# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S123
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

120 SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES

5. Our educational system must have the capacity to accom, 7
modate these students; a

6. Our members and our congregations must be willing
supply the students and to furnish the means to train them,
under adequate standards of educational effectiveness.

If we do not wish to commit ourselves to the achievement
these conditions, we cannot, on the other hand, escape the necesi¥
sity of choosing one of two totally untenable alternatives — either¥
to decide not to do the will of God, or to doubt the promises
God that His Word does bear fruit and that He will be with

in the future as He has been in the past.

As we look to the future, we dare not assume any unwilling 7
ness to extend the preaching of the Gospel, not only in foreign#
lands, but also with unabated zeal in our own land and continent.
Who shall say that the fearful social struggles in which the world
is gripped today are not also a challenge from God to His Churehé
Militant? 4

Quite obviously, the first practical problem to which our ate?
tention must now be turned is the problem of estimating the num ‘
ber of seminary graduates we shall require over, let us say, the
next decades from 1950 to 1980, to furnish us with enough pastors
to do the work which needs to be done. .

To be sure, the work which needs to be done in our own
country alone is almost unlimited. All of it cannot be done by
the Missouri Synod. But God has made it abundantly clear to
us that we can do an increasingly substantial part of the work.
We need, therefore, to estimate as carefully as human limitations:
permit, how much of His work we can and must do in the next
thirty years. Since the chief measurable effect of doing God!
work is increased membership, we can arrive at an index of wha
we need to do by estimating our possible growth in communi t:
membership, at least in North America, over the period from 1950:
to 1980. From such an estimate we may then form a tentati
estimate of all of the other essential factors—the number a
pastors who should be in service, the number of seminary grad*
uates needed, the number of students who should be enrolled itt
our colleges and seminaries, and finally the institutional capaci
which may be required. *

A Thirty-Year Forecast

Your Board undertook the somewhat formidable task of forey
casting the probable growth of our Synod from 1950 to 1980, andj
on the basis of this forecast undertook also to estimate the numy
ber of ministerial graduates which may be needed during "
three decades from 1950 to 1980.