Q: I have one grandfather that was an LCMS minister and another was a WELS minister. I understand the history of their division and I accept the need. What I fear there is a trend in WELS to follow the same rout as LCMS. In the desire to increase church attendance many WELS congregations are not making a solid doctrinal stand. Law and Gospel are still present but one must look for it. Do these same concerns exist at our seminaries and synod offices?
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A: Thank you for your concern about the centrality of Law and Gospel in our preaching and teaching. God has promised that his church will endure until Jesus returns again, but he has made no promises that individual church bodies or synods will always be blessed with the pure doctrine. That is why the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:2 are such an important reminder for our synod: "Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel which I preached to you and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you will have believed in vain." In other words, our synod and its congregations will need to be vigilant in holding on to the truth of Scripture and careful to preach solid Law and Gospel boldly and consistently .
I assure you that I share these concerns, and I know that our seminary faculty would say the same. As we face declining numbers in worship and in church membership, we will want to avoid the temptation to resort to methods or "quick fixes" which rely on something other than the means of grace, which alone can bring people to know their Savior and through which the Holy Spirit will work. All efforts to increase church attendance and membership need to be carefully evaluated in the light of God's Word, not on the basis of "what works." If we water down the message of Law and Gospel, if we change the message to a generic message that simply tells people what they want to hear (instead of what they need to hear), we will eventually have no gospel message left. We may fill churches, but the danger is that those churches will be filled with people whose true spiritual needs -- the call to repentance and the assurance of full forgiveness in Christ -- will not be met.
Please keep our synod, its congregations, and its pastors in your prayers as we address these important matters. Thank you for your concern.
In Christ,
Mark Schroeder, WELS president [email: mark.schroeder@sab.wels.net]
