All Saints Sunday, 2014: I am presiding at the Altar, the Preacher was Pr. Keith Beasley of our sponsoring Congregation, Good Shepherd, Roanoke, VA
Today is the 5th anniversary of Concordia Lutheran Mission here in Rockbridge County. On the Page on the top, you can read the history. The header photo is about five years ago, when were meeting at the Library. Some of the folks pictured, moved, went to college and others have joined since that photo.
The first Divine Service was at Grace Presbyterian Church, August 28th, the Commemoration of St. Augustine (We did not plan for that day because it is was the commemoration of St. Augustine, but it is appropos since his faithful teaching influenced Martin Luther!) We had left the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America congregation in Lexington, of which I had been pastor. For several months many of us sojourned down to Good Shepherd Lutheran Church/Roanoke. In conversation with Good Shepherd’s Shepherd, Rev. Keith Beasley, we realized the need for a mission in Rockbridge County. Pr. Beasley and Vicar James Prothro presided and preached at that first service and did so until I was recognized as a pastor in the Synod. Good Shepherd/Roanoke became our sponsoring congregation. Within a year I was accepted as a pastor awaiting call, by a colloquy committee of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. We left Grace Presbyterian, as they were moving, and we began worshiping in the Lexington Main Library, in their community room. One year ago, we found out about a good rental property in the other main town in Rockbridge County, Buena Vista and this is where the Mission is now located.
We have not grown exponentially, yet, we have some new members. In many ways, as my wife pointed out, after losing my full-time income as a pastor, leaving a church body, thinking about the prospect of selling our house, and a mission that is still tenuous, never the less, we have our house and the House of the Lord, His mission is still here after five years. But by the grace of God, go we!
We left a denomination purporting to be church. We left because of it’s war against the Word of God. It rejected marriage, marriage between man and woman alone. In St. Augustine’s day, Rome fell and before that, Nero fiddled on his violin while Rome burned. While our Romes burn today, churches have fiddled around with the Word of God. Many churches look nice on the outside but as the Lord said about the religious leadership of His time, they are whitened sepulchers filled with dead men’s bones full of decay and rot. It is profoundly sad. Am I overstating the case? I do not think so. The gates of hell are doing their best, but they have not prevailed. Many, including myself, have chronicled the central collapse of Biblical Scriptures in so many areas of the Church. Now, one should not lightly and unadvisedly leave a church body. By God’s grace alone, I do not think we did.
So! Are we in the promised land? The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod? When I had my last interview for acceptance as a pastor into The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod at the Synod’s International Center outside of St. Louis, Missouri, one of my three interviewers was a district president who warned me, “You know the Missouri Synod has problems and it’s not perfect.” I smiled and said, “If it were perfect, that would mean the Lord has come with His kingdom and I don’t think He has and there would be no interview” They all smiled or chuckled. The district president’s caution was a good one. In Christ, he could admit sin because of our Savior. I do not think I could ever hear that from some other liberal protestant church bodies and their ecclesiacrats confessing their church is wrong, they can’t right now as they defend falsehood. The district president knows our church body is not perfect but it trusts and believes in the whole Word of God, the Bible and the Lutheran Confessions which teach, preach and confess the 6th Commandment and it’s meaning. The district president, a pastor, is obviously no Pharisee. Thank our Lord for His grace for us all!
Concordia and Koinonia 