Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1969 · 48th Convention › Page 338
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Page 338

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

338 PARISH EDUCATION AND SERVICES

yet it is, depending, of course, on how one defines the
term. The Word edifies only when it is communicated
(expressed, proclaimed, taught, exemplified) and learned
(heard, experienced, studied, received in faith, and
lived in personal and social responses of the Spirit).
If this is so, we must adjust the focus, nature, and direc-
tion of our programs accordingly on all levels — synodical,
District, and congregational.

3. What Is the Educational Task of the Parish?

What educational programs are needed to involve all
the members of the local congregation in the church’s
mission to itself and to the world? Involvement of the
laity in the life of the church is the major task of the
church if it hopes to fulfill its mission through the edifying
Word. In the past many congregations have been con-
tent to conduct church services and a Sunday school and
maybe a vacation Bible school. In the ’70s additional
agencies and programs will be needed—for children,
youth, and adults. Which these should be and what kind
of programs they should offer are some of the urgent
questions our congregations must ask and answer soon.

4. What Kind of Educational Leadership Is Needed?

If all members of the church are to participate in the
church’s mission, educational leadership is needed in the
local parish. What kind of educational leadership is
needed? Materials alone will not do the job. Nor will
leaders and teachers who do little more than repeat
words. What makes the edifying Word come alive in
people, as it must? What kind of training will better pre-
pare both leaders and teachers of the church for their
ministry of the Word to today’s church and world?

Every local congregation needs:

a) Professional leadership for its educational pro-
grams. When the pastor cannot give this leadership ade-
quately for one reason or another, it can be provided by
adding a director of Christian education to the staff
(either an associate pastor trained in education, a pro-
fessionally trained director, a day school principal or
teacher, or a public school teacher).

b) Trained lay teachers. Sunday church school staff
turnover is presently about 25 percent a year. Only a seri-
ous effort at preparing more members to participate in
the teaching ministry of the church will keep a parish
going strong. This requires an ongoing recruitment and
training program.

c) A policy-making board of education that provides
adequate plans, administration, and supervision for the
total education program of the parish. Such a board
should consist of imaginative people concerned about
meeting the spiritual needs of people at every age in the
best possible ways.

5. How Little Education Dare We Provide?

A limited religious education is becoming more and
more inadequate in the face of today’s education explo-
sion. For a church in mission to itself and the world in
the ’70s, Sunday school is not enough. Are the churches
of the Missouri Synod ready to add a weekday church

school staffed with trained teachers and adequate in-
structional facilities for their children and youth who
do not attend a Christian day school or high school?
How much serious education can a parish conduct with-
out a day school? Since day schools are costly on any
level, shall we as a Synod stop fighting for them and per-
haps even encourage our parishes to phase them out
gradually? Can we afford to give them up? Furthermore,
how long dare we continue to think of Christian educa-
tion as something mainly for children and not vitally
essential for youth and adults?

6. How Much Christian Education Can We Afford to

Provide?

If we really want to, can’t we continue to afford our
day schools and maybe even expand them and start new
ones? Has affluence distorted our sense of values? How
much is the individual parish, with or without a day
school, investing in its Christian education programs?
If we think we cannot afford Christian day schools on
either preprimary, elementary, secondary, or college
levels (or really cannot), are we willing to work toward
federal and state aid in order to still have some church-
related Christian schools in the ’80s? If necessary to
establish more schools for youth and the training of
adults as well as children, are we willing to work to-
gether with other congregations of Christians? Few
parishes need to struggle alone with their limited re-
sources.

7. What Causes Our Communication Failures?

To fulfill the Mission Affirmations, local congregations
must somehow communicate the edifying Word effec-
tively, both to their members and to the people outside
the church. All education involves communication, but
much education fails to communicate. So we must ask,
What are the better ways to teach the Word? Some of
these ways may require that the church alter its past
practices. For example, successful communication de-
mands that the communicator be willing to listen as well
as speak, that he evidence openness, and that he enter
into dialog. On the other hand, the learner must be en-
couraged to participate in the educational process. What
keeps us from communicating the Word more excitingly
and powerfully? This is another very important question
we all need to ask.

8. Is Change Necessary?

Change rather than changelessness is a characteristic
of our times. In the past we have underscored God’s
changelessness and have stigmatized change as decay
and evil. But change too is in the nature of our God,
who makes all things new by His Spirit. So the question
is not, How can the church keep from changing? or, Must
the church change? but rather, How must she change
in order to communicate with a changing world?

C. Some Evident Needs and Opportunities

A number of practical conclusions and perhaps even
imperatives become evident in any honest, humble, and