Excitement in the Church

This past summer, the Lutheran - Church Missouri Synod unseated it president and elected a different man to serve in that office. This is a rare event in our church body. As a delegate, when the screen came up with the vote totals, it took a moment for it to register what had happened. We replaced an aging bureaucrat with a man who had actually done something in the world.

Rev. Matthew Harrison was the director of LCMS World Relief. In this capacity he had a taken little agency and turned it into a major player. He had worked directly with Lutheran leaders all over the world.

The excitement over Pr. Harrison's election is greater than I have ever seen for a new synodical president. And it is not just us in the LCMS. Lutheran leaders from all over the globe are genuinely pleased at this turn of events. Several were present for his installation on September 11, 2010. The preacher for the service was Bishop Walter Obare Omzuma, the presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Kenya. Leaders came of Siberia, India and other distant lands. We pray that this excitement leads to a renaissance for our church body.