It’s generally an off-year for conventions of American Christian denominations. With the high cost of such national gatherings, some have moved to holding conventions on alternate years while some gather only every three or four years, or in some other variation. One downside is that fewer people overall are ever selected to be delegates to such a convention in their lifetimes. It means summers arent like they used to be one faith after another doing its business in huge arenas to set the tone of church activity for another year. Besides financial savings, the longer gaps between the big meetings slow down procedural change in the church and may force denominational officers and administrators to handle large issues themselves. But with more time between them, it makes each gathering that much more important.We should pay attention to the major matters these groups take up, especially the resolutions calling for reforms, or the abandonment of things tried and failed or statements for the world to hear about what they believe theologically or their compelling stance on national social or cultural issues. Delegates typically are overwhelmed by written and spoken reports, and they beseech the Holy Spirit to help them discern and vote wisely.The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, based in St. Louis, began its 63rd Regular Convention in Houston on Saturday and will wind up its six-day meetings Thursday. Some 4,600 members half of them pastors and half laymen have been conducting the legislative business of the 2.5 million-member church, the second largest in the Lutheran family. Its president, Gerald Kieschnick, who happens to be a Houston native, was re-elected to his third three-year term on Sunday. I met and interviewed him when he spoke at Christs Greenfield Lutheran Church in Gilbert in early 2002. He was enmeshed, at the time, in the churchs controversy over a district president speaking at Yankee Stadium in New York City, along with leaders of many faiths after the 2001 Twin Towers attacks. (The two-hour Prayer for America rally was called mushy ecumenism by Charles Colson and widely criticized for Jesus Christ getting mentioned only five times). Some wanted Kieschnick ousted for giving David Benke the go-ahead to talk at the rally with the likes of Methodists or Sikhs, thus committing syncretism, the intermingling of theologies to Christianitys detriment. Benke eventually regained his district presidency. Kieschnick, who pushed for a review of the suspension, survived as well. Delegates got to hear President Bush via videotape. He thanked Missouri Synod Lutherans for their building new homes for victims of the Asia tsunami, helping flood victims in Indonesia, giving support and comfort to senior citizens and aiding HIV/AIDS victims and malaria in Kenya. You are providing light in times of darkness and making our world a better place, he told them. He saluted the denomination for providing more than 90 chaplains to the war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq.He thanked the Lutherans for helping him preserve the sanctity of marriage, pushing for judges who strictly interpret the Constitution and devoting themselves to family, faith and freedom. Congratulations on marking your 160th year of preaching the Good News, Bush said. I wish you luck on your ambitious Ablaze program, which is working to reach 100 million people with the gospel in the coming decade.

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