LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1973, Page 190

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190 SYNODICAL ADMINISTRATION

dreds of thousands in the Synod who brought their “Gifts
of Joy” through the thankoffering.

The Executive Consultant wishes to pay personal tribute
to the creative and faithful associates with whom he worked.
to the loyal and efficient office personnel, the “210" family
who so readily welcomed him as a member from the outset,
and to St. Philip congregation in Chicago who was willing
to share him with the Synod for 112 years,

But most of all gratitude ought to be expressed to our
great Lord as we echo the psalmist in saying: “I will be
glad and rejoice in Thy mercy: for Thou hast considered my
trouble; Thou hast known my soul in adversities: and hast
not shut me up into the hand of the enemy: Thou hast set
my feet in a large room.” (Ps. 31:7-8)

For all that the thankoffering ought to accomplish and
will not because of our mistakes, our weaknesses, our
fumblings, our ineptitude, our sinfulness, we take as a
burden of guilt and humbly ask your forgiveness even as
we bring it to the throne of 8race and seek our Lord's for-
giveness. On the other hand, for all that the thankoffering
will accomplish, we say

Soli Deo Gloria!

Herbert Schuppan, Chairman
Victor C. Rickman, Executive Consultant

4-11

Report of Division of Communications
(Milwaukee Resolution 10-11)

Two conclusions are common to numerous studies and
reports on the use of the mass media in the mission and
ministry of the church:

1. Use of the mass media must have a high priority in
the work program and spending budget of the Synod.

2. The Synod must recognize that use of the mass media
calls for programs specifically designed to reach the
unreached rather than professing Christians.

There is a tendency in the church to give top priority
to person-to-person communication of the Gospel by pro-
fessional church workers in situations that bring measurable
results. Equal importance must be attached to reaching
large masses of unseen people with the Gospel in the confi-
dence that the Word of the Lord will not return to Him
empty of results but accomplish what He purposes — regard-
less of measurable results from a human point of view.

No one can expect the church's use of the mass media
to result in a considerable number of “conversions,” but
one can expect to plant the seed of the Word in many
hearts through use of the media. No other means of com-
munication offers the Possibility of planting that seed on
such a massive scale (and so cheaply) as the mass media.

Use of the mass media, therefore, should not be isolated
— divorced from the mission of the church and regarded as
a second-, third-, or fourth-rate endeavor of the church.
Ministry by radio, television, film, tape, etc.. must become
an integral part of the church's mission and receive top
budget priority.

Because mass-media programs must be designed to reach
the masses, such programs must be audience-oriented rather
than church-oriented. This is not “church people talking to
church people.” This is church people becoming “all things
to all men” — using points of contact, methods, images, ex-
pressions, and sounds that hit specific target audiences — so
that they “might by all means save some.”

Church people are often disappointed with (and critical
of) programs designed for the masses. Sometimes church
people threaten to cut off their support of the church be-
cause a certain church-related radio or television program
does not please them.

Members of the church must be educated and led to see
the compelling need for becoming “all things to all men”
in order to reach the unreached with the Gospel of Christ.

To facilitate an expanded use of the mass media in the
mission and ministry of the church, the Division of Com-
munications submits the following recommendations to the
Synod in convention:

1. That the Synod in its planning and budgeting of re-

sources give high priority to the use of the mass media
m carrying out its mission to all people.

Because synodical income has not kept pace with con-

2. That the Synod establish a Council for Mass Com-
munications consisting of the chairman of the Division
of Communications, the top executive of each unit in
the division, and a representative of the Board for
Missions, the Board for Evangelism, and the Lutheran
Laymen’'s League in order to:

a. Strengthen their respective efforts to proclaim the
Gospel worldwide and to edify the members of the
Synod for their own ministry of the Word;

b, Plan and initiate cooperative efforts to use the mass
media for more effective, unified impact with the
Gospel on the human community in North America
and throughout the world.

3. That the Council for Mass Communications be em-
powered, as it becomes necessary, to engage staff help
after developing job specifications and other pertinent
plans with the approval of the Synod’s Board of Di-
rectors,

DIVISION oF COMMUNICATIONS
Martin W. Mueller, Chairman
Victor A. Constien, Secretary

4-11A

The Board for Missions: (1) Endorses the above me-
morial submitted to the New Orleans convention by the Di-
vision of Communications in response to Milwaukee Resolu-
tion 10-11 (“To Continue Study of Priorities for Expanded
Use of Media in Mission of the Church”); and

(2) Calls attention again to the vast opportunities and
urgent need to use the media of mass communications in
the proclamation of the Gospel in all areas and all levels of
the church’s mission work overseas and in North America;
and

(3) Encourages early engagement of specialized resource
staff to enable missionaries and mission units to utilize the
media of mass communications with maximum effectiveness
to reach untouched target audiences at home and abroad
with the Good News of Christ Jesus.

William H. Kohn, Executive Secretary
4-12
To Call for Realignment

Wuereas, There exists in Synod two incompatible theolo-
gies, as indicated by Dr. Preus’ Report on the investigation
of the St. Louis seminary, by the faculty’s documents Faith-
ful To Our Calling, Faithful To Our Lord, and as admitted
by Dr. Paul Bretscher in his article “The Log in Your Own
Eye” (CTM, XLII, November 1972): “We have seen how
our orthodox fathers were somehow derailed. Two possible
authority principles carried through in the Lutheran Refor-
mation. The one was... the authority of the Bible as the
inspired and inerrant Word of God. The other was... the
authority of the Gospel.... The Reformation itself did not
really sort out the new authority from the old. Somehow
it was the old stream which in the end swept orthodoxy
with it and supplies the foundation of its theological system.”
Dr. Bretscher further admits that the historic position of
our church “perverts Scripture and the Confessions, robs
Christ of His honor, and seduces consciences with a false
comfort” and that the basis of authority for his theology “is
not the same authority principle as the traditional one of
the Bible’s inspiration’: and

WHEREAS, Subscription to Seripture and the Confessions
is obviously no longer adequate to maintain discipline and
the unity of the faith, inasmuch as Scripture and the Con-
fessions deal implicitly with these modern heresies, but not
sufficiently explicitly; and

Wuereas, Dr. Preus in his Statement of Scriptural and
Confessional Principles, and the Commission on Theology