From Pastor Biar’s Pen 

Walking Together

            As a pastor, it’s easy to feel isolated in Fallon. After all, there are 60 miles of open desert between us and the next-closest Lutheran congregation; aside from a brief visit from President Lange last month, I haven’t seen another LCMS pastor since the district convention back in May 2022, and I probably won’t until the pastors’ convention this October. Compared to my experiences growing up in an area where I knew of at least 5 other congregations, a vicarage where there was another church 5 miles down the street, and seminary where there’s almost more Lutheran churches than Starbucks, it sometimes feels like we’re completely on our own out here.

But the synodical convention just happened. At the time of writing this article, I have no idea how any of the votes went, but those aren’t the focus here. Rather, it’s the reminder that we’re part of a Synod – a word that at its root means “walking together.” Congregations from across the country have been joined to mutually agree that we will walk together as we navigate through this world and the issues that arise. We walk together in figuring out new strategies to preach the word, support each other in times of trouble, allocate funding towards bigger and better projects than any individual congregation could take on its own, and so on. We have joined together to be a church family. True, we may not always agree with each other (what family does?), but at the end of the day, we’re here for each other as best we can be. 

And what a great image for the Church as a whole. Yes, there are plenty of interdenominational disputes, and I can complain a lot about what other bodies are doing and how they represent Christianity as a whole to the rest of the world, but at the end of the day we have the promises from God that all of Christendom are His children, gathered under His wing. To be a Christian is to never be alone. Not only because Christ has promised to be with us “to the very end of the age,” but because we have also been brought into a family of God, with countless brothers and sisters in Christ – “a great multitude that no one can number.”

God’s Blessings,  Pastor Biar   

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