# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_1981_S372
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

OTHER REPORTS 371

College and University Services

Support services provided by the division to Lutheran
colleges and universities included these dimensions:

—Continuing to be the “eyes and ears” of Lutheran higher
education in Washington, D.C., especially monitoring
legislation regarding tuition tax credits and student aid
appropriations and analyzing pertinent judicial
developments;

—Beginning an expansion of consultative services in legal
matters affecting higher education, which has been
necessitated by a changing legal environment in Wash-
ington challenging independent and church-related
higher education;

—Planning and directing the 1979 and 1980 annual meet-
ings of LECNA, publishing the “Papers and Proceedings”
resulting from those meetings, and staffing the task force
on LECNA objectives, its curriculum consultation project,
and its public policy advisory committee;

—Coordinating all aspects of the annual series of Lutheran
College Days/Nights held in 14 centers throughout the
country, which provide recruitment opportunities for
Lutheran college admissions offices and highlight the
scope and quality of Lutheran higher education.

Theological Education

Support services provided by the division in the area of
theological education centered on arranging annual confer-
ences of Lutheran seminary presidents and deans and of
directors of field education-internship; coordinating in 60
clusters approximately 600 interns and their supervisors from
11 seminaries for discussion and educational programs related
to parish ministry; and taking such surveys as the number of
Lutherans studying at non-Lutheran seminaries. The 42 at
Yale University Divinity School in 1979—80 comprised the
largest such group.

The findings of a division-initiated study of what Lutherans
look for in their pastors were published in 1979 in a 256-page
paperback, Ten Faces of Ministry. The primary “face,” the
research found, is that pastors be “‘persons of faith, unquestion-
ably Christians for whom Jesus Christ is both Savior and

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Division of Mission and Ministry

The basic bylaw mandate for the Division of Mission and
Ministry states that it is “to assist the participating church
bodies by providing means for furthering cooperation in study,
planning and program development in their mission activities
and in their activites addressed to the social needs of individ-
uals and groups.” This mandate is carried out by the programs
described in the sections which follow.

National Mission Planning

National mission planning concerns during 1979—80,
considered in liaison with the church body mission executives,
centered on:

—Asian-American ministry, which was the subject of
several planning sessions aimed at spelling out the
coordination of and strategy for such ministry, particu-
larly on the west coast;

—Farm worker ministry, has expanded from California
to Texas, Florida, and several states in the Midwest
and has sought to help immigrant and seasonal farm
laborers overcome powerlessness and to achieve just
working conditions, self-determination and community
acceptance;

—Rural ministries, which include nearly half of all Luther-
an congregations in the U.S., with their complexities and
future examined in a paper, “Rural America in 1980,”
circulated widely among church and governmental
leaders;

—Ministry to apartment residents, which as promoted by
the Inter-Lutheran Apartment Ministry Task Force has
sought to encourage and enable local congregations to
engage in evangelistic and service outreach to such
residents;

—Environmental action ministry, which is carried out
through Lutheran participation in groups affiliated with

Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon and the Northern Cali-
fornia Ecumenical Council;

—The multifaceted work of the Joint Strategy and Action
Committee, a national ecumenical agency to which the
LCMS Board of Social Ministry and World Relief, the
ALC’s Division for Service and Mission in America, and
the LCA’s Division for Mission in North America relate
through the division and of which DMM executive
director Donald H. Larsen was president for a two-year
term ending in January 1980.

Regional Mission Planning

Changes in the guidelines followed by the 21 regional
planning consultations which meet each spring and fall were
put into effect in 1979. The changes indicate how to deal with
congregationally initiated ministries and other developments
in this forum for Lutherans to share plans for church extension
and social, campus, and ethnic ministries and to carry them
out.

A consideration of the theology of mission was included on
the agenda of most recent consultations. Other special subjects
discussed were efforts to establish tax limitations, the impact
of the 1980 census, principles in the undocumented aliens issue,
how a congregation can deal with racism, and historical
aspects of the Lutheran Confessions.

Out of the Region 2 planning consultation emerged a
cooperative Lutheran ministry related to the 1980 Olympic
Winter Games in Lake Placid, N.Y. Coordinating Pastor Karl
Cron and a 10-member staff were involved in an intensive
effort to meet the spiritual and humanitarian needs of the
thousands of participants and spectators. The Aid Association
for Lutherans helped with the funding.

The Region 5 consultation’s interest in helping the poor in
15 rural counties in south-central Alabama has led to the
formation of an Alabama Rural Council, representing 25
institutions in the area. In January 1979 JSAC held a two-day
conference in Alabama so that leaders of nine other denomina-
tions could study this model for possible duplication elsewhere.

Social Ministry Planning

This program has developed during the biennium as

follows:

—Theimplications and effects of California’s Proposition 13
on human services and related trends in other locales
were studied. The resulting report stated that “complicity
is the trademark of the tax revolt. The symbolic issue with
all its facets is like a large domino game. Each action or
interaction has serious implications elsewhere. Budget
reductions cause cuts in staff, which causes increased
caseloads, which in turn cause reduction in services,
leading to inadequate response during a crisis... . Does
anyone know, can anyone believe, that it often costs more
to ruin a life than to nurture it?”

—A consultation on “Women: Work and Vocation” was
convened in June 1979. Its participants proposed a major
study on the role of women in the church, a national
assembly and training workshop on women’s issues,
creation of a full-time women’s unit within the division,
and nine other actions, most of which were to be scrutin-
ized by church body leaders regarding “merit, effective-
ness, and financing.”

—A consultation on ministry with mentally retarded
persons was convened in September 1979, and the Inter-
Lutheran Committee on the Sensory Impaired held a
regular meeting that same month. The outcome was a
common plan to dissolve the committee and create a new
Commission on Ministry with Persons with Handicaps.
Its first business has been to promote Lutheran partici-
pation in the International Year of Disabled Persons
being observed in 1981.

—The Lutheran Domestic Disaster Response Board, which
is staffed by this unit, has developed a 12-member team of
resource persons to coordinate church efforts in meeting
needs created by disasters; has given financial grants to
such communities as Rochester, Minn., and Manson,
Iowa, in the aftermath of floods and tornadoes; during
1979—81 is holding a a series of ‘‘disaster preparedness”
workshops aimed at teaching congregations how to