LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1973, Page 3

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MISSIONS 3

tion in Chicago in July 1971 and meets this year in Kansas City.
Under a new administrative setup for deaf missions, the national
ILDA board and its regional advisory committees will play a
greater role in planning and shaping our church's ministry
among the deaf.

b. Other Biennium Highlights. Through Synod’s Department
of Research and Statistics a census of the sensory impaired has
been conducted among al] LCMS, ALC, and LCA congregations
in North America. Findings indicate that there are 2,000 deaf
youth in the LCMS (500 of whom are in high school or college):
approximately 50,000 hard-of-hearing Lutherans needing special
help; 540 trained teachers of the deaf; and nearly 500 untrained
volunteers interested in teaching deaf Sunday school classes
and willing to take special training to equip themselves to help
out.

During the past biennium the Board of Missions approved
a religious education project in order to develop special educa-
tion materials and to recruit and train hearing Sunday school
teachers for the deaf. A committee of missionaries to the deaf
has begun “captioning” This Is the Life films as another tool for
reaching the deaf.

Vicars and seminary graduates assigned to deaf ministries
during the past 2 years first attended a preservice summer
training program at Gallaudet College, Washington, D.C., the
world’s only liberal arts college for the deaf.

Ministry to and among the deaf is a vital part of the church's
concern overseas as well as in North America. Schools for deaf
children and/or outreach to deaf adults continues strong in
Hong Kong-Macao, Japan, India, Brazil.

c. Some Problems in Deaf Ministry. Finances remain a major
deaf ministry problem. Although the giving of deaf members is
on the rise, the subsidy needed by deaf congregations to carry
out their ministry has increased at a much faster rate.

The recruitment of additional deaf ministry workers is an
urgent need. Many deaf fields and congregations have suffered
long and debilitating vacancies.

Working together with deaf ministry regional advisors, the
Board for Missions this biennium came up with a mutually ac-
ceptable solution to a long-standing problem: the administration
of Synod’s deaf ministry program. In a six-part resolution
adopted at its February 1973 meeting, the Board for Missions
requested the Synod's Board of Directors to ‘authorize and
encourage the Districts of the Synod to encourage the Districts
of the Synod to assume responsibility for all local administration
of ministry to the deaf by Jan. 1, 1974,” and initiated develop-
ment of a clear, precise plan for the transfer of administration
which would foster the full utilization and involvement of the
deaf themselves in planning and programming of deaf ministry —

- in the Districts, regionally and nationally. The Board of Directors

took favorable action on the Board for Missions’ request in
March 1973.

2. Take My Hands: Blind Ministry

Moved by the impulse of God’s love, some 350 volunteer
workers in the Missouri Synod use their ‘‘hands”’ to transcribe,
proofread, or teach Braille transcription to other volunteers.

a. Braille Transcription Work. The loving labor of volunteer
workers, in their own homes and in four ‘‘workcenters” through-
out the United States, continues to be the heart and center of
our Synod’s literature ministry to the blind. Since 1953, a Braille
Transcription Committee has coordinated and directed the
transcription work. Mrs. Albert Warnke, Mrs. Henry Fliege,
Mrs. Glenn Zweifel, and Mrs. Leo Bruhn serve on this commit-
tee, under the leadership of the Rev. Walter Storm.

During the past biennium volunteers hand-transcribed
a total of 971 volumes and 60,318 pages of religious material
into Braille. In addition, Sunday school lessons from the nursery
level to adult Bible class are Brailled annually for over 300 in-
dividuals. Volunteers at four workcenters — Peoria, Il: Manning,
Iowa; Green Bay, Wis.; and Dunedin, Fla.—bind and mail
hand-transcribed volumes, as well as duplicate multiple copies
of church magazines and Sunday school materials. A fifth
workcenter is located in Hong Kong.

b. Library for the Blind. Synod’s Library for the Blind,
located at Concordia Publishing House in St. Louis. serves not
only the Missouri Synod, but the ALC and LCA as well. Avail-
able for loan in the Library are Brailled religious books: ‘‘Talk-
ing Books” (records); and hymn books, catechisms, etc., in
both Braille and Sight Saving type. Recently, the LLL has also
begun to provide cassette tapes of Lutheran Hour sermons for

loaning to the Blind. The Library for the Blind made its brochure
available for distribution to ‘Key 73" resource people this past
year so that blind persons encountered in this evangelism thrust
might become acquainted with the Library's services.

The Synod continues to publish Teen Time Magazine as
a way to reach students in state schools for the blind through-
out the U.S. and elsewhere around the world. Portals of Prayer
is produced in Braille and Sight Saving type. in conjunction with
Concordia Publishing House.

ce. Cooperative Efforts. Cooperation continued throughout
this biennium between Synod's Braille Transcription Committee
and Lutheran Braille Workers, an independent group in Cali-
fornia. Music transcribers from Synod's blind ministry program
did the Braille music for the Lutheran Braille Workers’ Hym-
nal—since LBW has no music transcribers. LBW. in return.
supplied the Library for the Blind with copies of several of its
popular Braille and large-print booklets.

Representatives of the Wisconsin Synod’s Mission for the
Blind met with Missouri Synod representatives in September
1972 in order to get information on large print materials, cassette
tapes, and the Library for the Blind. The Wisconsin Synod has
started a Braille program patterned after the LCMS's.

3. Take My Hands: Campus Ministry

Moved by the impulse of God's love, nearly 100 full-time and
700 part-time Missouri Synod pastors are using their ‘‘hands"
in witness and ministry on college and university campuses:
providing a hand-clasp of fellowship and Christian community
to students away from home: distributing the Body and Blood
of our Lord Jesus Christ, in, with and under the bread and wine.
to students and faculty gathered around the Communion table:
laying a hand of assurance on the shoulder of troubled students,
professors, or administrators in periods of personal crisis: and
helping university students to put their hands and hearts to-
gether in various community service projects.

a. Scope of Campus Ministry. An estimated 120,000 Missouri
Synod students are presently enrolled in U.S. and Canadian
colleges and universities. But today’s campus pastors see an
even larger ‘‘parish’'—seeking as much as possible to carry out
a prophetic and pastoral ministry to the total campus they're
serving: churched and unchurched students. faculty and
administration.

Major emphases in our Synod's campus program during the
present and upcoming biennium include (1) meeting the new
frontiers of the community commuter college: (2) better equip-
ping town-gown, part-time campus pastors for their task: and
(3) preparing to meet the new challenges posed by the radical
philosophical and structural changes in higher education
anticipated in the next decade.

Another special concern is intensifying the Christian witness
made to some 150,000 international students studying annually
in North America.

b. Inter-Lutheran and Pan-Christian Cooperation. Coordi-
nated and cooperative planning and programming is a byword
for campus ministry on almost every campus. The college com-
munity expects and demands that religious representatives of
various church bodies work together as a team in shaping gen-
eral policies and programs. In many instances, the college ad-
ministration will permit only one Lutheran representative for
all Lutheran students —or, in some cases, only one campus min-
istry for all students. Even without such college-imposed regula-
tions, financial limitations (hundreds of campuses have no
Lutheran ministry) have led many Missouri Synod Districts into
coordinative and consultative planning with the ALC and LCA’s
National Lutheran Campus Ministry. Over 20 Districts partici-
pate in state (or regional) inter-Lutheran campus ministry
committees in order to plan jointly how to make the best use
of the dollar resources available for campus ministry. The Lu-
theran Council in the U.S. A.’s Division of Campus Ministry and
Educational Services relates in an advisory role to these inter-
synodical committees.

Since 1967, the Missouri Synod, together with the National
Lutheran Campus Ministry, has annually purchased a number
of common services from the Lutheran Council: campus ministry
communications, orientation conferences for new campus
pastors and in-service training conferences for full-time campus
pastors, Lutheran campus ministry directories, campus ministry
studies, etc. During 1972 the Council also sponsored two in-
service training conferences for town-gown pastors. Synod’s