Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1969 · 48th Convention › Page 351
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Page 351

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

PARISH EDUCATION AND SERVICES 351

classes for adults to the needs of their people. This is
one answer to the problem of enrolling people for con-
tinuing education in the church. New enlistment helps
should accent service to people and not subject matter.

8) We must assist each other to acquire the skills of
evaluating our efforts in adult education so that we be-
come aware of new needs and thus reshape our goals
to contemporary situations.

A certain sequence is obvious here. However, con-
gregations may begin at almost any point. They will
discover how the steps in the process are interdependent.

5. Family Life Education
a. History

To activate services to the family, the Synod in 1944
authorized the Board of Parish Education to include
family life education in its portfolio. For two decades the
board has made major and minor contributions to this
field with such materials as Ministry to Families, a hand-
book for congregations, the basic volume Helping Fam-
ilies Through the Church, the 14-book Parent Guidance
series, the Family Research Series, the 6-book Sex Edu-
cation Series, and special Family Life Bulletins. It has
provided leadership training through many national,
District, and regional workshops.

The aim of family life education is expressed in a sin-
gle sentence: ‘‘To help every family by the grace of God
to become a spiritually growing, responsible, Christian
family unit.”” In pursuing this goal the board has been
ably assisted by many pastors, professors, teachers,
family sociologists, laymen and women who served on
its Family Life Committee. It has explored needs, kept
abreast of the family education field, tested various
approaches, and developed functional projects to help
meet the needs of today’s families.

b. Issues and Needs

The family today is called on to make adjustments to
many rapid changes that separate the mid-20th century
from the past. Among the causes of rapid change are:
urbanization, which cut the roots from rural and small-
town life; technical changes like the automobile, radio,
television; the cataclysmic experiences of two world
wars; secularization of life due to various impacts, such
as the ethos of technology erasing certain religious
prohibitions. In the last four decades the family has been
bombarded with new philosophies and revolutionary
approaches to life.

Sociologists observe such changes as the following:
(1) Marriage has moved from being procreative-centered
to being unitive-centered. History emphasized the pro-
creative; the population explosion deemphasizes it. (2)
The nuclear family has almost displaced the extended
family. It demands good lovers, but often makes poor
parents. (3) The parent-marriage period has been short-
ened (the woman is free of childbearing earlier), and the
nonparent-marriage period has been lengthened. (4) The
family has moved from a one-vote system to a two-vote
system, which is more complex. This requires much more

by way of maturity and good relationships. (5) Now the
companionship aspect of marriage is put first and the
institutional aspect second. Marriages cannot be held
together today as formerly by external coercion. They
must be held together by internal cohesion. (6) Marriage
has moved from partners with rather fixed roles to part-
ners with fluid roles. Today both husband and wife play
many roles related to homemaking and earning. (7)
Formerly mating was within the same nationality, social
structure, and religious belief. Now marriages are taking
place across national, racial, and religious barriers. (8)
We are recovering in our time a more Biblical view of
sex, that is, one that is more positive. Sex is a part of
God’s creation and therefore good. Yet for more than a
thousand years the church taught an “antisexual
religion.”

Despite these changes the family is not breaking
down; it is making adjustments as it evaluates changes,
and it needs the help of the church in doing so. The family
is still the basic social unit as determined by God’s
bisexual creation.

New research in the field of birth control and the
1968 papal encyclical have opened a controversy that
raises new questions around two poles: human sexuality
and authority in ethical problems. These questions are
before our people both from the viewpoint of overpopula-
tion and of soundly Christian and Biblical ethics. Chris-
tian people ask for guidance based on all the facts. What
should guide Christians in regard to sexual attitudes and
behavior throughout the life-span? Contrasting Biblical,
theological, humanistic, and sociological views call for
sound examination.

It is estimated that there are one and a half million
abortions in the United States annually, with up to 10,000
resulting deaths. New legislation is being adopted in
many countries. When does human life begin? Is the
fetus a person? Questions like these call for responsible
answers.

The role of parents in Christian nurture overshadows
many of these problems. One public school superinten-
dent writes, ‘We live in times of tension and angry vio-
lence. Many of our youngsters are rebellious because
they do not have the security and control of a stable
home. . . . To operate a productive learning program,
the teachers need the support and cooperation of the
home. When objectives and purposes of the home are
different from those of the school, there will be little
learning done in school.”

The home is the major value-developing agent in the
average person’s life. It has been, it is now, and it will
be in the future. Such is the nature of the God-created
family. That is in accord with the mature philosophy of
the Old and New Testaments. For the best growth—
physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually —the church
must team up with the home. Christian nurture grows out
of the whole style of life of the home and will not be
achieved by simply devising curriculum plans which
assume it. The church must seek parent involvement
in the educational program by emphasizing the duties