LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2010, Page 96

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96

SYNOD REPORTS

environments. Leadership of this effort is provided through a task
force of the LCMS World Relief and Human Care.
• The commission is participating with the Health and Wellness
Advisory Council, formulated by Concordia Plan Services, with the
intention to identify current dimensions of wellness within the LCMS
culture and discover strategies to move our culture toward improving
wellness. As a part of that effort, the week of May 16–22 was identified in the LCMS as Ministerial Wellness Week, and May 19 was
specifically observed as LCMS health and fitness day.
• “A Healthy Lifestyle” is the name of a project from Concordia
Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, in which the commission participated under direction of staff members Al Wingfield and Timothy
Puls. A DVD containing encouragement from Synod leaders was sent
to all LCMS congregations, along with other material supportive of
healthy lifestyle thinking and behaviors.
• Materials for the observance of October as Clergy Appreciation
Month were developed by the commission in 2008 and 2009 and sent
to congregations. The Synod has officially identified October 2010 as
Clergy Appreciation Month, and the CMGS will again be encouraging
its use as an opportunity to praise God specifically for the blessing of
pastors and for expressing words and actions of appreciation to our
pastors for their ministry.
• The commission pursues the target of Wellness Promotion
through participation with the What a Way! initiative. This effort is
motivated by the conviction that the LCMS must undertake fervent
efforts to identify, inform, and encourage appropriate candidates to
serve as ordained and commissioned ministers of religion, and must
implement strategies through which ordained and commissioned ministers might be effectively retained in their service.
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Continuing Education for Church Workers—The pursuit of
this critical target is described below.
• The commission’s Continuing Education Action Team (CEAT)
has engaged in efforts to shift understanding of continuing education from a burden of fulfillment to an expectation of opportunity.
The effort seeks to also engage congregational leaders in the shift of
thinking and to encourage their supportive participation in the process of lifelong learning for workers.
A survey was conducted in January 2009 to discover what the lay
leaders of LCMS congregations feel would be beneficial in the area
of continuing education for the professional church workers serving
them. Responses from lay leaders around the Synod overwhelmingly
identified three categories above all others, in the following order:
1. Growth in strategies for outreach and evangelism
2. Growth in strategies for leadership
3. Growth in dynamics of relational vitality
A fourth category, not far behind, was identified as “growth in the
strategies for equipping the saints.”
At the time of this writing, an electronic survey is in the final
stages of preparation to discover what LCMS pastors are currently
pursuing in terms of “lifelong learning.”
Members of CEAT have been participating in the efforts of a
larger group gathered to promote continuing education among pastors, work assigned by the Synod in convention (2007 Res. 5-05: “To
Encourage Commitment to Continuing Education for Clergy”). An
overture growing out of this work is submitted by the CMGS for consideration by the 2010 convention.
• In pursuit of work assigned to the commission by the Synod in convention (2007 Res. 6-08: “To Encourage Congregations to Provide

Professional Church Worker Sabbaticals”), CEAT has studied some
of the very fine guidelines already adopted by several of the districts
in the Synod and is offering a guideline for consideration on a broader
scale. (See Appendix C.)
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Economic Vitality—This critical target of the Commission is
pursued as outlined below.
Several tools for use by professional church workers that are
geared toward sharing insight into basic concepts of financial management were made available electronically at the CMGS Web site.
Among them are the Consumer Purchase Payment Calculator, the
Debt-to-Income Analysis tool, and the Financial Planning Toolkit.
• The Economic Vitality Action Team also successfully accomplished the placement of the six-session video The Good Sense
Budgeting Course on the LCMS e-learning Web site for access by
church workers without fee, and it also provided curriculum materials regarding financial literacy for the seminaries to use in orientation
of new students.
• In an effort to more fully explore financial resources for professional church workers, more than 800 invitations were sent to the
homes of LCMS ministers (ordained and commissioned) living in the
St. Louis metropolitan area. This pilot project was intended to discover the level of receptivity to, and the effectiveness of, Thrivent’s
Financial Fitness Club.
More than 20 participants engaged in the pilot. Evaluations were
mixed but generally supported the intention of the CMGS to encourage similar efforts.
• The Economic Vitality Action Team (EVAT) has developed two
major projects in the desire to help professional church workers with
financial issues. One of the projects is related to financial education
and raising the level of financial literacy among church workers. The
other project is related to the systemic realities of congregational
financial health and the impact it has on the workers serving in those
congregations. The challenge now is to find the resources to launch
into these very important projects.
For a detailed summary of the project plans for financial education and congregational financial health, contact the office of the
Commission on Ministerial Growth and Support, 314.996.1378, or
cmgs@lcms.org.
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Looking to the Future—At the time of this writing, it is difficult
to know with any clarity what the future holds for the Commission on
Ministerial Growth and Support. One thing seems to be quite evident.
There is significant value in providing the support and nourishment
for the ministers of our church (ordained and commissioned) to flourish. It is through these workers that Jesus has determined to “equip
the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
until we attain the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son
of God” (Eph. 4:12–13 ESV).
In that regard, there is much work to be done. The work is in the
areas of the critical targets identified at the beginning of this report.
Whether that work is accomplished by the commission as it has been
constituted or in another format, it will still be important for our workers to receive the support which will enable ministers to flourish in
the ministry to which we have been called.
Soli Deo Gloria
David A. Muench, Executive Director

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