Because we bear your name February–March 2025

Lutheran in All Lands: The Wonderful Works of God – that was the title of a hardback book I purchased at a sale of old theological books way back in 1980. That was my first year at seminary. The book was written in 1894 by Dr J Lenker in the USA and told amazing stories of the mission of God in Lutheran communities around the world. I remember being inspired reading the pages. Dr Lenker wrote of Christians of our Lutheran confessional witness in all corners of the globe, including in our own backyard here in the Asia-Pacific.

Little could I have imagined at the time, that I would one day be in Hong Kong, representing our LCANZ at a gathering of Lutheran leaders from those many lands, particularly from our region. This was the November 2024 Asia Church Leadership Conference attended by representatives from India, Indonesia, Japan, Myanmar, Taiwan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Nepal, Bangladesh, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, Cambodia, the Holy Land and, of course, Australia. I attended with our Interim Assistant to the Bishop for International Mission, Erin Kerber.

In Dr Lenker’s book, he included a table listing the number of ‘baptised members’ of the Lutheran churches of the different regions. Many of those numbers of our Asia-Pacific region in the 1894 table were in their hundreds and thousands. Today they are numbered in their hundreds of thousands and millions.

These sisters and brothers of our Lutheran Confession cherish you, their sisters and brothers of the Lutheran Church of Australia and New Zealand. A number of the leaders have studied here among us, like the president of the India Evangelical Lutheran Church, Rev Dr J Priestly Balasingh. A number maintain strong mission partnerships with us, such as Rev Keov Sreyleak Touch, Bishop of the Lutheran Church Cambodia. Our Lutheran neighbours receive the Lutheran Church of Australia and New Zealand as a confessional and evangelical conservative neighbouring Lutheran church. In particular, the regional churches of our mission partnerships earnestly want you to hear of their thanksgiving for the missionary heart of the LCANZ.

At the leadership gathering in Hong Kong, we also heard about suffering. In our region there is significant persecution of Christians in some places, including violence toward people as well as destruction of property. They ask us to pray, to speak out and to visit. They ask especially that we do not forget them, nor turn a blind eye.

Theological education for mission is a vital concern for Lutheran leaders in our region. Our Australian Lutheran College continues to be held in very high regard and a number of regional scholars are interested to discover more about the approach to the distributed learning model that has been developed at ALC.

There were two key words spoken over and over during the days of the leadership conferences in Hong Kong, that Erin and I attended on your behalf. These two words were: evangelisation and discipleship. What are new ways to reach out to the neighbour with the hope-filled good news of Jesus Christ? What are the tried and tested ways to evangelise others with the joy of salvation? How do we purposefully and creatively disciple our Christian people to live by faith as salt and light in the world?

At the end of my inspiring time among our Lutheran neighbours, I reflected on this extraordinary, flourishing community of Lutheran Christians in our Asia-Pacific region. I found myself praying, earnestly asking the Lord of the Church to show us how we might better gather our young people into this experience of the wider shared mission of our Lutheran communities in our part of the ‘wonderful works of God’. This is a challenge for our church.

For these regular reflections in The Lutheran, I have chosen to use the title of the wonderful Australian Lutheran song of faith, ‘Because we bear your name’, co-written by Dr John Kleinig and Dr Robin Mann. One prayerful line of this song captures our shared witness with our sisters and brothers of the Lutheran churches of the Asia-Pacific region: ‘Help us receive each other, Lord, for you receive the least of us and come to us in them – because we bear your name.’

In Christ,
Paul

‘Lord Jesus, we belong to you,
you live in us, we live in you;
we live and work for you –
because we bear your name’