Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1969 · 48th Convention › Page 256
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Page 256

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

256 HIGHER EDUCATION

The Board for Higher Education has continued to
include the funds needed for more adequate salary in-
creases in its financial requests to the Synod for the
coming years. However, the 1969 budget has already
been cut to the extent that no significant salary increases
are possible at this time.

The Board for Higher Education recommends that the
Synod reiterate and strengthen the statements indicating
its desire to have faculty salaries increased and to pro-
vide the funds needed for this purpose.

5. Strengthen Existing Successful Recruitment Pro-
grams and Explore and Evaluate New Procedures

While the church has every reason to be grateful for
both the quantity and quality of students who continue
to enroll in the ministerial programs at the colleges and
seminaries, the need for more workers remains an area
which deserves major attention by all members of the
Synod. Pastoral student enrollment is still the most
critical area of need as the number of vacant parishes
remained above 400 during this biennium and as the
Lord continued to open new opportunities for the Synod
to minister to the whole society and the whole world.

Although more teachers were available for placement
in 1969 than in any preceding year, the supply still did
not meet the total demand. Teacher graduates placed
this year were those students who entered as freshmen
in 1965. As can be noted in Table B, the entering class in
teacher education in that year was significantly larger
than in any year since then. As a result, fewer teachers
will be available for placement during each of the next
3 years than were placed in 1969. While it is true that the
number of requests for classroom teachers has not in-
creased significantly in recent years, the demand for
teacher college graduates as directors of Christian educa-
tion and in other non-day-school roles has been growing
steadily.

The competition for qualified college students con-
tinues to be severe. However, evidence indicates that
the interest of young people in careers of service has
grown even stronger during the past biennium. One of
the major tasks facing all recruiters in the church is to
help young women and men see the various ministries
as the exciting and relevant careers of service which
they can be.

TABLE B

Pastoral and Teacher Education Enrollments
at the College Level, 1961 —68

1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968
Total Pastoral ____ 1,033 1,104 1,146 1,198 1,275 1,279 1,236 1,110
Total Male Teacher — 958 1,067 1,123 1,234 1,428 1,611 1,613 1,678
Total Female Teacher 1,697 1,803 1,970 2,253 2,517 2,632 2,694 2,594
Freshman

Pastoral. ss 337) 332) 382) 413) 4650391) 367) 317
Freshman Male

Teacher __________ 275. 293) 292) «3384. ss 458 «= 4442s 3341 338
Freshman Female

Teacher___.. ———iS400s554 628) 814. 892) 8803.-—S 760)=—s 729

On the basis of its studies and findings concerning
needs and programs in recruitment, the Board for
Higher Education plans to give special emphasis during

the years immediately ahead to four aspects of its work
with those responsible for recruitment at the colleges
and in the Districts of the church. The board welcomes
this opportunity to alert the Synod directly through this
report to the needs in these four areas.

a. Vocational Concern. In its concern for the whole
man, the church must give attention to the vocational
decisions of its youth. Young people are looking for
guidance as they face the task of selecting a career from
among the exploding number of possibilities open to
them. Many college students say that they did not con-
sider the ministry as a possible vocation because they
were never confronted by anyone who suggested it to
them as an option.

Pastors and teachers who have conducted personal
vocational interviews with every young person in their
parishes are enthusiastic about the results and also the
opportunity which this procedure has given them to
present the challenges of the ministries. Every congre-
gation should consider inaugurating such a program.

Public high school counselors have become increas-
ingly more important as resource people for students
making career decisions. Pastors and other church offi-
cials need to take the lead in meeting with these coun-
selors and in providing materials for them so that they
will be more able and more likely to present the min-
istries as vocational options to students.

District Efforts

Districts and other groups have held general voca-
tional workshops and retreats. Leaders in these pro-
grams have pointed out that in these efforts the minis-
tries can be presented in the context of the total theology
of vocation.

“Vocational concern,” of course, also includes the
need to give special attention to those young people
who are good prospects or who have expressed an
interest in one of the ministries. At least one District
has conducted a retreat specifically for prospective
pastoral students. A plan for follow-up work and evalua-
tion has been built into the program. Congregations
which have organized a Vineyard Club, or some similar
group, have reported successes in recruitment through
the efforts.

The claim of many young people, however, is that
almost nothing is being done in their home churches or
Districts to provide help in vocational decision-making
or to present the challenges and opportunities for ser-
vice through the ministries. These important jobs to be
done with our young people must somehow be brought
to the foreground among all of the other pressures and
programs of the church. The Board for Higher Educa-
tion plans to give special emphasis to this need during
the coming biennium.

b. Community Lutheran High Schools. As the
number of students enrolled in synodical high schools
has decreased, the number of graduates of community