# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_1969_S402
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

402 CHURCH LITERATURE AND PUBLICATIONS; PUBLIC RELATIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS

of the arts is a must for a church body endowed with
the heritage, power, mercy, and hope given the Synod.
Operation Overlord and Other Stories, by E. Bash, is
a book of nine short stories for personal reading and
group discussion. A. Lehmann’s Christian Art in Africa
and Asia is a premium, one-of-a-kind volume present-
ing 288 illustrations of artistic interpretation of Chris-
tian subject matter. Several modern plays with ancient
overtones are in the works. The Christian and modern
movies and comics are up for assignments.

Manuscripts for printing, subjects for filming, and
scripts for recording come to the Commission on Church
Literature in two ways: (1) by assignment made to
writers, (2) by materials submitted voluntarily to Con-
cordia Publishing House. Examination, evaluation, and
selection is done by one of the 11 subcommittees of
five members each, all appointed by the President of
the Synod.

The Homiletics Committee screens hundreds of ser-
mons before settling on the final content of the annual
Concordia Pulpit. Each volume must be projected at
least 4 years in advance of publication. A Lenten vol-
ume of sermons has been standard for many years.
Now Advent and Epiphany sermons have been pre-
pared too.

The Historical Committee of the commission is now
engaged in readying manuscripts for a Church in His-
tory Series in six paperback volumes that is pointed to
the popular as well as the student level. Profiles in
Lutheranism is another paperback series featuring Lu-
theran Reformation History, Lutheran Theology, Ameri-
can Lutheran History, and Lutheranism and the Life
of the Church.

Preparing audiovisual materials is hazardous. If
a subject is done in the stereotyped romantic format,
half the world laughs at you; if it isn’t, the other half
laughs. The object is to find the impossible mean. In
the past biennium this may have been achieved in the
two lodge filmstrip-records, The Lodge — Confession or
Compromise and Freemasonry. One lodge in one city
wanted to see it. The pastor offered to go to the lodge
and show it. They agreed that the film and story told
it “as they were.” Filmstrip-records on Church Usher-
ing and four Studies in Lutheranism are new and avail-
able.

The Exegesis Committee holds that scholarly exe-
gesis is significant toward the maintenance of true
theology. The same is true of hermeneutics. Interest
in this discipline is comparatively high at present. The
translation of many of the writings of Martin Luther,
under the general title of Luther’s Works, is continuing
on schedule. Five more manuscripts for the Concor-
dia Bible Commentary have been recommended for
printing. Two paperbacks in the Concordia Biblical
Monographs series are on the market. Beck’s trans-
lation of the Old Testament is under consideration.

The Children’s, the Practical-Youth, and the Tract
Committees have opportunities to get current materials
to a wide audience. To meet the needs of a centerless
generation, the Practical-Youth Committee has been

given the green light for a Crossroads Series dealing
with family life. The Christian Encounter Series, al-
ready established with 14 paperbacks, will continue to
attempt to bridge the gap between faith and life. The
Perspective Series zeroes into the hearts and minds and,
it is hoped, the bodies of the youth and their wander-
ings in and around uninhibited relations, the occult,
rebellion, loneliness, anxiety, guilt, and addiction.

The Committee for Devotional Materials has con-
tinued during the past biennium to choose authors and
evaluate their manuscripts for publication in the bi-
monthly Portals of Prayer and Taegliche Andachten.
Clearly these instruments for private and corporate
meditation are meeting the needs of many readers, since
each issue of Portals of Prayer has beyond 1% million
users, and each issue of Taegliche Andachten beyond
25 thousand.

There is an unprecedented demand for new and
creative devotional materials with unique approaches.
The Devotional Committee is presently planning a vol-
ume of prayers in contemporary language. Devotions
and meditations for specific occasions and conditions
are wanted, such as Help, I’m in College, by R. Gesch.
Worship materials on tape in cassettes are now being
tested and may soon be common.

The service of the Concordia Tract Mission is ex-
panding. Concordia Publishing House subsidizes this
good medium. Orders from other church bodies for
thousands of tracts have been filled. Twenty million
Bible pictures with the reverse side blank for a written
Bible or local message have been shipped. Six and a
half million pieces of “used” Sunday school material
in 16,600 packages have been sent to foreign lands.
These do not include the same kinds of materials mailed
by 7,000 individuals and groups under labels supplied
by the Concordia Tract Mission. In addition 6.7 million
tracts were dispatched from Concordia from May 1967
through 1968 to all parts of the world. Would you be-
lieve that in 1967, 115,000 Halloween tracts were handed
out from Christian homes with the treats, and in 1968,
106,000? Now the Tract Committee plans to issue a
tract that will enable children to take advantage of the
millions of doors opened to them on Halloween night.
450,000 Christmas tracts were distributed in 1967, most
of them probably included with Christmas cards; 352,000
in 1968. Thousands of tracts are sent gratis, and the
need for contributions to the Concordia Tract Mission
is great.

No less exciting are the projects of the Children’s
Committee of the Commission. Books coordinated with
tapes is an expanding field. Bible stories told in symbol
drawings also show unusual child interest. S. Russell’s
books, Up Down and All Around, Bible ABC Book, and
Spring Fall and In Between, and M. Warren's The City
That Forgot About Christmas are being read widely.

That the turmoil and rebellion of youth is “phony,”
as MacLeish and others insist, may be readily approved
by practical adults who would just as soon forget the
whole thing, but what about the jousting for recognition
and place in the spectrum of life at all age levels? We