LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1981, Sheet 378

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OTHER REPORTS 369

—Variety of devotions, skits, and presentations

—Lutheran Woman’s Quarterly—300,000 copies circulated
each issue

—Newsletters issued by Christian Growth, Mission Service,
Manuscript Review, and Christian Leadership Training
Committees

—JOY cards for special occasion gifts to mission goal

—Membership kit for individuals and societies

—Postcards with LWML artwork and message

—Multipurpose informational file folder

The headquarters office in St. Louis maintains a loan
library of materials for retreats, seminars, programs and other
uses as well as Quarterly circulation records.

KFUO continues to give the LWML 25 minutes each month
with public relations director as moderator of the program.
These have included interviews with officers, mission-projects
update, talks with Canadian district presidents, presentation
of inspirational program involving Southern Illinois District
leaguers, and interviews with missionaries.

Highlight of 1980 was a series of seminars conducted in 42
districts (the English District participated geographically).
“You Are God’s Gift” was the theme and affirmed the indivi-
dual as God’s gift to self, church, and community. More than
7,000 members attended. A grant for publication of the seminar
manual was received from the Aid Association for Lutherans.

Mission Projects chosen at the 1979 convention are:

Navajo Evangelical Lutheran Mission, Navajo, N. Mex. .... $60,000
Concordia College, Milwaukee—lay ministry program ...... 25,000
Concordia College, Edmonton, Alta.—chapel furnishings ... 35,000
Christ Lutheran Church, Montreal—French ministry ....... 15,000
Christ the King Lutheran Mission, Sao Paulo, Brazil ....... 42,000
Concordia Middle School, Taiwan—kindergarten, vocational 45,000
Concordia College, Austin, Tex.—Hispanic lay workers ..... 50,000
Hispanic lay ministry program, Brooklyn—

four congregations ............... 0000s cece cece cece ees 25,000
St. Paul Lutheran Church, Cleveland, Ohio—Black worker

ANG VAN 2... ence e nee e een eens 25,000
Lutheran Church of St. Philip, Chattanooga, Tenn.—

full-time church worker ................0 0000 c cece eeeeee 25,000
Lutheran Church, Hong Kong Synod—Martha Boss Center 50,000
Ongoing Ambassadors for Christ—vans, equipment ........ 25,000
Concordia College, Seward, Nebr.—Micronesian student

PFORKTAM .....0. 6c nees 28,000

The total mission goal for the international league was
$615,000. This is 25% of the mite offerings received by districts.
In addition, $75,000 of a $100,000 commitment has been
contributed to the disaster fund of World Relief and $25,000 for
refurbishing the Mission House, St. Louis. The 1979 Bequest
Fund of $6,316 was designated for airmailing the Reporter and
Lutheran Witness to expatriate missionaries throughout the
world.

Conscious of its need to involve the younger woman, the
LWML was present at the 1980 youth gathering in Fort Collins,
Colo., to present “Let’s Make a Deal” at the learning center and
exhibit. Presentations, exhibits, and greetings were extended
at a number of conventions or convocations of other agencies,
organizations and synodical schools.

Annually there is representation at the Lutheran Women’s
Cooperating Committee meeting. Current materials of each
participating auxiliary (American Lutheran Church Women
and Lutheran Church Women) are reviewed and information,
ideas, and plans are exchanged and shared.

For the first time in its history the 64-member Board of
Directors met in a location other than St. Louis. Milwaukee,
Wis., is the scene of the 1981 convention, so the board held its
last two annual meetings there. Elected officers, standing
committee chairmen, appointed officers and district presidents
compose the board, which directs the program of the league.
Between board meetings the 10-member Executive Committee
administers the league’s business. Ten meetings were held this
biennium.

The present membership is estimated at approximately
200,000 in 43 districts, 39 in the United States and 4 in Canada.
Society units are also located in Hawaii and Alaska. Between
July 1979 and March 1981, 102 societies were added to the rolls.

The Lutheran Women’s Missionary League appreciates the
support and cooperation of President Preus and other synodical
officials in the joint effort to serve God and His people. We are
grateful our Lord has blessed our efforts, and we pray His Holy

Spirit continues to be with the league in its three-fold mission of
education, inspiration, and service.

Helen Gienapp, President

X-03
Lutheran Council in the U.S.A.

For the Lutheran Council in the USA the year 1979 marked
the retirement of its second general secretary, George F.
Harkins, in office since October 1974, and the election and
installation of his successor, John R. Houck, former director of
The American Lutheran Church’s Division for Service and
Mission in America.

The valedictory of Harkins to the council’s 13th annual
meeting in May included these remarks: “I see for the councila
bright future. Lutheran cooperation in the United States goes
back to the first world war, and it has increased at a rather
steady rate ever since. ... All of the present participating
churches, I believe, are committed to the elimination of undue
duplication of effort and of costs; beyond that, though, it seems
to me that the need to present a united Lutheran witness in
communities and before the world, wherever and whenever
that can be done without violating doctrine or principle, has
been deepening and has placed upon all of us a heavy burden to
justify separate and unrelated activities.”

In his installation address in November, Houck stressed the
importance of moving “beyond grudging cooperation, forced
by the exigencies of war or economic depression, or...rampant
inflation.” He urged that proposals for ‘‘new forms of coopera-
tion, coordination, consolidation” be evaluated ‘‘less by
necessity and more by concern about the whole mission of the
church, even if our own comfortable patterns of doing the
Lord’s work seem to be threatened.”

During 1979—80 the Lutheran Council’s offices, divisions,
and departments carried out their assigned portion of “the
whole mission of the church” as indicated in the following
paragraphs.

Office of Research, Planning and Development

At a special meeting of the council convened in February
1980 by means of a conference telephone call, the church body
representatives voted to eliminate the Office of Research,
Planning, and Development; to assign its planning and
research dimensions to a new position, “Assistant to the
General Secretary for Planning,” which was assumed by Paul
Goetting, former training director at the Center for Parish
Development, Naperville, Ill; and to place the responsibilities
of the office for maintaining the library, reference files, central
records, and archives of the council and providing a general
information service on U.S.A. Lutheranism under the super-
vision of a replacement position, “Director, Records and
Information Center.”

The newest dimension of the archival collection—recorded
interviews with persons who have had key roles in inter-
Lutheran work—has grown to 58 memoirs and 5,000 pages of
transcribed material. The leaders interviewed, what they
talked about, and who interviewed them are listed in an oral
history catalog published in the spring of 1980. Meanwhile
work has begun on adding 57 more memoirs. The entire
collection is made possible by grants from the Aid Association
for Lutherans.

Most recent statistics gathered on the size of The Lutheran
Church—Missouri Synod, The American Lutheran Church,
the Lutheran Church in America, and the Association of
Evangelical Lutheran Churches showed that in 1979 these
church bodies had 8,020,939 baptized members in 16,593
congregations. The report rounded out a decade which started
with the churches having 8,494,165 members.

Latest statistics on enrollment in Lutheran schools in
North America showed 3,576 students, including 479 women,
at 21 seminaries, down 2.6 percent from the year before; 59,716
students, of whom 50,216 were studying full time, at 40 colleges
and universities, up about 1 percent; 4,222 students, of whom
3,800 were full time, at 15 junior colleges, up 12 percent; 21,919
students at 84 high schools, up 3 percent; and 218,521 students
at 2,038 grade schools, up 2 percent.

Research done by the office for the church bodies in