"It’s time for the Missouri Synod to be missionally doctrinal and doctrinally missional."

Mission and Mercy: It’s Time!

“The Peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a conflict.”

Our fathers in the faith appreciated what they had because they realized what they might lose. Do we? Take me to task. Disagree. Come up with something better. Call me crazy, but I’m actually rather optimistic. The church will live on, hidden under the cross (tectum sub cruce), come what may. But let’s dare to try something different! It’s time for the Missouri Synod to be missionally doctrinal and doctrinally missional. And I think the vast majority—perhaps even a good 90%—of the Synod would agree. It’s time to come together and get to work.

Would that we were as concerned to keep the ship’s crew together as a man named Paul once was on a rough journey at sea. “And as the sailors were seeking to escape from the ship, and had lowered the ship’s boat into the sea under pretense of laying out anchors from the bow, Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, ‘Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved’” (Acts 27:30).

It’s time for us to be united in doctrine and mission, doctrine for mission in order “to seek and save the lost.” It’s time to be about mission and mercy. It is time to tend the fellowship (koinonia) we have been given in Christ, and to care for one another. Christ is with us, and the world is before us. It’s time to face the real problem and to address it once and for all. “Let’s go!” (Mark 1:38). It’s time!

“Hence it is up to you to dare something in this matter, since you see that time and the Word of God demand this.” Martin Luther

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time . . .” Ephesians 5:16

Matt Harrison

www.itistime.org