Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1969 · 48th Convention › Page 29
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Page 29

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

MISSIONS 29

Spanish Lutheran Witness (Noticiero de la Fe}, one of
the outstanding monthly Protestant magazines in Latin
America, is printed. Orientacion, a periodical with the
same general purpose as Advance magazine, and Luz
Cotidiana, a quarterly booklet of daily devotions, also
originate there. Plans are moving forward to have the
devotional booklet produced in Portuguese as well.

In September 1967 the first volume of a Spanish
edition of Luther’s Works was published. Five volumes
of the selected works of the Great Reformer are being
prepared by the two Lutheran seminaries in Argentina,
with financing by the Latin literature production arm
of LCUSA, Publicaciones El Escudo, Inc.

A variety of other books are in various stages of
preparation or production.

6. Mass-Media Study: Each in His Own Tongue

New York convention Resolution 1-05 requested
the Board for Missions “to make a thorough study of
mass media and its implications in Christ’s mission”
in consultation with other boards, agencies, or individ-
uals knowledgeable in the field.

A study paper entitled “The Media of Mass Com-
munications and the Mission of the Church—A Call to
Involvement” was therefore prepared and presented
to the mass media study subcommittee of the Board
for Missions in January 1969 and reported to the whole
board. The board’s entire convention report reflects
the insights of this study—the recognition that people
“hear” differently; that our compulsion to “tell’? must
be replaced by a compulsion or concern that people
really “hear”; that reaching a target in the Babel of
today requires precise aiming. Specific recommenda-
tions will be coming from the board as an outgrowth
of this study; at this point we would like to share just
a brief overview of the study.

The paper was primarily a recommendation to in-
volve in the planning process individuals and groups
already involved in communications—and through
cooperation, coordination, and increased interdepen-
dence to improve the church’s methods and opportuni-
ties for communicating with secular society and with
itself. The paper was planned as a starter for further
discussion and was developed by Rev. James Mayer
and Miss Marie-Louise Gebhardt at the request of the
subcommittee and its chairman, Prof. Paul Harms.

The committee deliberately avoided questions of
structure. The need for technical competence and
maximum flexibility, for aggressive expediting of what
is already going on or what could be newly started,
seemed much more important than how to fit these
functions into the synodical structure. The committee,
however, became completely convinced that an advisory
body or conciliar structure would not get the job done,
but rather a cadre of four or five creative people was to
be preferred. A group like this working behind the
scenes, helping all the communications departments
of the Synod communicate more effectively, would be
far more practical.

A meaningful use of the media for the church’s
message calls for trained people, people experienced
in the communications field, creative, imaginative,
knowledgeable, and, for what the committee proposed,
filled with an entrepreneurial spirit. The need for shar-
ing and proclaiming the Gospel is obvious. It is equally
obvious that today’s media of mass communications
—radio, television, print, drama, music, etc.— provide
unusual opportunities for Gospel proclamation, particu-
larly in that they reach many people.

It is necessary to remember that church communi-
cations are reaching an increasingly fragmented society.
There is and will be greater ideological and social fer-
ment. An increasingly complex social situation will
require increasingly complex answers, which will in
turn tend increasingly to polarize opinion in North
America and elsewhere.

The communications media are God’s gifts to us,
which the church must use better to His glory. The com-
mittee suggested the fullest utilization of the church’s
existing media ministries and services and the addition
of more only where need is clearly demonstrated. The
committee suggested methods of implementation, sup-
plemented by some criteria for the selection of im-
plementing staff.

The full text of the mass-media study is being given
to the convention committee on missions.

7. Larger Community Pilot Project:
Each in His Own Tongue

The Synod in convention at New York passed a reso-
lution (1-27) “To Structure Congregations for Mission
in the Larger Area.’ In November 1967 at the request
of the Missouri, Southern Illinois, and English Districts,
Greater St. Louis was selected as the first of these larger
community pilot areas.

a. Background. The picture of Missouri Synod mis-
sion and ministry in the St. Louis metropolitan area
(as in any larger community) is one of brokenness and
disunity instead of the oneness and unity portrayed in
the Biblical image of the body of Christ. It is a “crazy-
quilt pattern” of independent, autonomous forms of
the church—congregations, special ministries, auxili-
aries, and agencies—with little or no relationship to
one another. In many instances each has been born in
isolation from the others. Sometimes each seems to be
an introverted, self-interested, and even competitive
unit of ministry to the others.

In St. Louis the “crazy-quilt pattern” is perhaps more
visible than in any other city in which the Missouri Synod
is engaged in Christ’s mission: 120 congregations sep-
arated by a natural boundary (the Mississippi River)
and by state lines, three different synodical Districts,
a variety of Lutheran auxiliary organizations and agen-
cies (Lutheran Mission Association, Lutheran Family
and Children’s Services, Lutheran Hospital, the Alten-
heim, to name only a few), a Council of Lutheran
Churches in St. Louis (with several commissions), Mis-
souri District headquarters in St. Louis and Southern