Why a Convention?

Around the LCMS, district conventions have taken place or will take place. The Texas District begins its convention on Thursday, June 21. Most comments I’ve heard about conventions recently haven’t been positive. I’ve heard it said that they’re “boring,” they’re “expensive” or “they don’t have any Kingdom significance.” Honestly, I’ve even thought similar things.

Years ago, as a new pastor, I visited with retired men who spoke much differently about church conventions. They commented about the wonderful fellowship, the joyful blessing of being together and worshipping together, and the unity of mission as decisions were made. Of course, not every convention was perfect, but these men who looked back to the 1950’s and earlier had a glimmer in their eyes as they remembered good days in the church.

Times have changed. Institutions and organizations are not very popular. Organic, grass-roots ministry is what people crave. But might we be forgetting something?

A number of years ago my family and I visited some missionary friends in a small village in West Africa. We didn’t go there to build a building. We didn’t go there to do a project. Our friends asked us to visit and just be there! We talked to people, met with village elders, prayed together, and hung out together. The result? A remarkable sense of mutual encouragement unfolded. I realized that I was in the middle of a remarkable ministry of “presence.” Being there meant so much to the people we met. Being there with the people we met meant so much to us. Genuine spiritual encouragement was happening. Undistracted by a list of tasks, the value of relationships took hold. A sense of the body of Christ became very real.

An African gentleman told me a while back that we Americans are terrible at relationships. That may mean that we are not reflecting the foundations of the early church when “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42). Maybe we need to be together a bit more--pulling our eyes away from screens (computer, cell phone, tablet, television), look into each other’s eyes, bear one another’s burdens, and lift up hands in prayer together.

Maybe that’s what the deeper value of a convention is. Please pray for the groups that gather this year, and for us in Texas. The powerful ministry of presence may advance God’s Kingdom more than we realize.