Thanks for your post,
I would have to disagree with you on a few points. For the last 5 months I have studied all the issues facing our church, LCMS. I most also note I am very conservative, go to a conservative church use pg. 5 & 15 of the red 1941 ed. Lutheran Hymnal. I was also a delegate. Will we lose some church? , Yes we always have. We lost over 150 Churches when we allowed woman to vote. There are 6000 LCMS Churches and 2.6 million members. Yet, I do believe we are still true to Scriptures and the Confessions. There are those who think if we allow some churches to have a contemporary Worship style this will make their service less. I disagree, for as long as they keep the basic structure; the absolution, confession, Holy Scripture and the word and sacrament, it should be ok. I may not be comfortable there, but it may reach out to a new generation that the Holy Spirit will use to come to Faith in Christ. There are those who think a pastor should only preach from the pulpit, but does it matter it he speaks from the pulpit or walks on the stage. These are the issues we face.
The other is how much contact do we have with other Christians. I think the CTRC position here stands strong, as long as it is not a worship service you can have relations. We must continue to reach out to our other Brother and sisters and influence to come back to the true scriptures. In my community there are only two churches the LCMS church mine about 1100 members and down the road the ELCA church 150-200 members. In a small town it is hard not to come in contact and do civic events together. Also that ELCA is very conservative. We cannot close our church up into a cocoon. We must be more outward. This is the LCMS weakest point, we have the theology right, but we keep it to our self instead of more evangelism. Also we can be so structured and ridged in our service that it turns people away. We can change things a little, become more mission minded and give some church the flexibility to change the service a little, without sacrificing our Lutheran Confessions, Biblical principles, IMO. People make President Kieschnick to be so liberal, I have met him recently and found him to be very conservative theologically, and he is just more flexible to our structure. He being an Texas Aggie grad comes across as more a good old boy type, than the old stanch German type, He is very mission focused, I think a strong Leader on fire for Christ, and wanting that for our Church.
Just my thoughts, I will always keep an open mind to change, and will do so if I ever see us move away from our confessions or Bible based beliefs, I will be in Houston in 2007, I am sure that will be as fun as it was in St. Louis this Summer.
In Chris,
Troy