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LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2019, Page 109

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

OFFICER, BOARD, AND COMMISSION REPORTS
titled, in German, Lutheran Prayer Treasury. This volume was
prepared by Dr. Walther and his colleagues, and it offers a rich
harvest of faithfully pious, orthodox, and deeply faithful prayers
from Luther and other significant orthodox Lutheran fathers.
It rightly can be described as the most extensive single collection of prayers for every day and every occasion, now available
entirely in English for the first time. Thank, Praise, Serve, and
Obey, a book on the joy of genuine piety, was released and will
be coming out as a CPH FaithCourse.
Resources to help Lutheran laity understand, explain,
and gently defend their faith include The Christian Difference,
a survey of all the world’s major religions and their teachings,
as well as a guide to where we can find common ground and
practical helps for reaching out to members of other religions
with the saving Gospel of Christ. Additionally, resources for
apologetics have been published, such as Authentic Christianity:
How Lutheran Theology Speaks to a Postmodern World; Defending Luther’s Reformation; The Reason I Believe: The Basics of
Christian Apologetics; and Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?:
Twelve False Christs.
We value our various publishing partnerships with the entities of the International Center and other LCMS corporate
entities. We work closely with the staff and leadership of our
Boards of National and International Mission. We have entered
into an important partnership with the International Lutheran
Council, providing office space at CPH for it and assisting in
the publication of resources for its Lutheran Leadership Development Program, a two-year certificate program that aims to
provide Lutheran church bodies around the world an opportunity to develop leaders who are competent in both solid confessional Lutheran theology and practical skills in leadership and
resource management, such as organizational dynamics, task
management, budgeting, strategic planning, and accountability.
We invite all members of the Synod and all members of
our congregations to visit our website at cph.org and review the
thousands of products and services we offer, all in support of
the Church’s mission, which is our passion. May God bless richly the ongoing ministry of confessing Christ to be the Son of
God, and may He lead many more people to repent, to confess,
and to rejoice in the Savior.
Bruce Kintz, President/CEO

R16

Concordia University System
The reason for being (raison d’etre) of the Concordia University System is the Incarnation, Life, Death and Resurrection
of Jesus Christ. It is in Him that all knowledge can be rightly
understood and ordered: “He is before all things and in him all
things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). This assumption flows
from the confession of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
that grace alone, faith alone, and Scripture alone are the pillars
of the Christian faith as articulated in the Lutheran Confessions
and the Book of Concord.
The formal incorporation of the Concordia University System in 1992 combined the historic ministries of the ten colleges
and universities of the LCMS into a collaborative unit for the
benefit and enrichment of all the schools. Each of the institu-

109

tions, from their founding, is a ministry “owned and operated”
by the LCMS.
Each school has provided a summary of how its mission of
witness to Jesus Christ and service to its students and communities is presently lived out. The institutions express this mission of
the Church in crucial ways daily as entities of the Synod. Several
recent developments are especially noteworthy (as also exhibited
in the charts), namely, the continued growth—collectively—in
the number of students, the expansion of graduate programs at
the MA, DEd, and PhD levels, and the growth of professional
programs—nursing, pharmacy, physical therapy, law. All instruction is under the rubrics of preparing students for a life of
“vocation” as members of Christ’s Church. An abiding concern
is the decline in church vocations among students even as enrollment continues to grow. President Harrison and the CUS Board
have begun several initiatives to address this concern.
Special recognition and thanks are due the presidents who
are leading these ministries of the church in higher education in
the face of significant challenges.
These societal and cultural forces include: a demographic
decline in the historic pool of prospective students, an increase
of often intrusive governmental regulations, the complex impact
of distance education on all institutions of higher learning, the
severe economic challenges for students, and the increasingly
competitive environments of junior colleges and cognate institutions.
In such a challenging context, the Concordia University
System mourns and regrets the closure of Concordia College
Alabama in Selma, Alabama. Sister schools of Concordia over
some twelve years sent professors, administrators, and staff to
assist. The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod sent several million dollars in direct aid. When further fiscal deficits continued,
the Concordia University System sponsored two studies on viability. “Concordia College Alabama and Selma” by J. Michael
Willard, an external expert, was an in-depth study of the social
and cultural realities that the college was experiencing. The second study, “Report of the Ad Hoc Task Force,” was led by Rev.
Dr. Tom Ries, President of Concordia University St. Paul, and
included Mr. David Kumm, Executive Vice President—Chief
Financial Officer/Chief Operating Officer at Concordia University Nebraska; Ms. Pam Lee, Vice President of Business Services
(retired) at Concordia University Texas; Mr. Dennis Stoecklin,
Chief Financial Officer at Concordia University Portland; and
Ms. Bobi Swan, Vice President for Enrollment at Concordia
University Portland. The fiscal conclusion: “Private gifts and
grants need to continue to operate Concordia College Alabama
as a four-year liberal arts college are similar under both analyses,
and range from $5.6 million in FY2016 to $6.4 million in FY
2019” (p. 4).
Despite the heroic efforts of Concordia College Alabama’s
Board of Regents, the Concordia University System, and The
Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, such large subsidies could
not be funded. Multiple efforts for other alternative solutions
were expended by Concordia College Alabama’s Board of Regents, the Board of Directors of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, and the Concordia University System but to no
avail.
We rejoice and give thanks for the multiple achievements in
service to Christ, to their students, and to the Selma, Alabama,
2019 Convention Workbook