LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1986, Page 69

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REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT 69

tive. We are on a no-growth plateau, and that is truly sad.
We have not been able to stop the backdoor losses in our
church body, which continue at approximately 50,000
members per year. Our strong confessionalism is chal-
lenged here and there by signs of compromise or change,
as well as the reluctance of some to understand and prac-
tice a conservative and confessional Lutheranism that in-
cludes the Eighth Commandment and the fruits of the
Spirit among the components of orthodoxy and orthopraxy.
Our higher education system is struggling through difficult
times. Enrollments at our seminaries are declining at a
time when we are planning more mission growth than we
have attempted for decades.

God has blessed us with tremendous financial re-
sources, and our people have responded with fine gifts to
serve the Lord. But if the fine gifts of our people for the
Lord’s work (which averaged approximately $325 per com-
municant in 1985) were being spent by us in mission and
ministry at the same distribution ratio that we practiced
in 1975 (when 6 1/2¢ of every dollar given by our people
went for world mission programs, college and seminary
education, and other national efforts as compared to the
4.3¢ out of every dollar for those purposes in 1985) we
would have had nearly $14.5 million more to spend on such
programs last year. While we celebrate and rejoice at the
wonderful ministries being carried on with 87% of every
dollar spent at the local level, and while we strongly sup-
port the outstanding efforts of our districts which have
expanded their mission and ministry opportunities in re-
cent years, the present trendline would appear to be
greatly inhibiting the opportunities of this church body to
meet all the challenges we have as people who are alive
in Christ.

We have other problems that need to be addressed as
well. Some of them are organizational, such as the tend-
ency within our church body to protect our own turf or to
use inappropriate means to achieve preferred solutions.
Perhaps as important as any problem we face is the con-
tinuing breakdown of trust within the Synod as we per-
petuate a Missouri malady of long-standing in focusing on
our faults rather than commending our virtues and above
all allowing charity to cover a multitude of sin. In other
words, as we prepare to assist the work of our dear church
body, let us frankly acknowledge that understanding our
present means both that we recognize the blessings that
abound in our midst and that we address the problems
that impede our mission.

But understanding our present extends to our contem-
porary society. Perhaps one of the greatest impediments
to mission is the sobering fact that many of our members
are unwilling or reluctant to accept or adjust to change.
The present is not the past, nor can it be. The present will
not be the future, nor should we hope that it will. Sober
students of our times, not unlike ancient Heraclitus, re-
mind us that perhaps nothing is as constant in our present
and future as the constancy of change. They remind us
that life today is characterized by organizational patterns
that foster personal growth; that see the role of manage-
ment more in terms of coach, teacher, or mentor, than in
terms of authoritarian direction; that the best people in
our society want ownership, psychic and literal, in their

organizational affiliations; that a networking style of
bringing people together, coupled with entrepreneurship
in creating new products and new markets, is the mark of
complex organizations in our day. Quality is paramount.
Intuition and creativity are challenging the “business
school” philosophy of management. In other words, the
technological society that we have come to know and use
so well is taking on a softer, more person-oriented, more
innovative style of leadership. And these characteristics
affect the institutional church, as well.

Moreover, students of present organizational patterns
in church life also have much to teach us as we seek to
understand our present. They tell us, for example, that our
age is characterized by more religion, but less impact by
churches. They underscore for us the rising expectations
among the world’s poor. They tell us of the “graying” of
America, which means that in just a few years the largest
percentage of citizens will be older adults, and the church
of the future will be multigenerational. The trendlines,
furthermore, emphasize the multicultural character of our
society, or what some have called the “coloring” of America.
By the year 2000, the present Caucasian majority in the
United States will be a minority, with Blacks, Hispanics,
and Asians, in that order, constituting the majority. In-
creasing numbers of immigrants to the United States from
South and Central America, the West Indies, Africa, and
Southeast Asia are already affecting the constituency of
our neighborhoods and nations. A church body serious
about carrying out the Lord’s Great Commission must un-
derstand where the fields white to harvest really are—and
that they are all around us.

Among the more sobering facts of life we learn from the
students of contemporary society and of the organizational
patterns of church life is the fact of declining denomina-
tional loyalty. As one authority noted recently, “The glue
which held parents and grandparents to their denomina-
tions is unsticking. Among children and grandchildren, de-
nominational loyalty continues to decline, resulting in
increased financial pressure on headquarters. The 12 mil-
lion active church members who will change addresses this
year will search first for a church home that is active and
alive, and denominational affiliation for most will be sec-
ondary.” That affects us as well and merits our careful
attention.

We could go on and on reciting, criticizing, or welcoming
the trends of our times. But I refer to some of the more
obvious trends merely to underscore the importance of our
understanding the present, and to encourage you as the
responsible leaders of this church and its forthcoming con-
vention to be aware of them as you frame resolutions for
guidance and counsel to the members of our church body.
It goes without saying that the trends of the times are
always easier to ascertain than whether those trends are
in agreement with God’s purposes for His church as we
know them from Holy Scripture. Trends come and go, and
whether they are good or bad can be determined only when
they are seen and evaluated in the light of God’s Holy
Word. The mission of the church of Jesus Christ does not
change from generation to generation. It remains precisely
what our Lord said it is in His Great Commission: to make
disciples of the nations, baptizing them in the name of the