germany on July 18 
greeted delegates and guests attending the Synod s 61st Regular Convention 
here.

All congratulated LCMS President-elect Gerald Kieschnick and thanked 
current President Robert Kuhn for his leadership, support and friendship.

The Rev. Ralph E. Mayan, president of The Lutheran Church Canada, said his 
church body joins the Missouri Synod in mourning the loss of former LCMS 
President A.L. Barry. Mayan expressed appreciation for Barry s focus on 
"Telling the Good News About Jesus," and for his confessional Lutheran and 
mission-minded leadership.

Mayan also spoke briefly about the International Lutheran Conference, an 
organization of 28 Lutheran church bodies that shares information, studies 
theological concerns and carries out mission and ministry worldwide. Mayan 
serves as chairman of the conference.

In his comments to the convention, the Rev. Karl Fry, chairman of the 
Evangelical Lutheran Church of England, also paid tribute to former LCMS 
President Barry, calling him a friend "who always had time for me."

Fry recounted a fall he took, and said that the passersby who helped him to 
stand up afterward, remind him of God, who "helps lift us up," and of The 
Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, a partner that "lifted [the Evangelical 
Lutheran Church of England] up when we needed encouragement."

Only 5 percent of the population of the United Kingdom is Christian, Fry 
said, and he asked LCMS members to continue to pray for his church body.

The Rev. Samuel Udofia, president of the Lutheran Church of Nigeria (LCN), 
also paid tribute to Barry, his "friend and colleague." Udofia said he and 
his wife were attending their first LCMS convention, and he planned to stay 
for the entire week so that he could go back to Nigeria and share "the 
things we have learned here."

Udofia said Nigerian Lutherans are grateful to the Missouri Synod for 
supporting Nigerian pastors, sending missionaries, providing funds and 
encouraging its leaders to visit the West African nation. Although LCN 
membership now exceeds 80,000, the church body is faced with many 
challenges, he said, including sharing the Gospel with a population of 130 
million people.

The Rev. Wilhelm Torgerson brought greetings from Dr. Diethardt Roth, 
bishop of the Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany. Torgerson 
thanked the Missouri Synod, a church body whose ministry brought him to 
faith, he said.

Torgerson recalled the bombing of Dresden in 1943, which destroyed two 
Lutheran churches, and a new Lutheran church in Dresden that was recently 
opened with the support of LCMS congregations. He also spoke of a Lutheran 
church in East Berlin, 50 feet from the Berlin wall, which was inspected 
twice a month by state police to make sure no one was digging a tunnel to 
escape the country. What they didn t notice, he said, was that "somebody 
was getting in all the time, and that was the King." The King, God, he 
said, "was in charge," and in spite of "hard times," that church is still 
in operation today.

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