# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S845
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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146 SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES

An attempt at forecasting is never, of course, an attempt
foresee. It is only an effort to estimate the effect of a cause oper=
ating under certain known or assumed conditions. If the ca’
can be correctly identified, and if the conditions under which thé :
cause will operate can be correctly appraised, the effect can be’
predicted with a degree of accuracy limited only by the for

caster’s experience with the three elements of cause, condition,
and effect.

Your Board prepared, actually, a series of three forecasts —
the first in June, 1948; the second in November, 1949; and the
third in February, 1950. Each of the three forecasts is included
in this report. Because the three forecasts differ markedly in their
outcomes, and because, therefore, they may easily lead to con-
fusion in the minds of those who read them, the following ex-
planations are provided in the hope that they will serve to avoid
confusion. ,

1. In the first and in the second forecasts the same basic steps
are involved, namely,

a. An analysis of past growth of communicant membershi;

in the Missouri Synod, in the United States and Canada’

only. 48%
b. A forecast of probable growth in communicant memberé:
- ship in North America from 1950 to 1980. “i

active service in the years from 1950 to 1980, so that the“
estimated increase in communicant membership can be:
achieved. A
d. An estimate of the number of students who should’ be »
graduated from our theological seminaries, so that the
estimated needs for pastors in service can be supplied.

2. The third forecast is a more or less arbitrary compromise
between the first and the second, The first forecast sug=
gests that the number of seminary graduates should be

180 in 1950 to about 370 in 1980. Obviously, the forecasts
are in sharp disagreement. In the third forecast, this dis-
agreement is reconciled.

3. The disagreement between the first and the second fore-
casts results chiefly from differences in the assumptions
which underlie the two forecasts. The following list -of

basic assumptions indicates where the two agree and where
they differ. it