You have all heard the big news by now: Concordia Seminary has a new president! It has been a fairly long process to bring us to this point, but now God has brought Dr. Thomas J. Egger into this office and we rejoice. Of course, we also pray. We pray for Dr. Egger, we pray for our church and of course we continue to pray for our Seminary. And we pray with hope and confidence for our Lord Himself has commanded us to pray and has promised to hear us.
I humbly request that you who are alumni of this Seminary continue to pray for us. We are living in challenging times and I am not talking about the coronavirus. I’m talking about the increasing antagonism and even hatred toward Christianity that we see around us in our nation. We see it in the assaults made against the nuclear family. We see it, both in books and in film, in the increasing use of our Savior’s name as an expletive. We see it in so many ways.
It is in this context of a culture moving rapidly away from Christ and His Gospel that Concordia Seminary continues to carry out its mission of preparing workers for service in God’s kingdom. It is actually a rather daunting task considering what we are facing in this world. It would be easy to become discouraged.
But God has been encouraging me greatly during these past weeks. I have begun to spend significant time visiting the classes being taught here at Concordia Seminary. I knew already that we had a good faculty but visiting the classes, hearing the professors teach, watching the students with sincere interest interact with what is taught, noting how clearly the teaching conforms to God’s Word – all this has been immensely heartening.
As Dr. Egger assumes his presidential duties full-time around the middle of March, my duties will be reduced. But until the end of May when my service here will come to an end, I will continue to visit classes. What a joy! And what a joy to be serving at a Seminary with a mission such as ours.
I encourage you, our alumni, to continue your support of our Seminary. You know what God did for you here. He does it still today! We love our mission but we cannot go it alone. God provides for us through the love and support of so many who recognize the never-ending need the church has for pastors, deaconesses, missionaries and teachers.
I thank you for the great support you have shown for your alma mater over the years and pray that God will enable you to continue such service to Him. We have a new president, but we don’t have a new mission. May our gracious heavenly Father strengthen and guide Dr. Egger to dedicate himself fully to this wonderful work God has given us to carry out at Concordia Seminary.
