"Lutheran Missions MUST Lead to Lutheran Churches"

The following statement is the most significant and necessarily applicable theological assertion requisite for Lutheran missions today. It is the introduction of an essay written by F.W. Hopf (1910-1982), who was then serving as the Director of our German sister church’s Bleckmar mission, which was instrumental in founding our South African partner church, The Lutheran Church of South Africa. Missions is primarily the task of the church, and not merely that of mission societies. And far and away the number ONE priority of Lutheran missions must be the founding of Lutheran churches at home and overseas. Every penny spent on missions must be evaluated on the basis of this goal and these few theses. The question must be asked of every single mission endeavor: Is a solid Lutheran church body/congregation being founded? What is the plan to that end? How does this effort lead to that goal?

The issue begs a longer treatment, and full translation of Hopf’s essay, “Lutherische Kirche treibt Lutherische Mission,” in a book by Hopf of the same title (1967).

Hopf had been a student of Hermann Sasse, and a pastor in the Bavarian State Church. When that church de facto set aside the Formula of Concord and joined the EKiD (the conglomorate of formerly Lutheran, Reformed and Union churches in Germany, which has as of this year formaly rejected the Augsburg Confession as its fundamental statement of faith), Hopf refused to acknowledge this move because it contradicted the Formula of Concord. He was consequently defrocked by the state church and joined the free church (today The Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church in German - SELK).

Matt Harrison

Two programmatic theses stand at the beginning of the path trodden by the fathers of the Bleckmar mission when they separated from the Hermannsburg mission. As early as June 18, 1889 on the occasion of the Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Free Church of Hanover, after some discussion, and with the general consent of the synod, Pastor Heinrich Wilhelm Gerhold in Verden formulated the thesis: "The Lutheran church is advanced [getrieben werden] only by Lutheran Mission. And Lutheran missions can only be carried out by a Lutheran Church . The decisions which came later were only consistent steps on a path solidly established between these two theses. This is also the case with regard to a third thesis, added in 1953 to the mission paradigm [Programm] of the fathers: "Lutheran mission must lead to Lutheran Churches."

Friedrich Wilhelm Hopf