# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_1998_S34 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) OO SSSSSIEISSSSSS?'SSuéS = 34 SYNODICAL REPORTS We also seek to serve the church through partnerships. In the Past three years we have collaborated on numerous projects with the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League, Lutheran Hour Min- istries, Lutheran Family Association, Aid Association for Luther- ans. Lutheran Brotherhood, LCMS Missions, our Synod’s Com- mission on Worship, and the various departments of the Board for Congregational Services, to name but a few. Each of these partner- ships enabled us to hone in ona particular need or an Opportunity to be of service. _ A big part of serving well our congregations is keeping prices as low as possible while maintaining quality and being innovative in design. Each employee at CPH works hard at minimizing expense so that each church always receives the best value for its dollar. CPH Mission Focus: Our Products We develop Gospel resources faithful to our Lutheran heritage. CPH maintains this focus by concentrating on its areas of excel- lence: 1. The Christian Education Specialist. (This is our primary identity as we move into the 21st century.) 2. Premier provider of worship resources and church support/ services. 3. Provider of scholarly resources and multiethnic resources. This is how these areas of excellence have “blossomed” in the 1996-98 triennium. The Christian Education Specialist The last three years have seen an explosion at CPH in the area of family and children’s resources. We've developed a fine cata- log of children’s picture books, more entries in the ever-popular Arch Book series, activity books for the young child, helps on fam- ily and parenting, devotions for family life, and spiritual resources for youth. Speaking of family Ministry, our newest “baby” is the quarterly newspaper FamilyTalk. Each issue contains articles on moral de- velopment and faith talk. This quarterly can be purchased by churches in bulk for distribution to their members and their com- munity, Last year, 1997, saw the introduction of a brand new Sunday school curriculum, We kept the fine name—Our Life in Christ— but there are many improvements. One change is the introduction of an adult level through which parents and grandparents can also study the same Bible story the children are hearing about in their classes. This has proven to be a 200d tool for stimulating faith talk in the home (where most faith transmittal still happens) and for evangelism. Another important way of doing neighborhood evangelism and education at the same time is vacation Bible school. Each summer CPH publishes a new, creative, and flexible VBS. Today’s Light is our new and distinctively Lutheran two-year walk through the Bible. A very fine study for groups and individu- als. As another part of the Synodical emphasis to “be in the Word” CPH has developed several new Bible Studies, including special courses for family, men, women, and young adults, along with our popular Church Year series and the Bible Impact and Bible Insights series for youth. We have several resources to assist churches as they work to Strengthen marriage and parenting skills. The latest of these is the video course The Power of We. This is but a sampling of some of the resources for church, school, and home developed in the last three years that strengthen CPH'’s position as the Christian Education Specialist. (To this end, we've also added deployed Christian Education Specialists. See de- scription below under “Service.”) Premier Provider of Worship Resources and Church Support/Services CrossTalk premiered in 1996. This quarterly packet of “fresh ideas and lively conversation” combines a newsletter, cassette in- terviews “from the field,” and reproducibles for discerning pastors, DCEs, teachers, and others. Homiletical resources have increased recently. Building on the popularity of our quarterly publication, Concordia Pulpit Re- sources, CPH has issued a number of books on preaching, includ- ing Narrative Preaching by David Mulder and two sets of sermons for special occasions by the recently sainted Don Deffner. We've also released a steady stream of books for the church professional. Most widely heralded have been the recent booklet Becoming Money Wise: Biblical and Practical Principles Encour- aging Faithful Management of God’s Money and Tom Rogers’ Life in the Fishbowl, along with collections of children’s sermons, new ideas in youth ministry, the training of volunteer teachers and the like. Our music and worship department has sustained an ambitious publishing plan of sheet music for all kinds (and sizes) of choirs, organists and keyboardists, and handbell groups. In addition sev- eral new types of products have been developed: * A new line of piano music suitable for use in Lutheran churches, * A Hymnal Companion for Winds (arrangements of hymns for band instruments) ° Every Voice a Song—pipe organ accompaniment for 180 hymns and Divine Service II on audio CD. Intended for use in small congregations, classrooms, and homes. “Symphony of Hymns”—MIDI computer files which can be uti- lized to accompany congregational singing with a full comple- ment of keyboard and orchestral sounds. * W3—Word Witness Worship— is a unique expanding CD-ROM subscription of resources for the practicing pastor. Helpful in de- veloping sermons, service folders, class outlines, and more. A li- brary resource that harnesses an enormous collection of profes- sional resources: biblical, homiletical, scholarly, interpretative, theological, and linguistic. Provider of Scholarly Resources and Multiethnic Resources CPH continues to publish important scholarly theological works as well by focusing on several fronts. The Concordia Commentary series was launched to critical ac- claim in 1997 with its first two volumes (on Luke). The purpose of this series is to enable pastors, missionaries, and teachers of the Scriptures to convey God’s Word with greater clarity, understand- ing, and faithfulness to the divine intent of the original message. It could well be argued that this series will be the most significant contribution from our period of publishing. The Concordia Scholarship Today series released several im- Portant works within the last triennium. Among these are The Fab- ricated Luther: The Rise and Fall of the Shirer Myth, God’s Song in a New Land: Lutheran Hyninals in America, Testing the Bound- aries: Windows to Lutheran Identity, and Martin Luther: Learning Sor Life: Our Concordia Academic Press efforts are headed by two sepa- rate “teams.” The Seminary group has recently released its initial offerings—Justification and Rome by Robert Preus; The “I” in the Storm: A Study of Romans 7 by Michael Paul Middendorf; and When God Becomes My Enemy: The Theology of the Complaint Psalms by Ingvar Floysvik. The University group will begin re- leasing publications later this year. The CPH “Classic” reprints will be a way of providing historic works in limited print runs utilizing the latest technology. Our Multiethnic Resources Department has been very busy as well, listening and developing toward the needs of various and di- verse ministry settings. These are some of their efforts during 1996-98: * Luther's Small Catechism in Spanish * Luther’s Small Catechism in Vietnamese * Four Occasional Liturgies in Spanish * Kurth’s Carechetical Helps in Chinese * My Stories about Jesus (a book for young children) in Chinese ° Follow Me/Sigueme (a confirmation booklet) * A manual for first Communion in Hispanic Lutheran churches * Bible studies on Genesis and Isaiah in Spanish * Portals of Prayer in Spanish * Teologia y Mision en America Latina (theological work)