LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1975, Page 273

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HIGHER EDUCATION 273

teachers, parents, and peers as those who influenced them most
in their decision to enter an academic program leading to a min-
isterial career. Professional church workers who show and
express joy in their work have been found to be the most effec-
tive of all recruiters.

Pastors and teachers who have conducted personal voca-
tional interviews with every young person in their parishes
are enthusiastic about the results and also the opportunity this
procedure has given them to present the challenges of the
ministries. Every congregation should consider inaugurating
such a program.

The Board for Higher Education hopes to get the message
out that those congregations that have been most successful
in providing future ministers for the church have almost always
been those that: provide financial assistance to their ministerial
students; regularly recognize sons and daughters of the con-
gregation who are in professional ministry or preparing for it;
give their young people opportunities to plan, lead, and serve
in worship and teaching experiences and in other appropriate
ministerial acts; and maintain regular contact with the recruit-
ment officers at one or more of the synodical colleges or semi-
naries. Some congregations have continued to have Vineyard
Clubs, or some similar way of keeping individual contact with
prospective church work students, and have reported successes
through the efforts.

Public high school counselors are important resource people
for students making career decisions. Pastors and other church
officials need to take the lead in meeting with these counselors
and in providing materials for them so that they will be more
able and likely to present the ministries as vocational options
to students.

But personal contact by those in the parish has still proved
to be the most effective recruitment aid. The continuing claim
of many young people is that almost nothing is being done in
their home churches to provide help in vocational decision-
making or to present the challenges and opportunities for ser-
vice through the ministries. These important jobs to be done
with our young people must somehow be brought to the fore-
ground among all the other pressures and programs of the
church. The board plans to give special emphasis to this need
during the coming biennium.

Two other activities found to be effective in recruitment are
when parish leaders regularly furnish names of prospective
students to recruitment officers at synodical colleges and when
they arrange to have prospective students visit one of the col-
leges to meet students and faculty members. Presentations at
parishes by college recruitment officers or student recruitment
teams have often sparked interest in synodical schools and in
the ministry among young people and young children of the
parish.

District Efforts

District recruitment committees and other leaders can help
make the personal contacts happen in parishes by providing
encouragement, training, and recruitment materials. Confer-
ences and workshops sponsored by Districts and dealing with
the overall questions of Christian vocation and approaches to
recruitment would be helpful for pastors, teachers, directors
of Christian education, Sunday school teachers, and other
parish leaders. District conventions should make sure that some
of their most qualified leaders are elected or appointed to the
District recruitment committees.

A few Districts have conducted retreats or other programs
specifically for prospective ministerial students. A plan involving
follow-up contacts between individual leaders and young peo-
ple has usually been included.

More sharing of information is needed among District re-
cruitment committees. The board plans to make efforts to help
this happen in the coming biennium.

Increased District financial aid for students can also be an
asset to recruitment. The increases in District funds for student
financial aid have fallen far short of keeping pace with other
District expenditures. The percentage of the total income of
Districts used for student aid is only half as large now as it was
in the 1930s. Some Districts currently provide less than 10 cents
per communicant each year for District aid. The board recom-
mends that all District leaders reexamine their student aid
budgets and make efforts to increase such aid during the next
biennium as a help to recruitment.

Community Lutheran High Schools

As new Lutheran community high schools were added and
enrollments in existing schools rose sharply, it was hoped that
the number of graduates of these schools entering the colleges
of the Synod would also increase significantly. This has hap-
pened to some extent among teacher education enrollees. It
has not happened to the same degree for pastoral students.

The community Lutheran high schools continue to be an
excellent source for ministerial students, however. District
recruitment committees and college recruitment officials need
to become even more active in working with these schools.
The board plans to make more personal contacts with the
Lutheran high schools and to provide more help to them in
their recruitment efforts.

It is logical, of course, that a high school teacher who is
finding joy in his own ministry will more readily be successful
in recruiting future teachers than pastors. However, high
school officials who have given special attention to pastoral
recruitment have reported successes from these efforts.

Community Junior Colleges

Public community junior colleges have continued to experi-
ence phenomenal growth. More and more students, for a wide
variety of reasons, are choosing to remain near home for their
first 2 years of college. Local congregations and District recruit-
ment committees have often given little attention to this source
for recruiting ministerial students, especially for teaching. Many
community colleges report large numbers of students who
classify themselves as teacher education students. Our congre-
gational leaders need to establish closer contacts with the
students, administrators, and counselors in these schools.

Other Private and Public Colleges and Universities

Both the Springfield and the St. Louis seminaries have
continued to be active during the past biennium in recruiting
qualified students from the public and private colleges and
universities of the nation. However, the degree to which the
seminaries have become focal points for the current contro-
versies in the Synod has certainly hurt the recruiting of students
for the seminary level.

When the Synod has spoken of maintaining a conservative
seminary (meaning theologically conservative, of course),
many students at colleges and universities, and many young
people generally. have apparently but unfortunately inter-
preted this (or been lead to interpret it) to mean that the Synod
wants only young people who are “conservative” in all respects
—life style, goals. ancestry, ambitions, politics, and social action
interests: and many young people want no part of this. Certainly
it would be unfortunate for the church if the pastors in the
future would come from an increasingly narrower segment of
our total population. The board hopes to make it widely known
that the Synod needs and wants qualified people to prepare
for ministry who represent all types of youth in the church
from all types of backgrounds and experiences.

Closer relationships and understandings must be developed
between campus pastors and the seminaries. Campus pastors
can become an excellent source for identifying, counseling,
and instructing prospective candidates for admission to the
seminaries.

Further steps need to be taken by parishes to make full
use of the opportunities in recruitment at the college level.
District recruitment committees have often almost totally
ignored this important source of students.

. Students from Minority Groups

Almost no progress can be reported during the past bien-
nium in recruiting greater numbers of ministerial students
from among racial and cultural minority ‘groups. In some ways
it appears that we have actually moved backward again from
a willingness on the part of more people to become personally
and actively involved in recruiting these students to the former
practice of limiting activities almost exclusively to speech-
making about the need.

The board still feels that the demands for financial assistance
for students from minority groups is severe enough to warrant
direct support from the Synod and believes it is unfortunate
that the Board of Directors of the Synod still has not been able