Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1969 · 48th Convention › Page 413
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Page 413

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

CHURCH LITERATURE AND PUBLICATIONS; PUBLIC RELATIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS 413

used in schools, Bible classes, youth groups, and men’s
and women’s organizations.

The Witness and the Reporter are mass media going
into more than half a million homes around the nation
and the world. The people in these homes reflect a
broad range of age, education, occupation, interest, and
bias. It cannot be expected that all will be eager to read
everything or agree with everything they read in the
magazine and newspaper. However, both publications
try to offer material of interest and value for all seg-
ments of the readership.

Not liking everything people read in their church
papers “is no reason for not getting them,” a District
President wrote in a recent bulletin for clergy and lay
leaders.

“I don’t like many of the things I read in the daily
newspapers,” he went on, “but I continue to subscribe
to them because it is the only way I can find out what
is going on.”

He stressed the importance of reading the Synod’s
official periodicals to find out “what the church is do-
ing.” Many people, he said, “are indifferent toward the
work of their church when they don’t know what it is
doing.” He called on leaders of the churches to take
positive steps to close the communication gap by urging
people to subscribe to their church publications.

“Qur church papers cost so little,” he said, “and are
worth so much.”

The commission recognizes that many claims are
made on congregational dollars, but it is persuaded that
few bring such rich returns as the dollars invested in
an every-home subscription to the Synod's church
papers and the District editions. A 5-minute filmstrip
dramatizing this fact is available from the periodicals
promotion department of Concordia Publishing House.

WiuviaM E. WESSLER, Chairman
Joun E. HorrMeyer, Secretary
(10-04)

Report of Lutheran Television
Productions Board
Joint Sponsorship Association

In keeping with Resolution 11-01 of the New York
convention of 1967, the Lutheran Television Productions
Board has the benefits of a joint sponsorship association
with. and the valuable cooperation of, the Lutheran
Laymen’s League in carrying out its responsibilities.

Personnel

Dr. Martin J. Neeb Jr. accepted a call as executive
secretary of the board and was installed into office on
July 11, 1967, at the New York convention. Dr. Herman
W. Gockel, who has served as program director of the
board since its inception in 1952, is the other full-time
executive. Dr. Eugene R. Bertermann, executive secre-
tary from 1960 to 1967, accepted an appointment as
executive director of the Lutheran Laymen’s League
on Feb. 1, 1967.

In accord with the New York joint sponsorship reso-

lution, the board has been expanded to 11 members
with the addition of four members appointed by the
Board of Governors of the Lutheran Laymen’s League.

Another Threshold

The Synod stood on a threshold in 1951 when it com-
mitted itself to television; the Lord has blessed that
commitment beyond measure.

The television board suggests now that nothing dis-
covered, proposed, or developed in the 20th century will
have more implication for The Lutheran Church — Mis-
souri Synod than the enmeshed phenomena of mass
communication and the present population explosion.

In that light we stand today on another threshold.
as the report of the mission board to the 1967 New York
convention so clearly points out:

It is imperative that the church develop a broader under-

standing of the communications revolution in the world

today and of the whole psychology of “mass man” — man
who is constantly exposed to the influence of the mass
media. This is an age in which words and print are being
replaced by images and the electronic impulses. ... The

world’s values are to a large degree shaped by mass com-
munications today. (Workbook, 1967, p. 12)

An Image-Saturated Society

Consider that:
9 of 10 American homes have at least one
television set today.

More than 30 percent have more than one
TV set.

And that:

The average American family has a TV set
on 6% hours a day.

Only sleeping time surpasses television
viewing.

The average high school graduate today has
spent more time with television than he has
in school! He averages 20 hours a week for
fifteen years with television — 15,000 hours,
while school hours beg for equal time —
10,800 hours computed at 5 hours a day,
180 days a year!

Our electronic society is “postliterate.” Children
used to “see” the world open through books as they
learned to read; now they come to school sophisticated
with knowledge gained through television and film and
later read about these same experiences.

They are surrounded by visual language.
Dick and Jane and Spot pale before Apollo,
astronauts, and the moon.

Television brings it — instantly, alive, and
in color.

Around the globe the picture is the same. Satellites
make the visual image primary wherever men live.
There are 140 million TV sets outside the United States
now. In Japan, 75 percent of households already have
TV sets, with neighboring Latin America a close run-
ner-up. The rest of the world is not far behind.