# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_1969_S337
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

7. PARISH EDUCATION AND SERVICES

(7-01)
Report of Board of Parish Education

The report of the Board of Parish Education is di-
vided into three sections and is outlined as follows:

I. Educational Mission Strategies for Our Church in the 70s
A. To Get the Picture
B. Educational Issues Facing the Synod
C. Some Evident Needs and Opportunities
D. Recommendations to the Synod: 1—5

II. Support for Educational Programs in the '70s
A. Board and Staff Reorganization for Renewal
B. New Designs and Materials for Learning

1. New Coordinated Curriculum in Process of De-
velopment

New Instructional Materials Produced During the
Biennium
Publications in Special Areas

Exploring Curriculum Projects with The American
Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church in
America

C. Departmental
Division
1. Lutheran Elementary and Secondary Schools

2. Part-Time Agencies: Sunday School, Vacation
Bible School, Weekday

Youth
. Adult Education
. Family Life Education
pecial Assignments and Activities
. Parish Renewal Through Education
Confirmation Study Project
. State and Federal Aid for Nonpublic Schools
. Lutheran Education Association
. Urban Education
6. Research in Christian Education
E. Recommendation to the Synod: 6

2.
3.
4.

Reports from the Field Services

o
AkRWONnNeE Hn sw

III. Conclusion

I. EDUCATIONAL MISSION STRATEGIES FOR
OUR CHURCH IN THE ’70S

A. To Get the Picture

At its 1965 convention in Detroit The Lutheran
Church-— Missouri Synod adopted a series of Mission
Affirmations. These statements called for an expansion
of our understanding of the mission of the church. They
affirmed that the church's mission is God’s mission and
that the whole church is God’s mission to His church
and to the whole world and to man’s whole self and
society.

Two years later, at the Synod’s New York conven-
tion, the Board of Parish Education called attention to
a variety of contemporary forces that in many respects
adversely affect the church and its work. The report
emphasized the need for parish renewal through educa-
tion in order to meet present-day threats to the church.
It also pointed out the necessity of equipping the saints
(all the members of Christ’s body) to enable them to
carry out God’s mission to His church and world.

In response to a statement on the kind of parish edu-

337

cation that is essential to the spiritual strength of the
church and the fulfillment of her true nature and pur-
pose, the Synod adopted a “Call to Action.” It asked
each of its congregations “to make a searching exami-
nation of the nature, scope, and effectiveness of its
educational program.”

The Synod also instructed the Board of Parish Educa-
tion to develop documents that would help congregations
to study their parish programs. At the same time Dis-
trict Boards of Education were asked to guide their
congregations through the study and improvement pro-
cess. The hope was that a reformation in parish educa-
tion would lead to congregational renewal and would
move congregations forward in their mission for Christ
on the front lines.

In accordance with the 1967 resolution the Board of
Parish Education developed a set of field-tested instru-
ments for a ‘“‘Parish Renewal Through Education’”’ study
program in the local parish. The materials were intro-
duced to circuit and congregational leaders in parish
education through District and circuit meetings ar-
ranged by most District Boards of Parish Education. It
remains for every local congregation to make for itself
the searching examination and the decisions vital to its
own reformation.

Some fundamental issues presented in the following
section underscore the life-or-death necessity for such
decisions on the parish level. The crucial nature of these
questions is apparent in the light of these needs:

1) the human need of faith in Christ;

2) the need to be alive in Christ in order to live the
mind and spirit of Christ;

3) the need to receive the Spirit of God for such life;
and

4) the need to hear and learn the Word of God be-
cause it is the means by which the Spirit of God
works such life in His church and world.

B. Educational Issues Facing the Synod

1. Is the Church Willing to Be a Peripheral Institution?

The church of today is under fire—from within its
membership as much as by the modern secularist, if not
more so. The latter tends simply to ignore the church.
The charge is that the church, more often than not, is out
of touch, out of step, and out of order—irrelevant in
a very much alive world. None of us wants the church
to deal only with baptisms and burials and with per-
functory services. How then can God’s people be led to
relate all of life to Christ and His way of life? We say and
believe that the Gospel is central to the whole of life.

2. How Essential Is Christian Education?
Most of us readily acknowledge that Christian educa-
tion is essential to the church —its life and mission. Not

all, however, would agree that education is the funda-
mental means and process of the church in mission. And