# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_1983_S152
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

152 ADMINISTRATION AND PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION

Report of Board of Managers—
Worker Benefit Plans

The mission of The Lutheran Church —Missouri Synod is to
proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all the world through
word and deed. While there are many avenues by which this
objective can be achieved, the Synod realizes that the best way
of continuing its mission is through people, namely, that
people who have dedicatd their full-time service to mission. It
has been the Synod’s desire to provide programs of assistance
and concern for those employed in full-time service in order to
relieve them, as much as possible, from anxiety about financial
concerns of health care expenses, loss of income because of
disability; future retirement income, and, in the case of death,
continued income for their families. To achieve this aim the
Synod established employee benefit programs and a board, the
Board of Managers—Worker Benefit Plans, to which it
entrusted the ongoing development and administration of the
employee benefit programs.

God has always been concerned about the spiritual and
physical well-being of His people. In Old Testament days God
used the family and tribal arrangement to care for those in
need. New Testament Christians viewed all they had as atrust
from God: they shared what they had with one another by
selling their possessions and giving the proceeds to the church
for distribution to those needing assistance (Acts 2:44-45). A
form of that early Christian principle is followed today through
the Worker Benefit Plans.

The Worker Benefit Plans are group participation plans
rather than individual participation plans. The payments
contributed to the plans are placed into trust funds, and from
those funds benefits are paid, according to the provisions of the
plans, to those members and dependents who have need of
them. An individual congregation, school, or agency, by itself,