The Lutheran May 2013

NATIONAL MAGAZINE OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH OF AUSTRALIA

MAY 2013

Print Post Approved PP100003514 VOL 47 NO 4

Bumper Synod Edition!

‘If we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us’The[Lutheran 1 John 4:12] 1 May 2013 Vol 47 No4 P105

EDITOR/ADVERTISING

SUBSCRIPTIONS phone 08 8360 7270 email lutheran.subs@lca.org.au

www.thelutheran.com.au We Love The Lutheran!

As the magazine of the Lutheran Church of Australia (incorporating the Lutheran Church of New Zealand), The Lutheran informs the members of the LCA about the church’s teaching, life, mission and people, helping them to grow in faith and commitment to Jesus Christ. The Lutheran also provides a forum for a range of opinions, which do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editor or the policies of the Lutheran Church of Australia. The Lutheran is a member of the Australasian Religious Press Association and as such subscribes to its journalistic and editorial codes of conduct.

IT’S UNANIMOUS! Synod delegates resolve that The Lutheran is the only magazine to be seen reading during the 17th Regular Convention. From Auckland to Katanning and places far beyond, ‘We love The Lutheran!’

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CONTACTS Acting Editor Rosie Schefe 197 Archer St, North Adelaide SA 5006 phone 0427 827 441 email rosie.schefe@lca.org.au

Photos: Ivan Christian

phone 0427 827 441 email rosie.schefe@lca.org.au

Executive Editor Linda Macqueen 3 Orvieto St, Bridgewater SA 5155 phone 08 8339 5178 email linda.macqueen@lca.org.au National Magazine Committee Greg Hassold, Sarah Hoff-Zweck, Pastor Richard Schwedes, Heidi Smith Design and layout Comissa Fischer Printer Openbook Howden

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11 issues per year— Australia $41, New Zealand $43, Asia/Pacific $52, Rest of the World $61 Issued every month except in January

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... made Synod great!

Cover: ‘The Gospel at centre stage’: LCA President Rev Dr Mike Semmler reads the Gospel lesson in the midst of the 5000-strong congregation. Photo: Andrea Winter

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LCA Subscriptions PO Box 731, North Adelaide SA 5006 phone 08 8360 7270 email lutheran.subs@lca.org.au www.thelutheran.com.au

Photo: Michael Rudolph

FEATURES 04 ALIVE!175 Worship Service 08 ALIVE!175 Afternoon Program 26 Election of Bishop and Assistant Bishop 36 LCA Africa Ministry Appeal 40 Farewell: Rev Dr Mike Semmler 68 Synod Moments

It was the Lord’s Prayer that did me in.

69 Lutheran Women of Australia Convention

People who have worshipped alongside me for a while know that I am frequently moved to tears during worship. It may be a song or an old hymn that sets me off; perhaps it is the prayer of confession, or the prayer of the church. Sometimes it’s even the sermon.

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My children are used to it. One or the other glances sideways at me and rolls their eyes. My husband is used to it too.

Sometimes he responds with a gentle hug or takes my hand, at other times he quietly ignores me, giving me room to share the moment with God alone.

REPORTS TO CONVENTION 12 LCA President 13 Board for Mission 21 Board for Child, Youth and Family Ministry 23 Australian Lutheran World Service 29 Australian Lutheran College 31 Finke River Mission 38 Lutheran Education Australia

The triggers vary. Sometimes a memory. Sometimes the conviction of guilt. Sometimes the relief of knowing gracious forgiveness. Sometimes it isn’t clear and I’m just weeping.

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But on Sunday, 21 April, during the celebratory opening worship for the General Convention of Synod, I started crying during the Lord’s Prayer.

53 Board for Lutheran Aged Care Australia

Rev Dr Mike Semmler began, ‘Our Father …’ and with those two words around 5000 people joined in. From where I sat, the sound system and Pastor Mike were drowned out by the voices of my fellow Lutherans—not in a babble of noise, but united in speaking the ancient prayer, word for word with him.

62 Commission on Social and Bioethical Questions

At the time I just prayed and let the tears fall, but reflecting on that moment later I realised what a powerful glimpse of God’s kingdom it was: laity and clergy, men, women and children, hearing and deaf, black, white and all colours between— praying together, as Christ himself taught (Matt 6:9–13; Luke 11:2–4).

Too often we concentrate on the things that divide us. We assert our rights, our opinions, our individual needs over those of others. We forget that we are part of one body— Christ’s body.

It’s easy for sin and the devil to enter where we are divided, using our natural human inclinations against us. But when we are truly united with Christ, as we were in prayer that morning, there isn’t room for them to work their corrosive worst.

50 Lutherans for Life 56 Commission on Worship 58 Board for Lay Ministry 64 Lutheran Archives 66 Commission on Theology and Inter-Church Relations

CONVENTION RESOLUTIONS 19 Establishment of Board for Local Mission 34 LCA Strategic Direction and Governance Review 46 Ordination of Women: dialogue continues 52 Change of title from bishop to president 60 North Adelaide Redevelopment: approval to proceed

CONVENTION SERMONS 07 Sunday: Rev Greg Seltz 11 Monday: Rev David Altus 42 Tuesday: Rev Dr William Chang 55 Wednesday: Rev Dr Robert Bugbee

REGULAR COLUMNS 73 Notices 74 Directory 74 Letters 76 World in Brief 78 Coffee Break

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Sadly, it didn’t last. Glimpses of heaven here on earth are pretty fleeting after all. But for the remainder of the convention, every time we said the Lord’s Prayer, I cried.

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Photo: Andrea Winter

The gospel at centre stage The staff at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre tell us that over 5000 people were there on Sunday, 21 April.

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Some of those five thousand people travelled in the rain from 5.00 am.

Some came with their walking frames and in their wheelchairs. Some came with a tribe of soggy small children in tow (there should have been a special commendation, and headache tablets on tap, for those parents).

Thousands of umbrella-carrying Lutherans came with a dogged determination that the God who had

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Five thousand people who braved the year’s first heavy rain to attend the LCA’s 175th anniversary thanksgiving service. Five thousand people who didn’t seem to care if they got

drenched while hurrying from the car or the bus or the tram stop. Five thousand people who decided early on that cold, drizzly morning that it was worth getting out of bed and making the journey, even if it meant sacrificing a leisurely lie-in and a splendid hairdo.

by Linda Macqueen

Photo: Andrea Winter Photo: Michael Rudolph

Photo: Andrea Winter

The gospel came to our side.

God came down to us.

That’s what 5000 of us remember.

been faithful to our Lutheran ancestors and our Lutheran family over 150 years was worthy of their worship.

thing that in the end binds us together as Christians, as the Lutheran family here in Australia and New Zealand.

If you asked all 5000 of them for their reflections on that once-in-a-generation worship service, you’d probably get 5000 different responses. But from those I’ve talked to, there’s been one consistent high point.

Despite all our differences of opinion —whether we love the pomp and pageantry of big church events like this or not; whether we rock to the band and not to the organ or vice versa; whether we are for the ordination of women or against it; whether we’re excited about the future of the LCA or despairing over it—there is one thing that holds us all together.

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It was that moment when the gospel came down the stage stairs, right into the middle of the auditorium, when the spotlight shone on it and the word of God spoke to us ... not from high up and far away on the stage, but from down there among us, from the floor, in the midst of us.

The gospel came to our side.

God came down to us.

That’s what 5000 of us remember.

‘This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins’ (1 John 4:9,10).

That’s not really surprising. That’s the centre of it all, isn’t it, the one and only

That’s the first part of the General Convention of Synod theme (and LCA

tagline), 1 John 4:9–12. Love comes to life through Jesus Christ. The second part explains how that love of God in Christ comes to life also as we love one another.

One flows from the other: God’s love to us, our love for others.

It’s the gospel at the centre stage of our lives, over and over again, every time God’s love in Christ is seen through us.

God is, we are, where love comes to life ...

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Photo: Michael Rudolph

General Convention theme song

Pastor Adrian Kitson, who wrote the song, says that the Convention theme ‘Where love comes to life’ reflects ‘the essence of the gospel-shaped life’.

Rev Matthias Prenzler, who oversaw the General Convention worship services, said, ‘Adrian Kitson’s song explores nicely how and where God’s love comes to life.

First, it comes to life in the person of Jesus Christ. Through Christ it then comes to life in the church, and also

in us as individuals. This is a powerful message and a good reminder for us all.

‘At general conventions there are bound to be differences of opinion and sometimes even tensions’, he added. ‘The Synod theme song can have a unifying and healing effect.

It can remind delegates as they

sing together that there are more important things than getting our own way.

Through our baptism we are one in Christ, we share the same hope in him, and are grounded in his love for us.

Now each one of us is called to be a servant of the other, out of love.’

Where love comes to life 2. Shock of water and word disarms our hate and sin. Holy meal of love; God’s life now within. Lord, increase our hope, make us the place …

Chorus: Where love comes to life: Jesus’ church in the world. Where love comes to life: at home, at work, at play, we are the place, people of grace, where love comes to life.

3. Now, Lord Jesus Christ, increase your love in us, so your love overflows to all tribes, skins and tongues. Lord, increase our faith, make us the place …

© Words and music: Adrian Kitson, 6 First Street, Nuriootpa, SA 5355

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Where love comes to life (lyrics, music and PowerPoints) can be downloaded at www.lca.org.au/2013synod Permission granted for use in LCA congregations

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1. God is perfect in love, breathing his life in us, sustaining life by a word, calling us to love his world. Lord, increase our faith, make us the place …

Photo: Michael Rudolph

Love comes to life ... even in this broken and rebellious world

Count on Christ!

extracts from the Convention sermon by Rev Greg Seltz I’m reminded this week from the news back in the States that we are here to testify that there is a love that can bless people in a world full of terror and war. We are here to testify that there is a love that can hold people when sin and guilt would break us apart.

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We are here to testify that this love, God’s love, comes alive, right here, right now in the words and gifts of Jesus Christ and in the love of Christ that we share one to another!

John exhorts today to count on Jesus Christ, to count on his love, to count on his word which says, ‘This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins ... since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another’ (1 John 4:10,11).

Now you’d think that our world would be ready to hear, to even believe in a message of love. But don’t let the world’s

fascination with the word ‘love’ fool you.

There’s a rebellious reality to our love as sinful people. The love that so many cherish today is a love on their own terms with their own conditions.

Let me say it this way. If God is love, and God demonstrated his love by sending his Son to die for us, if you dispense with God, what kind of love is it that you have in your hands, in your heart? Sadly, in my country, the States, we are trying to find out.

Do you remember the Time magazine cover in the 60s, ‘God is dead’? Well, as a side note, God is still kicking, but Time, Newsweek ... they’re either dead or dying. Interesting. But with incredible bravado in our universities, in our body politic, in our entertainment, we are conducting a 50-year experiment of dispensing with God as we seek to love and be loved.

The reality is we’ve unleashed unholy hell into our relationships and havoc in

our society. So, John calls us all, first and foremost, to repent of such selfish notions of love, to look to God for the love we need in our lives and in the relationships that we so cherish, and to be willing to engage this world with an out-of-this-world love that they, like us, so desperately need.

John calls us to look to Christ, count on Jesus, count on his love because this love is unique in all the world. What a Saviour! What a message, what a time to be his people.

Count on Christ. Count on his love because, right here, right now, his love comes to life.

Convention guest of the LCA, Rev Greg Seltz is the speaker for Lutheran Hour Ministries, USA. All four Convention sermons are available in full from www.lca.org.au/2013synod

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the gathering of the leaves

by Linda Macqueen

We, the people of the Lutheran Church of Australia, are leaves.

Every one of us is part of the tree God planted in Australia 175 years ago.

It was subtle, perhaps a bit too subtle. So, a lot of people might not have twigged to the symbolism of the tree at the ALIVE!175 celebration.

In the opening animation, a bird flies across the screen. It drops a seed. The seed grows into a sapling, the sapling into a tree. The tree grows leaves, lots of leaves. The leaves provide support for each other and shade for travellers.

We, the people of the Lutheran Church of Australia, are those leaves. Every one of us is part of the tree God planted in Australia 175 years ago.

At the Adelaide Entertainment Centre on the afternoon of 21 April 2013, 5000 of us LCA leaves gathered to give thanks that God planted that seed and that, 175 years later, the tree which grew from it is still very much alive!

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We saw how the Lutheran tradition was to build a school just as soon as the last stone of the church was in place, and how that tradition has grown a flourishing Lutheran schools network that touches 200,000 people a week with the gospel.

We saw how he is using us as we join hands with other Lutheran churches, especially in South-East Asia, as together we respond to the Great Commission to go and make disciples of all nations.

We saw how Lutheran Media Ministries is using modern communication technologies to reach over a million people a week with the message that there is a God and that he loves them.

We saw how God is caring for the poorest people in the world through the generosity of Australian and New

Zealand Lutherans, who continue to give and give to Australian Lutheran World Service every time they’re asked.

For example, we heard that, when asked to support the Horn of Africa Appeal, after already giving so much in 2011—that year of disasters—the people of the LCA gave at the rate of $13,000 a day!

We saw how God is raising up and training workers for his vineyard through Australian Lutheran College, and how lay workers in our LCA congregations and communities, and staff in our aged-care facilities are working at the coalface of mission, as they come alongside the people of Australia and New Zealand with the loving care of Christ.

We sang songs and hymns to God. We prayed the Lord’s Prayer together. We listened to students from Immanuel and Concordia colleges singing praise to God. We tapped our feet to the rhythm of drums, as the St Paul’s African Choir led us in joyful worship.

As we looked around that gathering of 5000 leaves, we saw some that were

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The ALIVE!175 program commenced with a recollection of our history—how the Lutherans came to be in Australia, fleeing from religious persecution in Europe—and progressed to a celebration of the ways God is working through the branches of our church today.

We saw how he led missionaries into the centre of Australia, to the West Coast of South Australia and to North Queensland to reach the people there with the gospel, and how Aboriginal pastors and evangelists today are proclaiming the gospel in their own languages to their own people.

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Photo: Ivan Christian

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Photo: Michael Rudolph

Photo: GregHaar

Photo: Ivan Christian

Photo: Ivan Christian

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Photo: Ivan Christian Photo: Ivan Christian

No-one can tell what the LCA tree will look like or what shape it will be in 175 years from now. That is in God’s hands.

For now, all we know is what God has promised us: he is faithful, he will provide for all our needs, he is in control.

That leaves us with just two things to do: celebrate being leaves together, and look after each other. We do, after all, share the same roots.

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old and golden and, having served faithfully for a lifetime, would soon fall to the earth. We saw budding shoots, bursting with new life and energy, ready to play their part on a branch.

We saw leaves of many colours, God’s creative hand adding a bold new palette to our LCA tree, as we welcome people from Africa, Asia and all the corners of the earth.

Photo: Greg Haar

Photo: Ivan Christian

Photo: Greg Haar Photo: Ivan Christian

Above: Volunteer Chris Halbert, who project-managed the ALIVE!175 event

That leaves us with just two things to do: celebrate being leaves together, and look after each other.

We do, after all, share the same roots.

Photo Michael Rudolph

Love comes to life … in Christ

loved to death

extracts from the Convention sermon by Rev David Altus Imagine what this Convention would be like, if when we walked through the door this morning we suddenly knew everything about each other. How would we handle that intimate knowledge of each other? What would we do with it?

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I don’t know what we would do, but we do know what God did with what he knows about all of us: ‘God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us’ (Romans 5:8).

What God did was to take everything he knows about us that would kill the life between us and himself and that would condemn us to eternal death, and everything that separates us from each other, and he put it into Jesus, nailed it to a cross, killed it, buried it—and us, with Christ in baptism, and says that on that basis he chooses not only to forgive but to forget as well, to remember our sins no more!

Why would God do that? None of us would. The only explanation can be love. A love that is deeper and more

sacrificial and more forgiving than anything we can ever experience from anyone else, a love that loved and loves us to death.

This church is here today because of the love that died for it.

Think about that for a moment: ‘God proves, shows, demonstrates, stands by his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us’.

We are about to roll up our sleeves and get ourselves into the business of Synod. We’ve done our homework, come with our arguments, and have knowledge of the opposing arguments and those who will put them.

God’s love for us comes into its own not when we were at our ‘Alive!175 Sunday best’ yesterday, but • while we were thinking and speaking ill of each other • while we were not as generous to his work as we might have been • while we were turning gospel into law • while we stood still when Christ said go • while we loved our friends but ignored everyone else • while we spoke often about what the church should do but were no better ourselves • while we claimed to be a church of the word but rarely read it ... ... love comes to life in Christ.

This church is here for the world because the same love died for it too.

So, what are we going to do with what we know, and what we think we know about each other, and about who says what, and what ends up happening from this Synod?

God looks at us—as sinners who have come to know his deep, forgiving, saving and life-giving love that has come to life in us through Christ—and he might well be asking himself: ‘I wonder what they are going to do with that!’

Rev David Altus is SA/NT District President. All four Convention sermons are available in full from www.lca.org.au/2013synod The Lutheran May 2013

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Photo: Michael Rudolph

It has been a privilege to be president for over twelve years: Rev Dr Mike Semmler delivers his final President’s Report to the General Convention of Synod.

Giving thanks ‘God has been particularly faithful to us’, Dr Semmler reminded delegates and visitors at the beginning of the first session of the 2013 General Convention.

‘This is not about our faithfulness— God is faithful when we are not’, he said, reflecting on God’s blessings to the LCA and to him personally.

He thanked delegates for their prayers for him as president: ‘Prayer delivers things we don’t even know about’, he said.

‘I am humbled to know that the church is praying for its president.’

He urged delegates and congregations to continue praying for leaders of the church and also for those in government.

‘I am very pleased that the government requested this church to give its opinion on same-sex marriage. After we made a submission to a Senate Enquiry, we were asked to appear before a committee with representatives of other religious groups. We were asked to expand our submission and answer questions.

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He thanked the College of Presidents and Secretary of the Church, Rev Neville Otto, for their support: ‘The College gives direction. They are an eclectic group, who don’t all think the same way. But they engage in respectful conversation, discussion and prayer.’ he said.

Dr Semmler urged delegates to seek the mind of Christ when considering some of the issues currently before the church.

‘How do we in the mind of Christ live as brothers and sisters in the midst of tough questions?’ he asked.

‘We need to be empty of self and to seek the mind of Christ, seeking the will of God. ‘What is God saying to us as we struggle through vexing issues?

‘All things are in God’s time; in the Lord’s time things will happen for us’, he said.

He reminded delegates that consensus was about coming to one mind. The College of Presidents needed to maintain the unity of the church, Dr Semmler said.

In both his written report and speech, Dr Semmler reflected on what he called ‘the St Jakobi factor’—the reality that

How do we in the mind of Christ live as brothers and sisters in the midst of tough questions?

Mike Semmler the congregation in which he was baptised, confirmed and ordained no longer exists as a worshipping community.

‘The Lord has a time for things’, he said. ‘The time for St Jakobi is over, but what was taught there and formed there has gone to other places.’

(A Lutheran primary school, formed from the congregation, still operates.)

Dr Semmler’s report was received with a standing ovation.

Rev Dr Mike Semmler’s presidency has seen: • three national mission directors • four LCA vice-presidents • 15 district presidents • … and three popes!

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‘It was one of the great experiences for me as president, that government would seek to consult with the LCA. I give thanks for that’, Dr Semmler said.

by Rosie Schefe

love comes to life when ... we join hands to take the good news of Jesus to people of every culture and language

Photo Michael Rudolph

Global partners, local church

by Rosie Schefe

One bite isn’t enough, is it?

Here’s how to get the whole apple.

Our guest from Geneva, Rev Dr William Chang (with LCA Mission Director Rev Neville Otto) greets Synod on behalf of the Lutheran World Federation and Asia Region Lutheran churches.

Subscribe to The Lutheran.

11 issues per year;

‘Partnerships are critical’, LCA eachDirector issue 36-40 pages Mission Rev Neville Otto Australia $41 said as he began his address to New Zealand $43 Convention delegates.

Asia/Pacific $52written report The Board for Mission’s Rest aofsummary the World contained of its$61 work over the past four years, which included partnerships with LCA departments, districts and congregations, and with Lutheran churchesLCA internationally. or contact Subscriptions:

to the point where Pastor Brian Shek has been called to a new position of Asian Ministry Coordinator for two years.

Ministry among African immigrants has significantly expanded also, with initiatives in a number of congregations in Victoria and other districts of the LCA, while in 2011 the board supported the establishment of a new Indonesian congregation at Pasadena, South Australia.

Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea and to twelve Lutheran churches in Indonesia. In Cambodia the LCA is involved in new mission work through a partnership with the Lutheran Church in Singapore and other overseas churches. At the same time, contact is also being established on the ground in Cambodia with mission workers in partnership with Lutheran Church–Canada.

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lutheran.subs@lca.org.au Growing numbers of people from Asian backgrounds coming to Australia Overseas, long-term assistance Phone (in Australia) 08 and 8360 7270 NewPhone Zealand (outside have seen Australia) ministries grow, to be provided to the +618 continues 8360 7270

In Malaysia the LCA Board for Mission works closely with the Federation of The Lutheran May 2013

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