For the good of the church: Pfotenhauer’s 100-year-old convention address

By Roy S. Askins

Exactly 100 years ago, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) was gathered in convention at Holy Cross Evangelical Lutheran Church in St. Louis. In many ways, the gathering differed dramatically from the 2026 convention. For example, the president’s address was given in German and translated into English.

In other ways, however, things haven’t changed much. Both 100 years ago and today, the church is concerned about seminary and undergraduate enrollment and about ensuring that LCMS congregations receive the best trained pastors and teachers possible.

To illustrate how the LCMS has changed — and also how it has stayed the same over the last 100 years — Reporter offers interested readers this historic address from then-Synod President Rev. Friedrich Pfotenhauer, who served as LCMS president from 1911–1935.

In the address, found on Pages 6–7 of the 1926 Proceedings, Pfotenhauer articulates how God has so ordered — and continues to order — all of creation for the good of His church.

And though the work of convention might seem boring, the work undertaken by the convention ensures miracles continue to happen: Sinners forgiven; saints made and renewed in the blood of Christ. The church is, indeed, God’s masterpiece.

Read Pfotenhauer’s timeless message.

Under the words of Ps. 143, 5: “I remember the days of old; I meditate on all Thy works; I muse on the work of Thy hands,” Luther once wrote in the Bible of a friend: “The holy Christian Church is the foremost work of God, for the sake of which all things were created and in which great miracles occur daily, such as forgiving sins, taking away death, and giving righteousness and eternal life.” These words of the great Reformer are well suited to awaken in us a great earnestness and a holy enthusiasm for the synodical business which will have our attention during these days.

Luther makes this statement: “The Christian Church is the foremost work of God.” It is true that the work of creation and preservation is unspeakably great, praiseworthy, and glorious and that it continually incites us to proclaim the omnipotence, wisdom, and goodness of our God. But the Church is a still more glorious work. It is, in fact, God’s masterpiece. Luther mentions two reasons why this is so; the first is that all things were made for the sake of the Church. It is to the Church that the world owes its existence. If God had not decided to build a Church for Himself on earth, the world would have gone to pieces after the Fall. Seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, go on because the Church needs these things. They are, as it were, the scaffolding of the structure He is erecting.

As the world itself exists for the sake of the Church, so the happenings in the world, all events, both great and small, bear the same relation to the Church. The rising and passing of the great world-kingdoms took place in the interest of the Church. The changing of the boundaries between nations, as after the World War, the migration of peoples and individuals, as in the last century to America and in America, happened for the sake of the Church. Severe visitations and judgments, such as war and bloodshed, famine and pestilence, are sent by God for the sake of the Church.

My brethren, if we fully understand from the above that all happenings in the world bear the same relation to the Church and are of importance solely because of this, our present gathering certainly appears to be an event of the highest importance, because it is directly and immediately connected with the building of the Church. During these days, we are serving the great cause of building the Church of Christ. Let us bear this in mind and therefore request God the Holy Ghost in continual prayer to be with us, to lead and guide our discussions, so that, by God’s grace, we may be found worthy of assuming the great task before us.

In the second place, the Church is the foremost work of God because, as Luther says, in it great miracles occur daily, such as forgiving sins, taking away death, and giving righteousness and eternal life. Surely those were great miracles — feeding five thousand men, besides women and children, with five loaves of bread, giving sight to the blind, enabling the lame to walk, and raising the dead. But these miracles are greater and more glorious — relieving a lost and condemned creature of his burden of sin and making of him a blessed child of God.

We are met here in these days to do the greater works of which the Savior speaks when He says: “I say unto you, He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works that these shall he do.” We wish to deliberate on the weal and woe of our educational institutions, on how we may extend our missions, etc., and we would assist our congregations to hallow God’s name by pure doctrine and godly practise.

2026 LCMS Convention

Under the theme “Christ Is Risen Indeed,” the 69th Regular Convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod met July 18–23, 2026, at the Phoenix Convention Center in downtown Phoenix.

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