LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1979, Page 185

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LATE REPORTS AND OVERTURES 185

getting pastors and the laity to participate in the annual
series of two-week church leadership schools held at
land-grant institutions. The 1979 schools were held at
Colorado State University, West Virginia University,
Michigan State University, and the University of Idaho.

Regional Mission Planning

Newly revised guidelines followed by the 21 regional
planning consultations that meet each spring and fall
are to be put into effect this year. They indicate how to
deal with congregationally initiated ministries and
other developments in this means of sharing plans for
ministry and carrying them out. A consideration of the
theology of mission was included on the agenda of the
1978-79 consultations, while the year before the special
consideration was a study, “Church Membership and
Community Statistics for Lutherans.”

A three-day subconsultation held in November 1977
to inspect the needs of the 15-county “black belt” in
south-central Alabama has had far-reaching effects
benefiting one of the poorest areas of the country. The
LCMS, ALC, LCA, and Wheat Ridge Foundation have
given grants totaling $165,000 used to form the Ala-
bama Rural Council, representing 25 institutions in the
area. The council has received a $40,000 grant from the
Farmers Home Administration, and additional federal
funding totaling $3.5 million is in the picture. It has
begun a major project in black rural church revitali-
zation. Last January JSAC held a two-day conference
in Alabamaso that leaders of nine other denominations
could study this model for possible duplication else-
where.

Another highlight related to the planning consul-
tations is the inter-Lutheran ministry to the “captive”
audience of athletes, spectators, and technicians at the

1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y. Planning
began in 1977, the pastor in charge began work last
March, and he will conclude the ministry two weeks
after the end of the games next March.

Last summer the six regional planning directors
studied during on-site visits 29 new Lutheran congre-
gations started through the church extension programs
of Lutheran Brotherhood and then shared their assess-
ments that the programs are “very beneficial” with the
church-body executives in church development. This
help has allowed the churches to initiate more congre-
gations than they projected.

Social Ministry Planning

The implications and effects of California’s Proposi-
tion 13 on human services and related trends in other
locales has been the subject of a major study by this
desk. The resulting report comments that “complicity is
the trademark of the tax revolt. The symbolic issue with
allits facets is like a large domino game. Each action or
interaction has serious implications elsewhere. Budget
reductions cause cuts in staff, which cause increased
caseloads, which in turn cause reduction in services,
leading to inadequate response during a crisis. . .. Does
anyone know, can anyone believe, that it often costs
more to ruin a life than to nurture it?”

Assistance to the Lutheran Domestic Disaster Re-
sponse Board has centered on training resource persons
to coordinate the churches’ efforts in meeting needs
created by disasters such as the flood that devastated
parts of Rochester, Minn., in July 1978 and holding a
pilot workshop in disaster preparedness for district-
synod and social-service-agency leaders in southern
California.

Other work of this desk has centered on clarifying
relationships with the Lutheran Social Service System
in order to avoid duplication of efforts, a registration of
sensory-impaired Lutherans under the auspices of the
Inter-Lutheran Committee on the Sensory Impaired,
and arranging a study conference on “Women, Work
and Vocation” and a consultation to explore the feasi-
bility and desirability of cooperation in ministry to
mentally retarded persons.

Specialized Pastoral Care and Clinical Education

After almost two years of study by the Lutheran
Council’s Division of Theological Studies and in consul-
tation with the Department of Specialized Pastoral
Care and Clinical Education, a statement spelling out
the relationship between pastoral counseling and the
ordained ministry was released early in 1978. It was
published in a brochure being circulated by the depart-
ment. Among those especially interested in it were
Lutherans attending the annual convention of the
American Association of Pastoral Counselors, which
considered the theme “Pastoral Counseling: Spiritual
Quest and Professional Competence,” and the conven-
tion of the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education.
It was also on the agenda last July of a dialog between
CPE supervisors and the faculty of Lutheran Theolog-
ical Seminary, Gettysburg, Pa., one of several such
dialogs the department seeks to arrange each year.

Another new brochure published by the department
in 1978 contains revised guidelines for the work of the
Lutheran consultation committees that assist the de
partment and church bodies in being a “pastoral arm”
to clergy contemplating preparing for or involved in
specialized ministries. The work of these committees is
being explained to the presidents and bishops of
Lutheran districts and synods in a visitation effort
aimed at reaching all of them by the end of 1979. The
conveners of the committees, who met in December 1977
to revise the guidelines, convened again last December
to work on a manual spelling out committee procedures.

Occasional communication with the 750 Lutheran
clergy in specialized pastoral care was formalized in
July 1977 with the introduction of a newsletter called
SPC. It is part of a communication package that each
year has three issues of the newsletter and an annual
called the SPC Journal. The latter contains articles
aboutissues of current concern in the field and in-depth
presentations of creative programs.

Communication is being improved on a personal
level through a growing number of regional conferences
for clergy in specialized pastoral care. Over recent
months these gatherings have taken place in Denver;
Marathon, Wis.; Columbus, Ohio; Des Moines, Iowa;