LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1998, Page 8

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8 SYNODICAL REPORTS

Council for American Private Education, the Lutheran Office of
Government Affairs of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Amer-
ica, the Family Research Council/Focus on the Family, the Na-
tional Association of Evangelicals, the National Committee for a
Human Life Amendment, the Religious Alliance against Pornog-
raphy, the Rutherford Institute, the United States Catholic Confer-
ence, and many others. OGI also maintains contact with agencies
outside the Washington area, including Lutheran World Relief,
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Lutherans for Life, the
National Pro-Life Religious Council, and others. The Wisconsin
Evangelical Lutheran Synod and other Lutheran church bodies
often receive information on church-state public policy from OGI.
The circle of OGI contacts continues to expand, and we expect that
this trend will continue throughout the next triennium, especially
in the area of religious liberty, where national and international de-
velopments continue to raise issues of common concem to an in-
creasing array of Christian and non-Christian religious groups.

Conclusion

Among the many challenges facing the Office of Government
Information in the next triennium, three stand out. First, OGI needs
to increase its efforts to work to educate the Synod on the clear
scriptural distinction between the proper roles of the church and
civil authority in the face of the increasingly confused understand-
ing of those roles as many Lutherans adopt errors promulgated by
enthusiastic and well-intentioned, but theologically misguided,
groups influenced by reformed theology. Second, we must continue
to pursue reasoned arguments for the scriptural teachings of what
constitutes the common good that are accessible to a popular cul-
ture in which religion is increasingly relegated to the sphere of the
irrelevant, and which in some areas is increasingly hostile to the
moral teachings of Christianity. Finally, we must become ever
more adaptable to the changes in the way in which people obtain
and employ information so that we can continue to provide infor-
mation and analysis that is not only accurate and theologically cor-
rect, but is timely and usable.

David L. Adams, Executive Director

R1-8-02
Nomenclature Study Committee

The 1992 convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri
Synod adopted Res. 5-21, “To Study Classification of Professional
Church Workers.” This resolution directed the President of the
Synod to appoint “a special committee to study roster classifica-
tion in light of the doctrine of the ministry and bring appropriate
recommendations to the next synodical convention.

In response to this resolution, President Barry appointed the
members of the Nomenclature Study Committee [NSC]. The NSC
met regularly beginning in May 1994 and concluding in December
1997. The members of the committee include Rev. Steven Briel,
parish pastor and member of the Synod’s Board for Higher Educa-
tion; Dr. Jonathan Laabs, professor at Concordia College, Ann
Arbor (now executive director of the Lutheran Education Associa-
tion); Dr. Cameron MacKenzie, professor of church history at Con-
cordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne; Rev. Paul T. McCain,
assistant to the synodical President; Deaconess Betty Mullholland,
St. Paul Lutheran Church, Munster, Ind. (now retired); Dr. Roger
Pittelko, President of the English District (now retired); Rev. Larry
Rockemann, parish pastor, Immanuel Lutheran Church and School,
Bristol, Conn.; Dr. Walter Rosin, Secretary of the Synod; Dr. Her-
bert Sims, retired director of the Hispanic Seminary Extension of
Concordia Seminary, St. Louis; Mr. David Uden, Jay minister at
Concordia Lutheran Church in Machesney Park, Ill.; and Dr. James
Voelz, professor of New Testament and director of Graduate Stud-
ies at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. Dr. Pittelko served as chair-
man of the committee.

The NSC studied the various issues that affect how the Synod
names and classifies its professional church workers. As part of its
study, the committee brought in numerous speakers to address is-
sues relating to the classification and naming of church workers.
The speakers included Dr. William Weinrich, Prof. Kurt Marquart,

Dr. Paul Zimmerman, Dr. David Benke, Deaconess Kristin Wassi-
lak, Dr. Carl Moser, Prof. Steve Arnold, Dr. Samuel Nafzger, Rev.
Roger Winger, Leonard Pranschke, Esq., and Dr. William Meyer.
Each of these speakers spoke from the perspective of their exper-
tise in this area and made a very significant contribution to the
committee’s work.

The committee carried out its work mindful of the fact that it
was not charged with the task of redefining or otherwise altering
the historic doctrine of the ministry as the Synod has confessed and
practiced it on the basis of Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions.
The NSC was charged to make use of this historic biblical and con-
fessional confession and practice in studying our present nomen-
clature for church workers and for arriving at a more appropriate
nomenclature system. The committee determined that our Synod’s
present three-fold system of categorizing church workers does not
adequately meet the need for faithful, effective description and or-
ganization of the Synod’s professional church workers.

The committee recognized the Synod’s need to be very sensi-
tive to the need to uphold the important ministry of teachers and
other church workers. The NSC leamed of the serious legal con-
cern with the present nomenclature structure, which includes a
third category of church workers who are neither certified nor ros-
tered. Our District presidents are unable to provide supervision of
these church workers because they are neither certified nor ros-
tered. If a severe problem develops, our District presidents are un-
able to take disciplinary action against these church workers and
thus a legal liability is created for which there is no adequate solu-
tion at the present time.

The NSC determined that it would be best to obtain the input of
church workers across the Synod before making any definitive pro-
posals. Consequently, the NSC prepared and sent to all rostered
church workers a survey that described the committee’s initial find-
ings and included five possible wordings for new nomenclature.
The committee also encouraged church workers to submit any
comments, suggestions, or observations they might have for com-
mittee consideration. The response was very encouraging. We re-
ceived 3,276 individual responses from the rostered church work-
ers of our Synod. By large measure, this was the largest response to
any survey conducted in our Synod’s history. The overwhelming
majority of the responses indicated support for a change in our
nomenclature and strongly affirmed the NSC’s conclusion that the
Synod must have only two categories of church workers, not three.

After reviewing the survey results and the many additional
comments received, the NSC came to the conclusion that it will be
in the best interest of the Synod to classify all certified and ros-
tered church workers with the following nomenclature:

1. Pastors

2. Teachers and Associates in Ministry

The NSC believes that this nomenclature clearly distinguishes
between the one divinely established office of the ministry, the pas-
toral office, and those offices that the church has created to help
discharge the functions of the pastoral office. At the same time, it
strongly affirms the historic office of teacher in our Synod. Fur-
ther, the second category clearly reflects the Synod’s position that
offices created by the church discharge vital functions of the one
divinely established office of the ministry and are thus true
churchly offices, to be accorded honor and respect. We therefore
feel it appropriate to use the word “ministry’’ to refer to workers in
this second category.

Included in the second category will be all teachers and direc-
tors of Christian education, deaconesses, certified lay ministers,
and directors of Christian outreach. We propose no third category.
Instead we recommend that the third category of “Church Worker,
Lay’’ be eliminated from the Synod’s roster structure and that the
appropriate chapter in the Synod’s Bylaws be removed.

A further important advantage of the new nomenclature is that
it moves away from the language of the Federal government to de-
scribe the church’s servants. The present nomenclature, “minister
of religion’ is drawn directly from the language of the Internal
Revenue Service's tax regulations. The use of the IRS’s language
has introduced an unhealthy nonbiblical and unconfessional view
of offices of ministry in our Synod. Our study of these issues con-
vinced our committee that the use of the IRS language to describe