Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1969 · 48th Convention › Page 330
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Page 330

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

330 HIGHER EDUCATION

Rev. A. Prellop
Southern
Rev. George Duerr

Rev. Ray Schkade
Texas
Rev. James Hennig

Southern California Missouri
Rev. Duane Brunette Rev. A. Graf
Southern Illinois Missouri

Rev. Norman Hanneman
Southern Nebraska

(6-65)
To Develop Program of Continuing
Education for Pastors

Wuereas, A climate of continuous change in Ameri-
can and world society has made obsolete the concept
of completing education in college and professional
school; and

Wuereas, The extremely rapid rate of change in our
century makes the problem of obsolescence as acute
in theological and ecclesiastical professions as it is in
the medical, legal, and teaching professions; and

Wuereas, The Synod currently provides no oppor-
tunity for the continuing in-service professional growth
of its clergymen: and

WHEREAS, Unique educational assets are available
to the Synod because it owns and operates 16 well-
staffed college and seminary campuses strategically dis-
tributed through the United States: and

Wuereas, Relevant and adequate in-service growth
opportunity for the Synod’s 6,000 experienced clergymen
is not provided by offering specialized graduate courses
in theology with academic credits to the few who desire
and are able to extend their professional studies; and

Whereas, A team effort between the Synod, its Dis-
tricts, its congregations, and its educational institutions
can provide the needed and desired Synodwide oppor-
tunity for every parish clergyman, at intervals of 5
years, to update the excellent basic college and seminary
education orginally made available by the church, by
engaging in a structured program which discusses the
relevance of the “full counsel of God" in the contem-
porary context of an unstable social fabric and dubious
theological positions: therefore be it

Resolved, That The Lutheran Church — Missouri
Synod authorize and instruct its Board for Higher Edu-
cation to create a separate Division for Continuing Edu-
cation, with a temporary director and any necessary
staff needed to develop a Synodwide plan which would
utilize the college and seminary campuses the Synod
owns throughout the United States to provide an oppor-
tunity for every synodical parish minister to participate
in a 2-week or 3-week program of study and fellowship
in the summer of every fifth year, under .the direction
of a teaching staff which includes both professional edu-
cators and experienced parish clergymen and laymen,
and be it further

Resolved, That the responsible administrative leaders
of the Synod, the synodical Districts, and the synodical
educational institutions are instructed to make available

the appropriate synodical assets in the plant and staff
under their jurisdiction which may be required for the
development and testing of such a synodical project:
and be it further

Resolved, That in the summer of 1970 a series of two
successive 2-week and two successive 3-week projects
(to operate concurrently and to involve a grand total
of 100 clergymen and professional staffs of five members
each) be conducted as pilot, experimental projects for
evaluation on the campus of Concordia Senior College
at Fort Wayne, Ind., where modern and adequate cam-
pus facilities for the purpose are readily available; and
be it further

Resolved, That the synodical Board of Directors and
Board for Higher Education are directed to create and
fund a new budget category assigned to the Board for
Higher Education, in the amount of $25,000, to subsidize
a pilot program designed to test out all aspects of this
vital project in ministerial education; and be it further

Resolved, That a detailed evaluation by the adminis-
trators, the staffs, and the participants involved in the
pilot program be conveyed to the Synod of 1971 with
appropriate recommendations to expand the pilot proj-
ect into a Synodwide program (according to the plan
which the division has developed in the interim) or to
discontinue it, as the evaluation may indicate; and be
it finally

Resolved, That the Synod’s congregations and parish
clergymen be encouraged to support and to participate
in such a cooperative effort which can, under the bless-
ing of God, enhance the Synod’s efforts to preach the
Gospel for the salvation of men.

PASTORAL CONFERENCE OF SOUTHERN INDIANA
Rosert E, Meter, Chairman
Rosert E, STUENKEL, Secretary

(6-66)

The same overture was received from the Board of
Control, Concordia Senior College, Fort Wayne, Ind.,
Allen H. Fedder, Chairman; W. Leroy Biesenthal, Sec-
retary.

(6-67)

To Encourage Continuing Formal Study
for Professional Growth

Wuereas, The degree to which the church's ministers
are able to guide those charged to their spiritual care
into theological maturity in Christ is dependent in part
on the depth and vitality of the minister’s continuing
professional study; and

Whereas, Pastors and teachers, who are continually
confronted with manifestations of man’s need for God
which are peculiar to our society, need to be cognizant
of and be able to identify the social forces at work
on those to whom they must minister, so that their
ministries may be increasingly more pointed and crea-
tive in the communication of the Gospel to our so-
ciety; and