Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 2019 · 67th Convention, Tampa › Page 83
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2019, Page 83

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

OFFICER, BOARD, AND COMMISSION REPORTS
president chairing the CTCR and two faculty serving
as Committee chairs).
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The continued publication of Concordia Theological
Quarterly, praised internationally as a very significant
journal for fostering confessional Lutheranism.

••

Accreditation for all of its academic programs
through the Association of Theological Schools
(ATS) and the Higher Learning Commission of the
North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.
This year, CTSFW is engaged again in a significant
self-study in preparation for its next accreditation
visit in 2020.

CTSFW has served the Synod faithfully by making the
blessings of the church available to a world in need of Christ’s
salvation. We rejoice that our Lord has redeemed us with His
precious blood. We pray for our Synod, our seminary, and for
those who do not yet know Jesus. Finally, we give thanks—for
you!—and for the myriad ways we have been “blest through
endless ages” (LSB 433).
We invite you to get to know CTSFW. Visit our website
at www.ctsfw.edu or our campus where you will find a vibrant,
Christ-centered theological community that engages and resources the church and world, domestically and internationally,
with distinctively Lutheran teaching, practice, and worship. Join
with CTSFW bringing the saving Gospel into all the world by
forming servants in Jesus Christ who will teach the faithful,
reach the lost, and care for all.
Lawrence R. Rast Jr., President

nance in service of the same, and we implore Christ’s continued
help in what is an enormous and complicated task.
The Secretary of the Synod serves ex officio on the Board
of Directors and the Concordia Historical Institute Board of
Governors and with the CCM and Commission on Handbook,
assists the Council of Presidents, and is involved in many task
forces and other efforts; as these are reported on elsewhere and
by others, these activities are not reported here.

Rosters, Statistics, and Research Services
The Department of Rosters, Statistics, and Research Services, assigned to the Office of the Secretary in the 2013–2016
triennium, provides the core “organ of recollection and administration” for roster, leadership, contact, and statistical information related to congregations, individual members, schools,
districts, and other agencies and affiliated entities of the Synod.
Some of this information is published in The Lutheran Annual
or to the Synod webpage; some is utilized by districts and others
in the Synod for administrative and research purposes.
The triennium now concluding has been a period of significant transition for the department, both in terms of personnel
and in terms of technology and scope of work. Senior Director
Gene Weeke retired in October 2018, passing the baton to Scott
Kostencki. Technologically, the department
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brought online for the Council of Presidents a
new “Commissioned Minister Information Form”
(CMIF) system designed to provide information on
the education, capabilities, interests, and service records of commissioned ministers and to enhance the
access of districts, congregations, schools, and other
calling entities to this information as they carry out
critical call and ecclesiastical supervision tasks.

••

transitioned, with significant work by LCMS Information Technology, from the Oracle-based and
design-limited LCMS Rosters and Statistics System
(LRSS) to a new SQL-based LCMS Information
Support Network (LISN), deployed in 2018, a new
core system designed with best-in-class interfaces to
improve operational efficiencies and to accommodate
incorporation of primarily online services to congregations, individual members, districts, and other
stakeholders.

••

developed the concept of a “single-login model,” built
up around LISN, to enable those who interact with
Synod data and official processes to do so in a more
consistent, confident, and convenient manner.

••

implemented “Church Worker Update” and the annual congregational statistics gathering process in the
new “single-login model,” with “sanity-checked” direct updating to LISN, reducing departmental labor,
improving district communication, and improving the
ease of entry and assurance of data entered.

••

strove, with great assistance from district offices, for
unanimous participation in congregational statistics
gathering (Bylaw 1.3.4.3), which was achieved in two
districts for the 2019 edition of The Lutheran Annual,
and developed new processes to support the congre-

R5

Secretary
Duties and Responsibilities
The Office of the Secretary is a constitutional office of the
Synod and, with the Department of Rosters, Statistics, and Research Services (reporting to the Secretary) and the Department
of Archives and History (on whose board the Secretary serves
ex officio), a significant portion of its “organ of recording and
recollection.” This organ, along with the grace of God and the
labor of many, is necessary to the continued success of what
was and remains a bold endeavor of a common faith, a synodical union that is confessional and constitutional. First, every
member “accepts without reservation” the Scriptures as “the
only rule and norm of faith and of practice” and the Lutheran
Confessions as an “unadulterated statement and exposition
of the Word of God” (Constitution, Art. II 1–2). Second, the
Constitution of the Synod establishes the congregations’ means
of governance for shared institutions and the basic means by
which the congregations’ fundamental needs are to be met—for
themselves and their pastors and teachers to be held honestly
to the standards of their confession in all aspects of faith and
practice, for the raising up of pastors and teachers, etc., and for
the use of “the diversities of gifts … for the common profit”
(Preamble). The many and varied activities of the Office of the
Secretary have as their common aim the upholding of every aspect of the congregations’ confessional and constitutional commitments and objectives and the maintenance of orderly gover-

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2019 Convention Workbook