Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1969 · 48th Convention › Page 384
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Page 384

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

354 SOCIAL ACTION AND WELFARE

“doing good unto all men,” in “bearing one another’s
burdens,” in possessing a “faith that works by love.”

2. The social welfare agencies and institutions de-
veloped by the church must not operate as independent
enterprises or as ends in themselves but as arms of the
church and as part of the church's outreach to the com-
munity. These services are always a part of the testi-
mony and witness of the church. In special circum-
stances, programs of evangelism and social services may
operate in tandem. provided the social services are given
freely without regard to race or creed.

3. While Christians are admonished to remember
“especially those who are of the household of faith,”
this admonition is prefaced by the command to “do good
unto all men.” Church-related welfare services should
be open and available to all in need. Insufficient man-
power and money, and special needs of people, may
limit the services offered.

4. The church in its social-ministry programs has the
special opportunity. along with voluntary community
agencies, to explore new avenues of meeting human
needs, to experiment with new techniques, and to try
new responses to social problems. To prepare itself to
do so, the church must participate in social-welfare
planning on the national, state, and community level in
both the private and the public sectors. To be effective
in this area. the church should have planning and co-
ordinating units on the national and state levels, staffed
by persons with professional specialization in community
organization. Wherever possible such units should be
intersynodical.

5. Since the general-welfare clause of our Constitu-
tion states that the government has the responsibility
for the basic welfare needs of its citizens, the estab-
lished social-welfare agencies of the church may prop-
erly accept public funds for providing care for those
eligible for public support. In entering into arrange-
ments for purchase of care by the state or for reim-
bursement for cost of services given to state wards.
church-related agencies should at all time provide —

a) those services that meet genuine needs: and

b) those services that are conducted in conformity
with accepted standards in the field.

In these days of a changing society, a continuing
evaluation of priorities must occur. This may mean dis-
continuance of some programs that the church-related
agency has traditionally provided.

When church-related agencies enter into an arrange-
ment with a public department to provide a needed ser-
vice, financing should be based on the cost of the ser-
vice rendered.

6. Church-related social-ministry agencies should be
legally responsible to the jurisdictional units of the
church bodies they serve with regard to authorization.
broad social policy, administration, and dissolution. As
the ultimate authority, the church through its appropri-

ate boards or committees should (1) nominate the mem-
bers of the agency board, (2) approve the annual budget.
(3) approve any major change in program, and (4)
authorize capital-fund campaigns.

7. The massive and pervasive social problems arising
in a highly mobile and changing society require govern-
ment to assume increasing responsibility for meeting
social needs and dealing with its causes. Beyond this
the public-welfare program provides the framework
within which the essential services of the church-related
agencies, as well as other voluntary agencies, are carried
on. Christians as individual citizens and together as
people who constitute the church have an obligation to
promote adequate public-welfare programs and to work
for their improvement.

8. The church has a unique opportunity to act in
the twin role of defender and critic of public-welfare
programs because these too are part of its responsibility,
On the one hand it can and should defend public wel-
fare against the attacks of those whose resistance to
government responsibility for the welfare of the poor
leads to the adoption of inadequate assistance payments,
invasion of privacy, the erosion and destruction of hu-
man dignity. and deprivation of people of their God-
given rights. On the other hand the church can mobilize
public opinion to eliminate from public-welfare pro-
grams the remnants of the old poor law — the means
test, residence requirements, and unrealistic assistance
budgets. By joining hands with other forces in the com-
munity, the church can work for more humane and dig-
nified ways of meeting the basic maintenance needs of
the poor.

9. Social-welfare services whose main focus is still
on amelioration must be coupled with study, discussion,
and action aimed at the elimination of the causes of
social ills. Poverty, racism, social and economic in-
justices, family breakdown, delinquency, alcoholism,
and mental illness are some of the problems that need
more study by the church. From such study. programs
of preventive services can be launched, including needed
changes in public social-welfare laws and policies. The
church also must speak publicly, on the basis of God's
truth, both in judgment on society’s ills and in showing
ways to establish justice. mercy, reconciliation, and
healing.

10. In planning for programs intended to produce
social change. the church must involve the people whom
the programs are intended to help. The provider and
the consumer of the services participating together in
the planning process will assure greater effectiveness
for the programs.

We believe that the changing scene in society de-
mands more than ever that the church of the future
recognize its inescapable mandate in social ministry.
It is the Word with its perceptive life-giving truths for
the whole of life that makes this mandate clear and un-
mistakable. “A new commandment give I unto you,
that you love one another, even as I have loved you.