LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1965, Page 23

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PLANNING FOR THE CHURCH’S MISSION 23

the unrepresented SMSAs proceeded at the same rate
as in the previous 20 years, so that of these 219 SMSAs
today 9 remain without any congregation or mission of
our fellowship reported, even though 7 additional
SMSAs have been added by the Census Bureau since
1962 to adjust to most recent growth.

Mission churches in SMSAs are important and will
be increasingly important, but meanwhile what of the
large areas not included in them? (5) The great ma-
jority of our congregations and mission stations have
not been and are not now in SMSAs, although the
majority of our membership is. Some men have begun
to ring the death knell of the small town or country
church, while many of these, it is said, should combine
or merge; it is further advised that others should go
out of existence. A great number of them may have
a new and different combination of functions to serve.
Each of these parishes should study itself to assess for
the future the opportunity presented to serve as a train-
ing and preparation ground for the children and youth
who will spend the critically important formative years
of their lives in these rural settings and then will spend
the rest of their active days as church members in all
likelihood in town and urban parishes and even for
short or long periods of time in other countries.

This special function does not stand alone. The new
leisure and the greater mobility should indicate to
many a well-situated church in town and country that
it ought to design and redesign its program of worship
and other services to meet the needs of individuals and
families who will be leaving their jobs and homes for
extended weekends or other periods of time and who
need and, we hope, will desire, wherever they are, to
participate in the mission and ministry of the Gospel.
This rural use of leisure time will be accelerated by
national planning for greenbelt recreational areas stim-
ulated by the U.S. Department of Interior and by
a growing number of states.

Perhaps you have been reading about new types of
mission strategy and church activity in high-rise apart-
ment buildings, in urban renewal sectors, and in new
suburbia. The pattern of the future is not yet cer-
tain. What is certain is that the needs of the typi-
cal parish for plant and for equipment and for other
physical resources have changed drastically in the past
years and are apt to change more drastically in the
future. In 1940 it was still fashionable to think of find-
ing one large or two fine, well-situated urban lots

(30°x90’ or 60X90’) or %4o acre (6), and to consider
this suitable for the establishment of a new mission or
church. ;

Today (7) the level of expectation has risen to the
point that it is generally held that a congregation
should have a minimum of 5 acres available for the
development of a church unit only, or a minimum of
10 acres for church and school. Our actual experience
now is that 12 acres is the average size required for
new sites for church and school units.

In a world in which land is becoming an increasingly
scarce and therefore costly commodity, what will be

the strategy of expansion in succeeding years? Already
secular authorities are applying increasingly exacting
demands. For example, one zoning code now in effect,
and there are many like it, (8) stipulates for any new
church building this standard:

B. Schools, Institutions and Auditoriums or Other Places
of Assembly

(1) Auditoriums, churches, schools and other institu-
tional establishments. One parking space for each
four (4) seats, or for each eighty (80) inches of
feating space in the main auditorium or assembly

Only the existence of “grandfather clauses” avoids the
expenditure of many more millions of dollars for exist-
ing churches to conform to new requirements such as
these. What of the acquisition of enough land in proper
places far enough in advance of actual use by mission
boards to provide churches for rapidly increasing popu-
lation and to meet the demands for off-street parking
for Christians who prefer to ride in their own automo-
biles to church for worship or other church activity?

The church, we say, is the people of God gath-
ered around Word and sacrament in full and diligent
use. What of the people of God in mission and ministry
under the banner of The Lutheran Church — Missouri
Synod? This chart (9) shows in blue a quarter century
of the growth in baptized and communicant members of
The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod and projects
with the red line recent trends to 1990, the end of the
present planning period. In 1940, which forms the start
of this chart, the baptized membership in the U.S. was
1,300,822, and communicant membership was 890,376.
At the close of last year (1964) the baptized member-
ship had more than doubled to 2,659,814 while the num-
ber of communicants had increased to 1,724,880. The
outer limit of this projection in 1990 raises these totals
respectively to 8,250,000 baptized members and _ 5,300,000
communicants by 1990.

In order to show relative proportions and rate of
increase of the trend projected, a semilogarithmic chart
has been used. The basic projection was prepared in
advance of the 1962 convention by Dr. M. G. Neale and
his co-workers. Since that time we have been able
to fill in actual results which indicate that in the most
recent years a tendency to level off has appeared which
ought to be a serious indication to District mission
boards and to the synodical leadership and to all in-
terested parties. It is also an invitation to well-planned,
increased activity and for indispensable increases in
resources of manpower and money to grow on. In the
Book of Acts of the Apostles, God the Holy Spirit
repeatedly urges Luke the historian to record mem-
bers and growth. Can the Church Apostolic of the 20th
century do less?

Ill. Unlimited Ends and Limited Means

Is it realistic to plan for and hope for the gifts of
grace from the same Holy Spirit adding up to immense
sums of money to provide the necessary current and