LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2019, Page 138

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4. LIFE TOGETHER
overture proposes further enhancements and future
directions that build on the model presented here.
Briefly, the task force reported as required, noting the
following, each point of which is developed in much more
detail in its report:
• The RSO program has proven itself of significant
value to the Synod as a whole and should be
maintained. The mutual benefit of the Synod—
RSO relationship should not be underestimated
but rather should be promoted and expanded,
wherever and whenever possible. The task force’s
recommendations intend to bring clarity and
direction to how best the Synod can continue to
identify, develop and expand collaborative efforts
with an increasing complex and diverse set of
RSOs.
• Simultaneously ensuring that “the important
relationships with the organizations that are
recognized” are maintained and that the model
improve the engagement of the Synod and
recognized organizations to increase the mutual
benefit to the organizations and the congregations
of the Synod requires a diversification of approach,
so that the very different types of organizations
under the RSO “umbrella” can each receive the
attention and counsel they need, and so that
positive goals can be stated for each type of
organization’s relationship to the Synod. The
program needs to move beyond a “one size fits all”
approach.
• A revitalized RSO program should distinguish
witness (WSO), education (ESO), and mercy
(MSO) service organizations under the existing
title, with a clearer and more positive statement of
Synod’s expectations for each. WSOs, for example,
are to be expected to advance doctrine and
practice of the Synod’s confessional position
overtly in the foreground of all they do; MSOs, by
the nature of their work, are involved in
cooperation-in-externals mercy activities and may
rely on government or other support that enables
the scale or reach of their work but also limits the
degree to which unbridled proclamation can be at
the forefront. To “respect and not act contrary to
the doctrine and practice of the Synod” has a
particular application to each situation, which
should be more explicit and more positively
elaborated than it now can be under one umbrella.
• A revitalized RSO program should further
acknowledge a distinction, where appropriate and
only within the ESO and MSO categories, of those
organizations that, due to operating constraints,
including government funding and regulation,
cannot in all their activities directly advance the
confessional position of the Synod (i.e., may have
138 | PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2019 (67TH) LCMS CONVENTION

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to suffer odious regulation or cease activities).
Recognition of these organizations, which already
exist in the RSO program, does provide mutual
benefit if the organizations are truly suffering
regulation and not themselves taking an adverse
position, and if the organizations offer services in a
way that concretely and demonstrably multiplies
the ministry of congregations. Acknowledging this
distinction is a first step toward better
relationships. Such a distinction is not possible in
the WSO category, where “witness” activity is
intrinsically bound up with the Church’s
confession.
Tier I RSOs have the ability to advance the mission
of the church purely and explicitly in every
circumstance, positively advancing our churchly
confession, performing the mission of the church, so
that these may be urged to that standard of
practice.
Tier II MSOs and ESOs, on the other hand, operate
under such regulatory and financial constraints
that the doctrine and teaching of the church
cannot be at the overt forefront of all activities.
Nonetheless, these latter are recognized for
multiplying the mission of the church. Tier II
organizations are expected to demonstrably do
what they do in coordination with, alongside,
congregations and schools so that their mission is
multiplied. It may be the best they can do is carry
out some merciful purpose in a moral fashion, and
to do it in close proximity to congregational
ministries of the Synod, which have the freedom to
proclaim Law and Gospel with all the fullness of
the church’s confession and practice. The
distinction of tiers is not a value judgment; simply
an acknowledgement that RSOs operate in two
chief domains—different domains, but both of
service to the church and those in need.
Organizations operating in those generally larger
domains where the church is not the only input or
authority, although pressed hard in these days, are
of immense value to multiplying the church’s
mercy and in supporting and surrounding the
church’s nearer and higher work of the
proclamation of Law and Gospel.
A revitalized RSO program should seek an
expanded role for districts in managing RSOs with
local impact, involving more significant district—
RSO conversation in the application and review
process. Appropriate instruments would be
developed, completed by an RSO with the district
and then reviewed by Synod’s RSO office, to ensure
that program expectations are being applied
uniformly. The program should also provide much
more explicitly for a district president’s
Resolutions