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Hi. I’m Matt Harrison, President of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. Today, I want
to talk to you a bit about the What A Way initiative to recruit and to retain professional
church workers in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. When I was a young man, which is a
long time ago now, when I was a young man a Vicor came to our local congregation. Because
of the way he loved the work of the ministry for which he was training, I became intrigued
and he encouraged me. Because of him in largest measure, I ended up going to the seminary.
The fact is, existing church workers, especially pastors, have a tremendous impact upon others
who are considering the pastoral vocation. Other church workers too, teachers, and DCEs
and others have a tremendous impact upon young people and others considering churchly vocations.
Now, there’s been a lot of talk lately about whether we have enough students or whether
we have too many pastors, etc., etc. The facts are right now the age of our church workers,
especially our pastors is in the upper range, and therefore over the next number of years,
in fact more than a decade, we are going to have large retiring classes so the need for
the future is going to be significant. It’s time to go to the seminary or to consider
another church work vocation and go to one of our Concordia’s. Jesus in that wonderful
text in Matthew 9 says “pray the Lord of the harvest send workers”. That’s the
first thing a church that is interested in mission does, pray and the Lord promises to
answer prayer. Pray the Lord of the Harvest send workers. That’s our prayer right now.
That’s the prayer of the church every Sunday. That’s my personal prayer daily. That means
that’s a prayer for you to consider how you can pray and also encourage people, especially
young people to go into the service of the church in its various ministries. A missionary
church, which is what the Missouri Synod is and must be, a mission church must be a sending
church. An ascending church must send those trained to speak God’s word and to serve
Christ. Please, join us all in encouraging young people, noticing young people and their
gifts, helping them consider a vocation in church work, getting them to a Concordia University
or to a seminary for a visit, taking advantage of opportunities for young people to get on
the campuses of the seminaries and to meet the faculty and enjoy time there. It will
make a huge difference in the life of that young person, and because of the service that
person will provide to Christ and his saints it will make an eternal difference.
Thank you and may God bless you.