1 00:00:06,339 --> 00:00:08,041 Hallelujah, Christ is risen. 2 00:00:11,411 --> 00:00:13,446 It's great to have you all here. 3 00:00:13,980 --> 00:00:19,953 So many guests back on campus, familiar faces, and it's always a joy to see you back for 4 00:00:19,953 --> 00:00:26,259 events at the seminary, and what a great opportunity for the church to gather in celebration of 5 00:00:26,259 --> 00:00:31,765 the diversity within our church and God's love for all nations and the church's mission 6 00:00:31,765 --> 00:00:35,568 to all nations as part of our annual Multi-Ethnic Symposium. 7 00:00:37,303 --> 00:00:42,275 God's blessings to you as you listen, God's blessings to the presenters as they present. 8 00:00:42,442 --> 00:00:47,414 A big thank you to all those who have done so much work in planning for this week's events 9 00:00:47,414 --> 00:00:51,918 and all of those who do so much work during the week to pull all of this off. 10 00:00:51,918 --> 00:01:00,026 And thank you also to our presenters who will be leading our thinking through these 11 00:01:00,026 --> 00:01:03,863 things, leading our discussion, stimulating our discussion through the week. 12 00:01:04,264 --> 00:01:08,168 We have a great lineup this year and we look forward to hearing from them. 13 00:01:09,269 --> 00:01:11,004 I want to lead things off this morning. 14 00:01:11,104 --> 00:01:14,174 By the way, I'm Tom Egger, president here at Concordia Seminary. 15 00:01:14,574 --> 00:01:21,915 And I want to lead things off by just getting some Bible verses on the table in almost litany 16 00:01:21,915 --> 00:01:31,057 fashion and really to just echo and build on exactly what Dr. Deressa focused on in 17 00:01:31,057 --> 00:01:40,166 the sermon this morning in chapel, that when we confess one holy Catholic apostolic church, 18 00:01:40,967 --> 00:01:48,174 the holiness and the Catholicity of the church are gifts of God that spring from the blood 19 00:01:48,174 --> 00:01:49,209 of Jesus Christ. 20 00:01:49,742 --> 00:01:54,214 Dr. Deressa said, if there's one thing that unites us in spite of our differences, it's 21 00:01:54,214 --> 00:01:55,715 the blood of the Lord. 22 00:01:56,783 --> 00:02:02,155 And that's the theme of these Bible verses that I want to walk through and to just begin 23 00:02:02,155 --> 00:02:09,529 our time together as we reflect on the Catholicity of Christ Church, our Catholicity as the people 24 00:02:09,529 --> 00:02:19,405 of God, to reflect on the fact that all of this flows from the love of God for the world, 25 00:02:20,273 --> 00:02:24,911 expressed in the giving of His Son into death on the cross. 26 00:02:26,112 --> 00:02:35,221 So the familiar Bible passage, God so loved the world that he gave His only Son that whoever 27 00:02:35,221 --> 00:02:38,691 believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 28 00:02:39,659 --> 00:02:44,664 This was an intention, a plan and purpose of God that was firmly in place from the foundation 29 00:02:44,664 --> 00:02:45,365 of the world. 30 00:02:45,798 --> 00:02:52,972 Paul writes in Ephesians 1, God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. 31 00:02:53,706 --> 00:02:59,512 In Him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according 32 00:02:59,512 --> 00:03:05,485 to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making 33 00:03:05,485 --> 00:03:11,591 known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, Paul writes in long sentences, 34 00:03:12,158 --> 00:03:23,970 which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in 35 00:03:23,970 --> 00:03:28,007 Him, things in heaven and things on earth. 36 00:03:28,775 --> 00:03:36,983 The Catholicity of the church in all time and in all places, Christ the center of all 37 00:03:36,983 --> 00:03:40,820 of God's purposes for all things in heaven and on earth. 38 00:03:42,355 --> 00:03:49,295 The prophets of Israel foretold that the servant of God would come and work salvation 39 00:03:49,295 --> 00:03:50,630 for all people. 40 00:03:51,164 --> 00:03:57,270 Isaiah prophesies in chapter 52, the Lord has bared His holy arm before the eyes of 41 00:03:57,270 --> 00:04:04,010 all nations and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. 42 00:04:04,877 --> 00:04:09,215 And he goes on to say that this servant will sprinkle many nations. 43 00:04:09,916 --> 00:04:12,085 He will sprinkle many nations. 44 00:04:12,652 --> 00:04:18,224 Peter greets the dispersed readers of his first epistle scattered in Pontus, Galatia, 45 00:04:18,224 --> 00:04:28,167 Cappadocia, Bithynia, and Asia as those chosen by God for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling 46 00:04:28,167 --> 00:04:29,369 by His blood. 47 00:04:31,571 --> 00:04:38,544 The writer to the Hebrews marvels at what a joy it is to be a part of the church, the 48 00:04:38,544 --> 00:04:42,115 people of Mount Zion as he describes the church. 49 00:04:42,248 --> 00:04:47,453 He says, you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, 50 00:04:47,453 --> 00:04:52,925 to innumerable angels and festal gathering and to the assembly of the firstborn who are 51 00:04:52,925 --> 00:04:58,564 enrolled in heaven and to God, the judge of all and to the spirits of the righteous made 52 00:04:58,564 --> 00:05:07,206 perfect and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks 53 00:05:07,206 --> 00:05:09,742 a better word than the blood of Abel. 54 00:05:10,910 --> 00:05:17,650 In the book of Revelation, we saw one beautiful picture of God's people from all nations in 55 00:05:17,650 --> 00:05:19,852 Revelation 7 this morning in chapel. 56 00:05:21,554 --> 00:05:28,294 Also there's this beautiful passage in Revelation chapter 5 where the people in heaven around 57 00:05:28,294 --> 00:05:30,697 the throne are singing in praise. 58 00:05:30,697 --> 00:05:36,002 It says they sang a new song saying, worthy are you. 59 00:05:36,235 --> 00:05:38,905 They're singing to the lamb before the throne of God. 60 00:05:38,905 --> 00:05:47,046 Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals for you were slain and by your blood 61 00:05:47,046 --> 00:05:55,188 you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation and you 62 00:05:55,188 --> 00:06:00,593 have made them a kingdom and priests to our God and they shall reign on the earth. 63 00:06:01,928 --> 00:06:08,434 The Catholicity of the church and the holiness of the church comes through the sprinkled 64 00:06:08,434 --> 00:06:10,570 blood of Jesus Christ. 65 00:06:11,871 --> 00:06:18,611 We are one in Him because of His great love, His love for all. 66 00:06:19,612 --> 00:06:28,521 He loves us all and that's what makes us one and he has cleansed us all by His blood which 67 00:06:28,521 --> 00:06:30,590 makes us one and makes us holy. 68 00:06:31,257 --> 00:06:41,334 What a joy it is to be called by God, we who are all enemies of his, what it is to be a joy to be called 69 00:06:41,334 --> 00:06:42,034 friends. 70 00:06:43,736 --> 00:06:48,307 And what a joy it is to be called sons and daughters of the holy God. 71 00:06:49,375 --> 00:06:56,716 That is what we are and he unites us already in this life and the heavenly pictures are a picture 72 00:06:56,716 --> 00:07:02,455 of the joy that awaits the church when we are perfectly united in the age to come. 73 00:07:02,755 --> 00:07:11,297 God bless your thinking and your discussing the great joy of being one in Christ this week and 74 00:07:11,297 --> 00:07:17,336 also the great joy of bearing together his calling and his commission to bring the love of 75 00:07:17,336 --> 00:07:23,776 Christ, the hope of Christ to people from all nations, those that He came to save because God 76 00:07:23,776 --> 00:07:25,211 so loved the world. 77 00:07:25,211 --> 00:07:32,652 With that let me turn things over to Erica Bennett who is, there she is hiding behind the pulpit, 78 00:07:32,685 --> 00:07:33,820 lectern, whatever. 79 00:07:34,153 --> 00:07:35,755 Oh yeah, sorry, Erica Petsch. 80 00:07:37,323 --> 00:07:39,425 I have to get with the times here Tom. 81 00:07:40,059 --> 00:07:46,098 Let me turn it over to Erica Petsch, our director of continuing education who has worked hard to put 82 00:07:46,098 --> 00:07:54,407 this week's events together and will introduce our speaker and also who will give you some 83 00:07:54,407 --> 00:07:56,476 nuts and bolts for the conference. 84 00:07:57,677 --> 00:07:58,444 Thank you, Erica. 85 00:07:58,711 --> 00:07:59,679 Thank you. 86 00:08:03,950 --> 00:08:05,151 Good morning everyone. 87 00:08:05,918 --> 00:08:12,558 I still sometimes forget I was at a conference and I introduced myself as Erica Bennett and I have 88 00:08:12,558 --> 00:08:19,332 been married over six months now and so I was like no wait, it's not Bennett and they are like do 89 00:08:19,332 --> 00:08:20,099 you know who you are? 90 00:08:20,366 --> 00:08:21,467 I do know who I am. 91 00:08:21,834 --> 00:08:23,169 So, it's very exciting. 92 00:08:23,169 --> 00:08:25,471 So, as I said, good morning and welcome. 93 00:08:26,372 --> 00:08:31,744 How many of you have been to this Multi-Ethnic Symposium, let's say more than three times? 94 00:08:33,045 --> 00:08:34,180 Nice, okay. 95 00:08:34,447 --> 00:08:38,217 How many of you is it your first time being at Multi-Ethnic Symposium? 96 00:08:38,684 --> 00:08:39,552 Yay, look at that. 97 00:08:39,585 --> 00:08:40,253 How exciting. 98 00:08:40,520 --> 00:08:40,853 Welcome. 99 00:08:41,621 --> 00:08:46,526 All right, well, I wanted to, I know that President Egger already did but I want to thank our 100 00:08:46,526 --> 00:08:46,926 speakers. 101 00:08:48,060 --> 00:08:53,132 Very exciting, you might have noticed from the schedule for this week that all of our speakers are 102 00:08:53,132 --> 00:08:58,304 going to be in here in the auditorium so we're not doing breakout sessions for the first time ever. 103 00:08:58,604 --> 00:09:02,408 We wanted to all be together and all of the sessions are going to be recorded. 104 00:09:02,975 --> 00:09:07,413 So, if anyone wasn't able to come that you know, make sure they know we'll have those up at a 105 00:09:07,413 --> 00:09:08,614 later date on our website. 106 00:09:09,649 --> 00:09:12,051 We are also again using the HUVA app. 107 00:09:12,552 --> 00:09:14,687 How many of you have that downloaded on your phones? 108 00:09:16,255 --> 00:09:19,458 Good, because that's going to be where you're going to find most of your information. 109 00:09:19,458 --> 00:09:26,065 If you need help with downloading that, we have signs up all over the place or look for one of us. 110 00:09:26,432 --> 00:09:31,037 Sarah Maney, who I'll introduce in a minute, is the HUVA app expert. 111 00:09:31,637 --> 00:09:34,540 So, she will be more helpful than the rest of us. 112 00:09:35,508 --> 00:09:41,747 So, one of the things about the HUVA app that I wanted to let you all know, during the presentations 113 00:09:41,747 --> 00:09:47,720 today and tomorrow, when a question pops in your head, if you would type it into the HUVA app, 114 00:09:47,720 --> 00:09:54,393 what you do is when you're on the HUVA app, you'll go to session Q&A. 115 00:09:54,493 --> 00:10:00,967 You'll tap session Q&A, then you'll choose your plenary, which presentation, and then you'll post your question. 116 00:10:01,767 --> 00:10:07,373 Something that's really cool about it is we're going to be having, as I mentioned, Sarah and Stephen in here, 117 00:10:07,473 --> 00:10:10,376 one of our IT. There he is. Hi, Stephen. Thank you. 118 00:10:10,743 --> 00:10:14,814 The two of them are going to be monitoring your questions that are coming in, 119 00:10:14,814 --> 00:10:20,019 and then they will be asking the questions on your behalf after the presentation. 120 00:10:20,953 --> 00:10:27,126 You do know that sometimes we don't have a lot of time for Q&A, but if you have a question specifically for 121 00:10:27,126 --> 00:10:34,033 whichever speaker has just given their presentation, still put it in the app, because even if we don't get the question 122 00:10:34,033 --> 00:10:40,473 asked here today or tomorrow, we will be sending those questions to the speakers via email, 123 00:10:40,473 --> 00:10:45,344 and they will hopefully get back to you that way. So, pretty excited about that. 124 00:10:46,312 --> 00:10:52,351 Another thing about the HUVA app and when you're posting a question, you can see what other questions are coming up. 125 00:10:52,585 --> 00:10:57,790 If you find that one of those questions that someone else has asked is either similar to your question, 126 00:10:57,790 --> 00:11:04,363 or you just think, hey, that's a great question, why didn't I think of it? It'll give you an opportunity to tap on the thumbs up, 127 00:11:04,363 --> 00:11:11,971 and what happens then is those questions, the more thumbs up, the more likes they get, the farther up the ladder those questions go, 128 00:11:12,338 --> 00:11:16,475 and those are the questions that are most likely going to be the ones that are asked. 129 00:11:17,143 --> 00:11:26,385 So, does that make sense to everyone? Okay. Okay. Couple more things. I want to thank our sponsors. 130 00:11:27,286 --> 00:11:32,591 Some of you might have already gotten a chance to go over to Sieck Hall right across the sidewalk or the street, 131 00:11:32,591 --> 00:11:41,333 and that's where we're also having all-day coffee, and there's also decaf coffee and tea bags and hot water, 132 00:11:41,567 --> 00:11:51,143 but all of our sponsors have tables in that room, and they love to talk with you, answer your questions about their specific organizations. 133 00:11:52,078 --> 00:12:00,586 Our biggest sponsor this year is Concordia St. Paul, which is, they have from the very beginning just been a great partner. 134 00:12:00,586 --> 00:12:08,894 Many of their faculty have spoken at these Multi-Ethnic Symposia, but today you already know, for those of you that went to chapel, 135 00:12:09,495 --> 00:12:16,569 that Dr. Samuel Deressa, who has been a presenter multiple times for us, he did the homily in chapel this morning. 136 00:12:16,802 --> 00:12:22,141 He is also going to be a part of the roundtable discussion tomorrow afternoon with a couple other pastors, 137 00:12:22,408 --> 00:12:27,847 but right now I've asked Samuel to come up and just give greeting from Concordia St. Paul. 138 00:12:27,847 --> 00:12:37,289 Oh, and sorry, Samuel is the Associate Professor of Theology and the Global South and the Director of the DCO Program, 139 00:12:37,289 --> 00:12:40,326 and he has been at Concordia St. Paul since 2016. 140 00:12:50,903 --> 00:13:02,148 Well, greetings again. So I'm thrilled that Concordia University St. Paul has been invited to partner with Concordia Seminary 141 00:13:02,148 --> 00:13:13,225 here in St. Louis again on this multi-ethnic symposium, and CSP has been sponsoring the Multi-Ethnic Symposium for many years now, 142 00:13:13,225 --> 00:13:24,970 and we want to convey our tremendous support for this symposium and the work that Concordia St. Louis does in carrying out the mission of the church. 143 00:13:26,238 --> 00:13:36,115 And this morning I bring you greetings on behalf of President Brian Friedrich and the Vice President, Reverend Dr. Mark Cushman, 144 00:13:36,115 --> 00:13:48,828 and the entire CSP family. And as some of you might know, Concordia University is a dynamic and a multi-ethnic and exciting place to live and work, 145 00:13:48,828 --> 00:14:00,840 and God's redeeming and saving love shown to all in Christ and His resurrection is what empowers us to work and live in that context. 146 00:14:02,474 --> 00:14:15,287 And God has brought nations to the Twin Cities, and we are serving over 7,000 students and international students coming from more than 20 different nations and nationalities. 147 00:14:15,287 --> 00:14:27,199 And this year alone we've got over 800 students only from India. And by assenting the Christ-centered purpose of Concordia University St. Paul, 148 00:14:27,900 --> 00:14:41,146 we seek to create a welcoming, relational, and academic context for learning so that all students discover and engage their purpose for life, care, and service to our Lord. 149 00:14:42,147 --> 00:14:58,163 And Concordia University St. Paul is very committed to serving the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, and especially assisting with recruiting and preparing students for the churchwork program. 150 00:14:58,564 --> 00:15:10,376 And we have an excellent curriculum and also great professors in our department who are really committed in making a difference in our church and our world. 151 00:15:10,376 --> 00:15:24,156 And CSP's churchwork tuition guarantee ensures eligible students enrolled in the churchwork program to only pay $6,000 a year in academic year. 152 00:15:24,790 --> 00:15:34,934 And this includes Lutheran classroom teachers, Director of Christian education, Director of Christian outreach, and Director of Parish Music. 153 00:15:34,934 --> 00:15:45,945 And the churchwork pre-seminary tuition guarantee now allows all pre-seminary students to attend CSP tuition free, 154 00:15:46,545 --> 00:15:55,154 thanks to the donors that are willing to serve our church through their donation. 155 00:15:55,154 --> 00:16:12,838 And this holds CSP's emphasis on our ongoing commitment to pre-seminary and pastoral students and recruiting them to the seminary and for them to serve in the larger church. 156 00:16:13,672 --> 00:16:23,349 And it's our prayer that this Multi-Ethnic Symposium would bring blessing for us all who are attending here and for the larger church as well. 157 00:16:23,349 --> 00:16:25,451 So, thank you and thank you. 158 00:16:32,691 --> 00:16:47,206 All right. And now I wanted to introduce a man who probably doesn't need introductions, but my friend, Dr. Ely Prieto, who besides being my friend is also the chairman of our Multi-Ethnic Symposium committee. 159 00:16:48,307 --> 00:16:55,314 He is also the associate dean of urban and cross-cultural ministries. And I suppose I can say this one, right? 160 00:16:56,115 --> 00:17:06,125 And also now the Director of the Center for Hispanic Studies. You know he's got big shoes to fill with our own Leo Sanchez being the director for years. 161 00:17:06,625 --> 00:17:13,165 You'll hear from him later today for the annual Hispanic lecture. But my friend, Ely Prieto. 162 00:17:13,165 --> 00:17:14,299 Thank you.