LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2007, Page 24

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24 SYNOD REPORTS

This task force believes the Council of Presidents and the
Board of Directors are the elected “leaders” of the Synod that
should be given the responsibility to initiate a specific plan to
clarify for the sake of the whole church a strategy to restore
harmony in our Synod. We encourage them to consider bring-
ing together a representative group of respected leaders
throughout this church for a summit. At the end of this summit
these church leaders should author a unanimously adopted
“symphony” that demonstrates how this great church body can
provide a God-pleasing witness of our confession and practice.

Let them deal with current topics to define how narrow or wide
is the road we “walk together” (Synod) must be when it comes to
worship practice, the role of the laity, close Communion, the role of
women, and our interaction with fellow Christians. But let the
product of their coming together be to honor the Scriptures (in-
cluding the Great Commission) and Confessions and dishonor the
work of Satan that diverts us from the “way of the Lord.”

The generation-long divisions among us have frustrated us all.
Allowing for proper dissent through bylaw-allowed procedures, we
also recommend that those members of this Synod that cannot em-
brace the convention mandated mission of our church should feel
free to leave this fellowship with truth-filled integrity and find an-
other association with whom they can partner.

TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATION #4: Communication

The biggest lesson of the “Expanding the Circle” pilot test of
the early ’90s was: To the extent you can get information about
Synod’s mission to the person in the pew you received in return
their enthusiastic response AND financial support. The success of
every direct giving campaign that is going on in our church is due
to a good communication of “the case.” How do we tell the 2.5 mil-
lion baptized members of the LCMS of “the case” to be made for
our “common-good” activities? The Board of Directors in the last
triennium tried to tell the story through a video called “Sow What?”
It was an attempt to share the complicated problems facing the
church through decreased support of Synod’s unrestricted budget.
It produced mixed reviews, and evidently did not result in-increased
revenue. We need a more aggressive communication plan that is
both educational and motivational. Our task force met for a day
with a renowned consultant to major Christian denominations in
our country. Dr. David A. Roozen, the director of the Hartford In-
stitute for Religion Research and a professor of Religion and Soci-
ety has authored several books including Church, Identity, and
Change; Understanding Church Growth and Decline; and Church
& Denominational Growth. Dr. Roozen knows the Missouri Synod
very well. From Dr. Roozen’s research we learned that in this new
century the church will need to be more relational in our challenge
to communicate the value of our “common good” activities sup-
ported with unrestricted budget dollars. We also learned from Dr.
Roozen that we better first train the pastors about the meaning and
the application of the message. This strategy also fits the pattern of
most successful capital campaigns that are run throughout our
church by professional firms:

You need to develop a clear ‘‘case” for mission and ministry,

You need the pastor on board,

You start with a “coalition of the willing” ..... your faithful givers,
You produce high quality communication vehicles,

You educate and motivate your leaders, and

You then reach out to each family (relationally) one by one.

Our Synod in the last 20 years has had consultants come in and
meet with focus groups, leaders at district and synodical levels and
attempt to determine a strategy for support and growth. Some read-
ing this report may remember the Colerelli/Meyer research and the
Church Membership Initiative study. Both of them produced simi-
lar results. They both taught us that ‘‘one size” no longer fits all.
They taught us that if we want good communication we must do it

2007 Convention Workbook

relationally....one by one by one. They took the lessons of suc-
cessful parish organization and told us to put them to work on the
district and Synod level.

We believe that a communication revolution in our Synod should
include the following three elements:

¢ Develop a DVD/booklet package to be shared with every pas-
tor in our Synod through either existing circuit forums or special
pastoral training meetings. Making use of our district/circuit struc-
ture we recommend the Synod President, through a special task
force, revisit the things learned from the production of the
“Sow What?” video and produce an outstanding pastoral train-
ing event on “FUNDING THE MISSION.” It needs to be
grace/mission oriented as opposed to finger pointing and legalis-
tic. It needs to encourage joy in “walking together.” It needs to
have statistical facts SIMPLY presented. It needs to celebrate the
reason for a synodical union. This material should also become
available to each of our seminaries for use in the formation of our
future pastors. We don’t believe our pastors have adequate train-
ing in the OBJECTIVES OF OUR SYNOD, let alone the covenant
we make to one another to freely support those objectives. This
would not be a one-time training but an ongoing program to keep
our pastors on the leading edge of making the case for our Synod’s
common-good activities. The executive director of the Commis-
sion on Theology and Church Relations has already done a good
piece of work on the original “objectives of the Synod.” Members
of our task force would be willing to assist a team that should in-
clude the Chief Financial Officer of the Synod and some represen-
tatives of district offices.

¢ In Luke 10, Jesus sent out 70 other than the disciples with
some wonderful marching orders and by the end of that chapter we
read, “the seventy returned with joy.” Seventy is a nice number for
the size of our Missouri Synod. We recommend the recruitment
of seventy “storytellers” geographically scattered around the
country (to cut down on travel expenses) who can be well
trained at the synodical/district level to be in our congregations
every Sunday with a “minute man” talk or a Bible Study. If
some of the storytellers are ordained they could offer sermonic
proclamations that lift up the great work we are doing TO-
GETHER in missions. We recommend a special volunteer task
force be named to oversee the establishment of this “storyteller”
ministry. The seventy storytellers should be a “blue ribbon” quality
group of people who can be the “face” of the Synod at the congre-
gational level. This new venture should cost very little and yet have
amazing potential reward. The seventy storytellers will be impor-
tant to develop relational communication with our congregations
and their people.

* We recommend a NEW printed communication piece (also
available on the Internet) be developed and put into every home
and on the computer of the members of our congregations. Let it be
a spin-off from the new branding initiative being developed by the
various boards of Synod under the title, ““Christ’s Love Is Here For
You.” This needs to be a concise “REACH THE WORLD FOR
CHRIST” mission-driven periodical. This should not be a “news
magazine” nor simply a rework of The Lutheran Witness. This
needs to be a Synod/district-wide “development device.” It should
highlight successes, build mission momentum and give practical
helps in each of the four “common-good” activity areas of Synod
(missions, education, congregational services and human care).
This periodical should be telling stories from the districts also. We
are all in this together. Years ago, there was an old periodical called
Advance, which was published in addition to The Lutheran Witness
that was a great blessing to the church. It’s time to re-invent that
old concept. We should have as a goal to put this periodical into
every Synod family’s home (approx. 800,000). It is estimated that
the cost to make this membership mailing would be over a million
dollars per year. There are many alternatives for funding this bold