LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1975, Sheet 74

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76 ADDRESS OF THE GENERAL SECRETARY OF LCUSA

bear to shape the agency into an effective tool to enhance
your witness and your ministry. Leaders of your church
sit on the highest policy panels and are present on every
standing committee. Your budget dollars help pay for the
many services which the Lutheran Council carries out
for its member church bodies.

Not only has the Council developed and established
structures and programs tailored to your concerns, but
more recently we have been responsive to the special
concerns within your church body that have caused you
to pull back from complete participation in some of our
cooperative work. This has required serious adjustment
on the part of all of us who have program responsibilities
in the agency.

I would not be honest with you if I said that your
action did not adversely affect the other two church
bodies and the Council itself. It did. The necessary
adjustment has been difficult, but we have followed
through and have made them, both in program and in
personnel, in order to accommodate your programatic
judgments and financial circumstances. I say this be-
cause The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod helped to
create and shape the Council and is continuingly integral
to its being. The Council has no life apart from that
given to it by the church bodies.

Your partnership with The American Lutheran
Church and the Lutheran Church in America is surviv-
ing this particular strain, but we will need to work

through the implications of the meaning of partnership —

as it applies to The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
commitment and posture toward our common agency in
the immediate future.

None of your colleagues in the cooperative sphere is
in a position to quarrel with or object to the priorities
that have been decided upon as a result of your evalua-
tions. Some of the programs which your representatives
deemed less useful or less important than others are to
be continued, but now will be supported only by The
American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church in
America. Some of the activities involve virtually the
totality of Lutheranism on the American scene as it is
represented to government and to the public at large
through such offices as public affairs and government
relations, and communication and interpretation. In the
minds of many of our publics, Lutheranism is not as
divisible as some of us attempt to make it. I hope that
you will not close the doors to reconsideration of your
participation in some of these important collective
approaches to our society.

2. The Lutheran Council Is Flexible to Change

You should know that the Lutheran Council has not
been so rigidly organized that flexibility has been pre-

-cluded. As a matter of fact, a thorough study of the

structure and function of the agency was undertaken by
the three church bodies several years ago, and major
reorganizations and adjustments were made to ensure
even greater flexibility of operation.

In our Division of Service to Military Personnel a
very creative new staffing pattern was placed in opera-
tion, providing that one staff person for each of our
church bodies is to serve both the Lutheran Council and

his own church body. This has been effectuated to the
great satisfaction of all concerned. Integrity has been
maintained, and considerable money has been saved.

At the specific request of The Lutheran Church—
Missouri Synod a communication office was opened on
the West Coast with the agreement of the other partners,
and this office has served effectively both the regional
and the national needs of Lutherans vis-a-vis media. We
regret, however, that this has had to be one of the
casualties of our financial retrenchment.

An exciting example of flexibility in meeting chang-
ing problems and opportunities is going on at this very
moment. I refer to the massive program we are engaged
in at the Lutheran Council in the resettlement into
American communities of refugee families from Indo-
china.

At the end of May one of your Vice-Presidents, Dr.
August Bernthal, and I were invited to the White House
for a consultation on the refugee resettlement question.
Dr. Bernthal is chairman of the standing committee for
the Department of Immigration and Refugee Service and
has given brilliant service in helping to establish crea-
tive and humane policies regarding our work among
refugees. I was proud that day at the White House when
it became clear in that setting that our Lutheran Council
program was already operational and was among the
leading voluntary agencies responding to an urgent
human problem with which we as a nation were con-
fronted.

Almost immediately teams of dedicated and compe-
tent resettlement experts were deployed to Camp Pendle-
ton, California; Fort Chaffee, Arkansas; Eglin Air Force
Base, Florida; and Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania. These
representatives of yours were boldly jumping in to deal
efficiently and lovingly with confusions and complexities
of unbelievable proportions. Soon a control center was
operating at our New York offices of the Lutheran Coun-
cil to coordinate sponsorship offers coming from Lu-
theran congregations with those families who had been
interviewed and processed at the camps. I am very proud
to announce to you that 1,200 congregations have agreed
to sponsor through the Council amost 6,000 Cambodian
and Vietnamese refugees. I am also pleased to say that
President Preus has already visited one of the resettle-
ment camps, talked with some of the refugees, and
encouraged our staff members there.

3. The Lutheran Council Is Dedicated
to Renewal and Service

New problems and new opportunities will always face
us. I pledge to you that the Lutheran Council, to the
extent that its partners support it and maintain it, will
always be dedicated to renewing its organizational life
for greater, more effective, and more efficient service in
the kingdom of God. There is so much that each of our
Lutheran Church bodies, through its congregations and
agencies, needs to do to minister to our troubled world.
Lutherans can help one another. We have done so in the
past through sharing of staff and programs, through
ministry to special needs, through speaking with one
voice where appropriate, through exploring Scriptural