Get Registered NOW for Synod President Vote

As Fr. Petersen has often noted in these pages: in many ways we are living in the golden age of the Lutheran Liturgy. While there's plenty of room for improvement, and still plenty of liturgical nonsense for Gottesdienst to comment on and bemoan, we've got to admit that Petersen is right. From the widespread adoption of LSB as a unified framework on which to build, to more frequent communion, we have much for which to be thankful.

This has taken a lot of hard work over the decades—most of that work is of the unsung hero sort: faithful pastors teaching the Lutheran heritage and the Gospel it upholds. But also note how much of that work happened at the Synod level. CPH has put out some really good stuff (The Blessings of Weekly Communion book for one, the Treasury of Daily Prayer for another, and they even have bulletin covers for the one year lectionary!).

And it's really nice having a friend of the Lutheran Liturgy (and Gottesdienst conference speaker alumnus) behind the president's desk in St. Louis.

Is everything perfect? Are there no disappointments? Should we put our trust in princes? No, no, and no.

But just imagine immeasurably more leaders at the Synod and district level advocating for Baptist-derived worship practices. Imagine immeasurably more praise bands at the Synod Convention (as there was at the 2007 convention the last time the Synod was helmed by an advocate of unLutheran worship). Imagine what sad havoc an advocate of contemporary worship could wreak in the President's chair by appointing a Director of Contemporary Worship, or a new Blue Ribbon Committee for the Modernization of Worship Arts, or appointing a seminary president who would endow chairs of contemporary worship.

You only have 20 days left to register to vote for Synod President. The signed form for each parish's pastoral and lay voter must be received by March 24. If you misplaced the form, send an email with your congregation's name and address (including zip code) to: LCMSPresidentVote@lcms.org.