# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S844
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

’ SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES 147

a. Assumptions which are the same in the first and in the
second forecasts:

1) That the Holy Ghost is the one and the only cause of
communicant membership, that there is no other con-
tributing cause whatever, and that He works through
the Word and the Sacraments.

2) That the Word will be preached in the Missouri Synod
in North America with about the same vigor and zeal
from 1950 to 1980 as it was during the past three
decades.

3) That the population in the United States will con-
tinue to increase, but at a declining rate of increase.

4) That the congregations and Districts in North America
will in the future be both willing and able to absorb
the number of pastors necessary to achieve some de-
sirable ratio of communicants per pastor.

b. Assumptions which are not the same in both forecasts:

First Forecast

4 4) That there will not be enough

persons in the United States
from 1950 to 1980 to enable
our Synod to maintain the
rate of growth which it en-
joyed in the past two to
three decades.

That the rate of growth’ in
the Missouri Synod will de-
cline from 1950 to 1980, but
not as rapidly as the decline
in the rate of growth of pop-
ulation.

1)

2)

Second Forecast

That there will be enough
persons in the United States
from 1950 to 1980 to enable
our Synod to maintain the
rate of growth which it en-
joyed in the past two to three
decades.

That the rate of growth of
the Missouri Synod need not
at all decline from 1950 to
1980; but that it can and
should remain the same as it
was in the past two to three
decades.

That an average ratio of 250 3) That an average ratio of 315
communicants per pastor is communicants per pastor
ultimately desirable. (the approximate current

That the Holy Ghost will
operate under significantly
different conditions from
1950 to 1980.

4)

ratio) should be maintained.
That the Holy Ghost will
operate under substantially

_the same conditions from

1950 to 1980.

4 It is these differing assumptions which largely explain the dif-
F fering outcomes of the two forecasts.