Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 2019 · 67th Convention, Tampa › Page 332
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2019, Page 332

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

332

V. REPORT OF THE 2016 RES. 4-03B TASK FORCE ON RECOGNIZED SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS
differentiate between, on the one hand, those
RSOs (Tier I) that 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, and, on the
other hand, those (Tier II) operating 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. (The distinction is
not made in ignorance of the fact, noted above,
that direct confrontation of sin with the Law
or a correction of client’s errant belief is not
always what is immediately called for.) While
the word tier may suggest degrees of value,
that is not the intended sense. One may picture
a multi-tier wedding cake, in which the upper
layers may be closer to the figure of the bride
and groom at the top—but the lower are much
larger in diameter and ultimately feed more
guests. Organizations operating in challenged,
but larger, domains are of immense value to
the church’s mercy and in supporting and surrounding the church’s nearer and higher work
of the proclamation of Law and Gospel.
Tier II organizations are expected to
demonstrably “do the best they can with what
they’ve got” in the mercy sphere (suffering
contrary forces rather than joining, endorsing,
or welcoming them) and demonstrably to do
what they do in coordination with congregations and schools so that their churchly mission
is multiplied. They may operate with one foot
in the kingdom of the left, suffering what such
a foot suffers, but they have the left foot in that
game in order to do the mercy work of (and
ultimately, to seek to advance) the foot of the
kingdom of the right. It may be the best they
can do is carry out some merciful purpose in a
moral fashion, and to do it in proximity to congregational ministries of the Synod with more
freedom to proclaim. These would be on the
far “mission-multiplying” end of the spectrum
but can still be of great value—if such concern
for augmenting the mission of the church is in
earnest—to the Synod’s congregations and mission to the world.
An MSO, for example, that uses public
funds to aid the homeless might embrace the
congregations referring clients to its services,
helping them to understand not only how to
help their communities’ homeless access the
MSO’s social welfare services, but how to
invite those served fully into the life of the
church. As one CEO put it, “an MSO [by
itself] can reach out with services but cannot

2019 Convention Workbook

bring people into the community, the church,
that will ‘be here for you until you die.’” The
MSO can foster opportunities, however, for
its partner congregations to do that—and this
is a fundamental part of its reason for existence and recognition. Another perspective
is that an MSO exists to “wrap the church
around the community,” not simply to exist
“because it exists for the public service.” The
task force recommends that this aspect of an
MSO’s work—its tangible connection with the
“ultimate ministry” of the Synod’s congregations—be much more explicitly and concretely
sought, demonstrated, and cultivated—especially in Tier II, where this “mutual benefit”
might be understood as the chief reason for an
organization’s recognition in a challenged and
conflicted domain.
The Synod, through its RSO program, has
entered with these organizations into feeling
their way through such a conflicted situation—
working with the organizations to be faithful
in the face of challenge, to carry out the mercy
of the church in spite of weakness, and—in
an especially important way—to coordinate
their works of mercy (which may not be able
to be explicitly advancing or proclaiming the
ultimate goods the church has) in near proximity to and in direction towards the “Word- and
Word-and-Sacrament” ministries of the Synod.
These two tiers are distinguished only
for Mercy and Educational Service Organizations. There are, for obvious reasons, no “Tier
II Witness Service Organizations” (such might
be examples of “heterodox tract and mission
societies” prohibited by Const. Art. VI 2). Even
among Mercy (MSO) and Educational (ESO)
categories, the intention is not to create a new
space in which “anything goes,” but to acknowledge frankly the present situation, so that
the Synod can make appropriate and thoughtful
decisions about how and why it relates to these
organizations that are more subject to constraint and compromise, and what are the benefits and risks. This second tier is an uncomfortable territory, certainly for the organizations
and also for the Synod. It is not, though, an
area from which the task force feels—on account of that discomfort—the Synod should
hastily retreat, but should instead stay and fight
alongside those who, in challenged circumstances, aim to perform real mercy maximally
within their constraints, to “do what comes to
hand and to do it with vigor.” Acknowledging
the existence of this tier and its reality among
the current RSO organizations is a first step
toward a frank, lively, God-pleasing, and mutually strengthening conversation—of which this
report is not the end—between the Synod and