LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2023, Page 140

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140

OFFICER, BOARD, AND COMMISSION REPORTS
• when public schools advocated basic Judeo-Christian morality and moral principles, and secular society willingly
supported Christian churches and schools and maintained
Christian pro-life and sexuality standards. Today, churches
and schools are left to contend with government and society increasingly antagonistic to Christianity, and the church’s
colleges and universities exist not only in competition with
but in contradiction of mainstream higher education;
• when resources either deposited by other Concordias or
granted by the Synod sufficed to manage the schools’ cash
flow and other needs. Today the Concordia University System is no longer able to offer lines of credit to the schools.
Instead, the Lutheran Church Extension Fund finances the
borrowing by schools based on their individual financial circumstances. The Synod, likewise, cannot take on the scale
of liabilities that could be expected to arise in connection
with colleges and universities experiencing severe financial
straits;
• when it would have been realistic to contemplate empowering any single Synod board to coordinate the business and
financial operations of the universities as they presently exist
and operate as a unitary whole. Even the few existing layers
of authorization in left-hand kingdom matters (e.g., administration, finance, real estate, budget, information technology)
have engendered uncertainty regarding the relative roles of
CUS, the LCMS board of directors, and the boards of regents,
although the latter are clearly intended to be the schools’
“governing bodies corporate” (Bylaw 3.10.6.4 [i][6]). With
the size of the schools’ operating budgets (by 2022, collectively, approximately 23 times the total unrestricted budget
of corporate Synod), expanding endowments, and potential
liabilities vastly outweighing the value of the schools’ properties, present Synod bylaw mechanisms, e.g., Bylaw 3.6.6.4,
have not proven practically usable;
• when anything less than the utmost performance by highly
skilled and qualified governing bodies and administrations
could suffice to enable the Concordias to succeed in the increasingly challenging world of higher education; and
• when the Concordia University System as heretofore structured (or its predecessor, the Board for Higher / University
Education), and the institutions’ obligatory relationships to
it, along with Synod subsidy and sizeable flows of member
congregations’ students and faculty, were able to keep all of
its institutions economically viable (institutions in Selma,
Portland, and Bronxville having been lost to the Synod in
the last five years), to insulate them from the theological drift
characteristic of religious colleges and universities across the
country, or to sustain through them a flow of church vocation
graduates meeting the church’s needs.

Not gone, however, are the days for The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod to continue vigorously in common confession and mission with her colleges and universities by:
• providing opportunities for members of the Synod’s congregations to attend quality and attractive schools that, both in
teaching and campus life, faithfully adhere to and advocate
the Holy Scripture and its central Christian teachings, as expressed in LCMS Constitution Article II;
2023 Convention Workbook

• providing opportunity and freedom for the Concordias to
discern and pursue their own visions for campuses and academic life while enjoying and putting into practice their affiliation with the LCMS and its doctrinal foundation, as articulated in Article II of its Constitution, and while pursuing
with both initiative and cooperation many of the objectives of
the Synod listed in Article III;
• fundamentally renovating the Synod’s approach to overseeing and influencing the curricular fidelity and comprehensive
spiritual life of the Concordias under the Lutheran Identity
Statement (2016 Res. 7-01A, Proc. 171) and subsequent
standards for identity and mission outcomes, using a thorough and transparent process of ecclesiastical accreditation,
rooted in Synod’s theological and pedagogical strengths, that
not only evaluates performance but also fosters and strengthens plans for improvement;
• reiterating clearly the role of the Concordia boards of regents
as the directly and ultimately responsible and accountable
stewards of the resources committed to them for the mission
of the church, and providing enhanced means for regent selection, training, assessment, and development;
• continuing to empower and expect boards of regents to exercise their duty to the congregations of the Synod, as the
governing bodies corporate of the several institutions (Bylaw
3.10.6.4 [i][1, 6]), to do the work for which Synod has established the schools, including training professional church
workers (Const. Art. III 3) and laity for service in the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Art. of Inc. II d), and thoroughly
educating and nurturing “others desiring a Christian liberal
arts education” (Bylaw 3.6.6.1); and
• continuing thereby the Synod’s efforts to uphold the relationship—as mutually voluntary and mutually valued—of
the schools with its congregations and commending them to
their students, while guiding participating schools to build on
the strength that differentiates them from every other university—the full and pure confession of a Jesus who is never for
them “in the way” but in every sense “the Way.”
Thus the institutions will be guided to thrive in precisely that way
that will sustain and increase their unique and indispensable contributions to the common mission of the Synod.
The proposed transition to a new model of organization reflecting
all these realities and hopes has emerged from a series of recent
Synod convention actions (2013 Res. 5-01A; 2016 Res. 7-02B; and
2019 Res. 7-03). The culminating 2019 convention action directed
the Synod’s Board of Directors—with active involvement of the
President of the Synod; the Concordia University System Board,
Advisory Council, and President; the institutions’ boards of regents; and others as needed—to propose a new governance plan for
consideration and adoption by the 2023 convention. The process
directed by 2019 Res. 7-03 required the concurrence of the CUS
Advisory Council and the CUS Board of Directors and a period
of review and comment by the entire Synod, which took place between March and Sept. 2021. The following new governance plan
is presented in pursuit of a realistic, sustainable, and transparent
framework, satisfying and acting upon the following objectives of
the aforementioned resolutions, as summarized in 2019 Res. 7-03,
to:
• strengthen all CUS institutions’ connection to the Synod;