# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S165
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES 165

and profound thanksgiving from Synod’s membership to a bounti-
ful God. On the other hand, the fact of growth tends to create the
most difficult and troublesome problems for the very Synod whose
history is so characterized.

The particular direction and impact of synodical growth with
which the Board for Higher Education has been concerned since
1948 is the impact of these varieties of accomplished growth and
the probability of their continuance upon Synod’s needs and
demands for pastors and teachers.

In a growing church it is to be expected that the need for
and demand for pastors and teachers should constantly increase.
Increasing demands for pastors and teachers raise continual prob-
lems of appropriate accommodation of the training system to
increase the worker supply.

Intelligent, effective, and efficient accommodation of our edu-
cational facilities to the impact of growth on the need for pastors
and teachers requires, of course, that growth be anticipated. It is
too late to attempt to bring about responsible and efficient accom-
modation to growth when an awareness of accomplished growth
occurs. The reasons for this are obvious. The total time span
involved in the training of pastors is at least twelve years from the
time of confirmation in early adolescence. The total time span
involved in adequate training of teachers is eight years. The need
for accommodation of facilities to the impact of synodical growth
on the training system, therefore, has to precede the time when
an important increase in pastors and teachers is needed by not less
than twelve years in the one case and about eight years in the
other case. It also takes time effectively to plan the accommo-
dation of our educational and training facilities.

As a result it becomes desirable to attempt to anticipate
increased needs for pastors and teachers by as much as a quarter
of a century if that is possible. In the case of pastors, one can
probably anticipate growth by something like 25 years. In the
case of teachers that has proved so far to be impossible because
of the close relationship which appears to exist between fluctuating
general economic conditions and the synodical birth rate as reflected
in annual child baptisms. Consequently it has not yet been found
possible to anticipate teacher-growth needs by more than about
15 years.

Beginning in June 1948, your Board for Higher Education
undertook the somewhat formidable task of forecasting the prob-
able growth of our Synod from 1950—1980 and on the basis of
this forecast undertook also to estimate the number of pastors
who might be needed during the years from 1950 to 1980, and the
number of men and women teachers needed for these years.