Yesterday, I spoke to the North American Mission Executives (primarily the district leaders) of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. I was impressed with their passion for the God's mission and desire to reach those without Christ. We talked primarily around issues of the missional church and a bit about church planting. Earlier this week I mentioned their Ablaze! outreach strategy. And, I shared a bit last year about the LCMS when I spoke at Concordia University in Irvine, CA.

Several of my friends asked (via Twitter and Facebook), "What makes a Lutheran a Missouri Synod Lutheran?" For many non-Lutherans, they may not be aware of the different groups in Lutheranism, but there are some important distinctions.

You can find an official introduction to the LCMS here. I have included some excerpts from Wikipedia that I found helpful.

First, some basic information about the LCMS from Wikipedia:

The Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod (LCMS), founded in 1847 in Chicago, is the eighth largest Protestant denomination in the United States, and the second-largest Lutheran body in the U.S. after the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It is a moderate conservative, Confessional Lutheran denomination with German immigrant roots.

They have 2.4 million members, making them the second largest Lutheran group, behind the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (and, in this case, "Evangelical Lutheran" is not the same as the designation "an evangelical" in common use today). The ELCA would generally be classified as a more liberal denomination than the conservative LCMS.

The LCMS (along with several other groups) are Confessional Lutherans (an important distinction and the link is worth following to understand the nuances of that term).

To understand Lutheranism, you have to understand the Book of Concord. Wikipedia explains:

One of the signature teachings of the Lutheran Reformation is the teaching named Sola scriptura--"Scripture alone." The Missouri Synod believes that the Bible is the only standard by which church teachings can be judged. It also holds that the Holy Scripture is explained and interpreted by the Book of Concord--a series of Confessions of faith composed by Lutherans in the 16th century. Missouri Synod pastors and congregations agree to teach in harmony with the Book of Concord because it teaches and faithfully explains the Word of God. The Missouri Synod also teaches Biblical inerrancy, the teaching that Bible is inspired by God and is without error. For this reason, they reject much--if not all--of modern liberal scholarship.

Wikipedia explains the Lutheran view of salvation:

The Missouri Synod believes that justification comes from God "by divine grace alone, through faith alone, for Christ's sake alone." It teaches that Jesus is the focus of the entire Bible and that faith in him alone is the way to eternal salvation. The synod rejects any attempt to attribute salvation to anything other than Christ's death and resurrection.

One of the important distinctions of Lutheranism is the "means of grace." Methodists use the same term, but differently.

Wikipedia explains:

The Synod teaches that the Word of God, both written and preached, and the Sacraments are means of grace through which the Holy Spirit gives the gift of God's grace, creates faith in hearts of individuals, forgives sins for the sake of Christ's death on the cross, and grants eternal life and salvation. For Missouri Synod Lutherans, sacraments are actions instituted by Jesus and combine a promise in God's Word with a physical element.

I am no expert on Lutheranism, but I am blessed they would allow me to come and share with their leadership and hopefully encourage them in some way.

The Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod official website is here.

I like Lutherans.

In one of my first blog posts (about one year ago now), I wrote about my time speaking with their leadership at Concordia University. I talked about what I learned from one of their bishops and how they rebuked me.

I am excited about speaking to the Missouri Synod Lutherans North American Mission Executives in St. Louis in April 2009.

Also, I will be with another tribe of Lutherans in 2009. In this case, I will be with some Wisconsin Synod leaders at a meeting hosted in Milwaukee by a group called WELS Church and Change in November 2009.

(I am sure that someone will tell me the differences along the way, and it may include a famous episode of the T.V. show Cheers, where Woody and his fiancé discover they are from different Lutheran denomination.)

My favorite Cheers / Lutheran exchange:

Woody - "Ask her why she thinks the Book of Concord is not in line with the Scriptures!"

Kelly - "Because it's not."

Woody - "HERETIC !!!"

Good people, those Lutherans.

And, they (the Missouri Synod) have a plan for planting 2000 churches by 2017, the anniversary of something in Europe.

So, I received the email below and answered with some ideas from Planting Missional Churches. However, I think it would be helpful to hear from you on some of the job descriptions you would want for a core team. I will probably use them for an article as well, so be sure to put your name a church if you have any insights.

Here is the email. Please take a look and let's give a little blog help to some Lutherans who love Jesus and want to plant churches.

My name is Dick Evers, and I am part of The 72-Partners on the Road (formerly Harvesters for Christ) a ministry of LCMS World Mission.

It is our understanding that you have considerable expertise in church planting.
The 72 teams provide training to existing congregations to begin, enhance or revitalize their outreach activities. You can check out our website: www.lcms.org/The72. There are about 70 of us, located in various areas of the country.

Our ministry was recently asked by the LCMS to get involved with our congregations who want to sponsor a church plant. We are trying to establish a training program for The 72 teams who will work with the congregation and the church planters. As you will note from the attached "Areas of Training" information which discusses what we do, we believe we can be of real help to the church planting teams and the church planter.

We understand that the congregation is to provide a "core" group (40 members or more) and a launch team to work with the church planter. However, we are not exactly sure of the responsibilities of the core group and the launch team. We want to gear our training to help both groups be better prepared, as well as the church planter. We will be only acting in a "helping equip" role, not doing any supervising.

Can you give me any direction as to how we might find the basic "job descriptions" of the "core" group and the launch team? By knowing more about what the core group and launch team are supposed to do (or what additional help they could be to the church plant with more training), we can modify our existing modules, or create new ones, to help equip them.

Any information or direction you can provide us on how to find the "job descriptions" or any other comments you have that might be helpful to us would be greatly appreciated.

May God continue to bless your ministry,

Dick Evers
The 72-Partners on the Road

Being invited in to train the leadership of another denomination is not a privilege I take lightly-- but I am especially blessed to find friends who share a common passion for churches that engage culture in biblically faithful ways.

I felt that kinship with Bob Newton (my fellow speaker) and Mike Ruhl (the conference organizer).

I was very impressed with the passion, intellect, and spirit of Bishop Bob. (The Missouri Synod Lutherans don't typically use the term bishop, although it is accurate to do so-- and quite fun, might I add.)

We talked on several occasions about the orgin of the missio dei terminology and how it has morphed over the years.

We also shared some good natured ribbing about our denominational distinctives. We both would have some clear and dear theological distinctives that would keep us in seperate denominations-- even though we are both passionate about reaching the world for Christ.

Finally, my friend Dave Olson helped me to see why I don't know many Lutherans (see my original post here). You can find out more at Dave's American Church Research Project.

My Lutheran friends rebuked me yesterday.

I promised them a blog post on "The Baptist and the Bishop," based on my conversation with Robert Newton and some good natured ribbing about our different denominations.

But I am a little behind... this blogging thing is more work than I imagined.

I promise I will write that post on the plane home today.

According to the folks here at the conference, Newton is the LCMS thought leader on the missional church. (I interviewed him as part of my research on the missional church.)

Newton emphasized that the Great Commission is the most important, not one of the important, parts of the missional church focus.

See his course on the missio dei here... good stuff.

More soon... but I love talking mission, missional, and missiology with missiologists...

Great worship at the Good Shepherd Chapel at Concordia University yesterday morning.

The view is simply amazing:

It was refreshing... particularly after flying in very late and finding the hotel mis-entered my reservation and I had no room (and there were no other rooms in the city!)

Thanks to my helpful hosts (and rescuers), I slept in a college dorm room (during football camp). The college dorm is fine as it builds character to sleep on the slab bed. But, those football guys sure were excited about their 4a.m. run. Ugh.

Anyway, the highlight of the morning was when Robert Newton, Bishop of California / Nevada / Hawaii District of the LCMS shared the morning devotion. He shared much more than I can list here, but I was intrigued by his explanation of Luke 24:46-48.

Luke 24:46-48 (HCSB): "He told them, 'This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.'"

These are the things that are written...
1. "Christ will suffer..."
2. "Rise from the dead..."
3. "Repentance and forgiveness will be preached in his name."

He explained that we often think that there are only two parts to the gospel... death and resurrection. Jesus lists three that "are written." In other words, the spreading of the gospel is a fundamental to the gospel.

A quote:
"The gospel does not end with the resurrection... it ends with a sinner hearing it in his ear."

Put more bluntly:
"It is a moot point if he simply died and rose and nobody heard about it."

"Every Sunday the saints gather and forget the world..."

What do you think?

Honestly, I don't know many Lutherans.

I have heard that they have a radio monopoly and suppress all dissent in Lake Wobegone (where all the children are above average).

There are more of them in the North Central states than where I was born (NYC) or served (Buffalo, Erie, Louisville, and Atlanta). There may be a huge colony of them in Nashville, but I am guessing not.

But, if these Missouri Synod Lutherans live out their new plan, there might be a lot more of them.

I am blessed to be a small part of their training.

I am speaking today and tomorrow on Facilitating Church Planting Movements at Concordia University. The meeting is sponsored by the Center for U.S. Missions. (You can subscribe to their newsletter here--it is well done and thought provoking.)

Their goal is to plant 2000 more churches by 2017, the 500th anniversary of the day some guy nailed something to a door in Germany.

The description of my session is as follows:

"Two days focused on how missional judicatories, churches and individuals can facilitate church planting movements in their sphere of influence. Through the Facilitating Church Planting Movements Training, participants are trained in moving from church addition, to multiplication, to movements. This seminar presents the latest research and helps us determine a missional future to plant churches across North America."

Now, I had to look up what judicatories were (since they were "missional," I figured I would like them), but the rest sounded good from the start.

Most of the materials I will present are materials that we developed at NAMB in the Church Planting Group and research we did at the Center for Missional Research. I will also present some of the research we completed for a Leadership Network study that will be released in the coming months.

I will post more later today on a thought provoking message one of their folks shared in chapel this morning.