# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_1969_S258 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) 258 HIGHER EDUCATION high level. It is not an easy task to keep the offerings attractive and easily available and yet make them worth- while and academically sound. The Synod recognized this dilemma when it resolved at the New York conven- tion that the “responsibility for continuing education for the professional personnel of the church continue to be centered in the educational institutions of the church and that the emphasis be on the academically respectable work with a sound theological core.” The Synod also resolved at New York that “the Council of Presidents encourage continuing education and that congregations be asked to cooperate in de- veloping provisions for regular educational leaves (of varying duration) for all pastors and teachers.” A grat- ifying number of congregations have taken steps to follow this suggestion. More congregations should be urged to do so during the coming biennium. 7. Organize and Use a Consultative Assembly During the long-range planning project of 1964 —67, the Board for Higher Education assembled a group of nationally recognized educators and found their anal- yses and recommendations to be of significant help. The board has regularly convened the college and seminary presidents to solicit their advice and assistance. The various commissions, made up of administrators and faculty members from the schools, meet regularly and make recommendations to the board concerning matters of policy and planning. However, as the scope of the board’s responsibility has broadened, as the challenges and problems faced by the schools and the board have increased in com- plexity, and as more of the members appointed to the board have, of necessity, been specialists in education, the Board for Higher Education has come to feel the need for more opportunities for direct access to the opinions of the various groups of constituents in the church. More opportunity to solicit grass-root reaction has become desirable. As one step toward fulfilling this need, the board plans to organize and use a consultative assembly, The present plan is to include about 25 people in this group. The exact procedure for selecting the individual mem- bers has not been determined as yet. However, the board feels that the assembly should include representa- tion from lay men and women, young people, profes- sional educators, and clergymen. Members of this group will be asked to consult with the board and to offer suggestions for strengthening the ministerial training program of the church. 8. Support Studies Needed for and for Improving the System The Board for Higher Education, realizing the necessity for continuous and rigorous study of the sys- tem, appointed a new commission—the Commission on Research and Planning—following the New York convention. The task of this commission is to assist the board in following up on the completed long-range Decision-Making planning project. In order to implement this assign- ment, the commission has been asked to recommend policies and programs relating to research and planning, to identify areas which require study concerning the system and its future, and to suggest procedures which will help stimulate and coordinate institutional and system research on the various campuses. Two of the major projects now under way in higher education in the Synod include a program for the train- ing of a black diaconate in the Chicago area anda study of the curriculum needs for seminary education in the 1970s. Black Diaconate The Chicago program has been prepared, planned, and developed by the black clergymen and laymen of the area in consultation with the Board for Higher Education and with the assistance of Concordia Teachers College in River Forest. In the project Negro men above college age will be given classroom and on-the-job training as assistants to the pastors who are serving parishes in the black and the changing neighborhoods of Chicago. Ongoing studies and evaluation techniques constitute an integral part of the plan so that the pro- gram itself can be revised as needed and its potential value for use in other communities with similar needs can readily be determined. Ministry in the '70s and ‘80s The seminary curriculum study is being funded by the Aid Association for Lutherans. A full-time director has been employed for one year. The major thrust of the effort will be to develop a seminary curriculum which will better prepare a man for the ministry in the 1970s and 1980s. IN CLOSING It is both regrettable and inevitable that the board’s report to the convention, as well as many of its own deliberations, must be ‘problem centered.” Fortunately, this is not the whole picture. Campus visits, informal and personal conversations with teachers and students, and sessions with recently graduated ministers tend overwhelmingly to represent another motif. It is one of joyful, conscientious, if often unself-conscious, dedication to a high vocation. So it must be with all of us. God’s lavish and ex- travagant goodness permits us no doubts or fears con- cerning His Gospel, nor toward the ministry which mediates it. The future will bring many changes, but the Gospel is everlasting. The church, which is built upon Him who is Himself that Gospel, although beset by many enemies and often discouraged by apparent setbacks and “‘cut- backs,” will also stand. And as long as it does, men will take counsel to- gether to find and share the full meaning of God’s Word to world and church and seek to proclaim it clearly and faithfully.