# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1941_S146
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

144 Elementary Education

- Instruction for Confirmation

Confirmation occupies a strategic position in our educational
set-up. Intensive instruction, combined with tender and earnest
pastoral endeavor over a considerable period of time, is largely
the reason that we have a stable church-membership. Careful
instruction preceding confirmation is so fundamental that it cannot
be too strongly emphasized. Actual cases have come to the
attention of your Board which give evidence that some congrega-
tions are satisfied with too low a standard of indoctrination with
respect to instruction for confirmation. At the instance of President .
Behnken an investigation was made by means of a questionnaire,
and the President committed the problem of instruction for con-
firmation to the Board of Christian Education as a phase of the
educational work of Synod which properly falls within the province
of the Board. The Board is now dealing with the problem. At this
time we can only repeat what has been said again and again at
local conferences, that pastors should continue the practice of
keeping all children who do not attend the parochial school in
instruction classes at least two years and that about 100 class-hours
of instruction should be given per annum. The more we consider
the problem of preparing children for confirmation, the more we
are impressed with the necessity of extending our parochial-school
system; and this must be more than wishful thinking. Since, how-
ever, less than one third of our children of school age have access
to a parochial school, since the success of catechetical instruction
prior to confirmation depends upon the religious background of the
confirmands, and since the Sunday-school cannot possibly furnish
the rich background that is necessary for intensive instruction, all
children not enrolled in a parochial school should attend one or
more of these part-time agencies — Saturday-school, summer-
school, week-day religious instruction. Unless more time is devoted
to elementary Christian education in such cases, we shall have a
poorly indoctrinated laity, not to speak of the spiritual retardation
of the individual and the possible danger to his soul in a world
that is becoming increasingly irreligious.

The Home

The home plays a fundamental part in the instruction and
training of children. The success of the Church’s educational
endeavors depends in no small measure upon the proper functioning
of the home. For this reason the Church has always tried to make
parents more deeply conscious of the sacred privileges and the
great responsibilities which the Lord has entrusted to them. Synod
should give parents all the help possible, so that they will be able
to cooperate intelligently in training the young for the Christian