# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_1969_S361 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) PARISH EDUCATION AND SERVICES 361 many are wondering whether present educational forms are adequate to the task. Wrestling with the heavy cost of education, educators are often at a loss where to find the necessary financial resources to do a satisfactory job. The increased availability of state and federal funds is a well-known fact. Whether this trend is beneficial to the educational process is still in debate. What is not so generally known is that certain in- novative programs are challenging the very heart of educational structure, as it has come down from the past. To illustrate, one school in Pittsburgh, Pa., is us- ing “Individual Prescribed Instruction” to permit each student to advance at a pace that suits his ability. Commenting on new programs, a noted educator said: “Even the public, long resistant to progressive educa- tion and suspicious of change, now demands panaceas for what are widely believed to be the schools’ failures.” Given this climate of ferment and debate, it is not surprising that similar questions are being raised about Christian education. With cultural and ecclesiastical survival needs minimized, people are wondering whether our educational forms aren’t in need of extensive over- haul. In a society which has matured into a viable sys- tem of pluralistic institutions, many are asking whether the support of our schools should not properly become a community responsibility. Questions like this are not easy to answer. However, it would not befit the responsive and responsible im- pulses of the church to ignore them. It is clearly the church’s duty to come to grips with and work through the basic questions of Christian education to the best of its ability. An investigation of this magnitude should not take place in a vacuum. Instead it should be set into an ap- propriate conceptual framework. This framework, like many structures, needs to be viewed from various per- spectives. These perspectives may be called premises. Five such premises are: theological. ecclesiastical, cul- tural, educational, and practical. The theological premise is that Christian education, instead of being optional, is a divine necessity and that the congregation or church body which neglects provid- ing the best possible program of Christian education is derelict in its obligation to the Lord of the church. The ecclesiastical premise recognizes both history and contemporary patterns. Historically, the Synod has unequivocally supported Christian education as a major function of the church and has specifically mentioned the Christian day school, the Sunday school, and other educational forms in its Constitution and Articles of Incorporation. In contemporary times (Detroit con- vention) the Synod has reaffirmed the broader, dynamic dimensions of the Christian educational task in its Mis- sion Affirmations of 1965. Both past and present are im- portant as an ecclesiastical context for the patterns of the future. The cultural premise is that the people of God in the church are at the same time people who belong to the human social order. As such they enjoy the benefits of the institutional patterns which each society develops to give order to the intricate task of supplying its citi- zens’ basic needs. At the same time they benefit from the perpetual process of social change by which old forms are adjusted to new needs. In the space age the rate of change has been highly accelerated. The cul- tural premise includes the notion that the church must respond to this new phenomenon of rapid change in its programs of Christian education. The educational premise is that Christian education, like all education, must strive for excellence and quality in its personnel, program, and facilities. The practical premise is that the church is not a theoretical entity but a living body consisting of many individual congregations and many individual Chris- tians. It is necessary, therefore, that the program of Christian education be workable, applicable, and im- plementable “by the people,” “where the people are,” and “where the need is.” It should provide an educa- tional ministry to fit the general needs of congregations. But it should also offer solid educational programs for special needs such as, for example, the inner city and the foreign field. Having a strong sense of the urgency of this matter, the undersigned urge the Synod to initiate a compre- hensive study of necessary forms and available re- sources to meet the Christian educational needs of our time and to shape a design which will prepare the church to meet the educational challenge of the future. Without meaning to be presumptuous we offer the fol- lowing as a tentative and incomplete list of areas that need study: 1. The growing support of private education from the public sector. 2. The changing image of the Christian day school, from the view of the church and from the view of the general public. 3. The types of nonprivate financial support that may or may not be available to Christian day schools in the future. 4. Trends in state-adopted programs of tuition grant aid made available equally to private and public school students. 5. Findings of national study groups (like the Car- negie Commission headed by Clark Kerr) with refer- ence to public and private educational trends in the future of America. 6. New directions in student recruitment for Chris- tian educational programs (implementing concepts in “Mission Affirmations”) and new needs in preprimary, youth, and adult education. 7. New focus on making the Christian day school a laboratory for Christian living in the community. 8. New emphasis on pioneer educational work, spon- sored jointly by congregations, districts, and the Synod. 9. The greater potential efficiencies achieved by con- solidation of schools and central administration by area. 10. The growing costs of education and new sources of support.