LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1979, Page 189

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LATE REPORTS AND OVERTURES 189

possible by a grant from the Aid Association for
Lutherans. The participants examined the radical
changes that have taken place in urban higher educa-
tion since the early 1960s, such as the campus as a place
of learning being replaced by learning in a community
context with many commuting students, and they then
sought to spell out goals for ministry in such a setting.

This conference resulted from the work of a task
force on metropolitan campus ministry. Other task
forces have continued their efforts in preparing mate-
rials and developing model programs regarding issues
of concern to the world community, such as hunger, and
community college ministry, especially how to get
nearby congregations involved. Plans were made for a
new study centered on the lay staffin campus ministry
and dealing with such questions as self-image and
professional standards.

The eighth and ninth conferences for all full-time
LCMS and NLCM campus ministers were held in 1977
in De Kalb, Il., and in 1978 in Valparaiso, Ind. An
orientation week for 15 newly appointed campus mini-
sters took place late in 1977 in Madison, Wis., but last
year this activity was carried out separately by the
LCMS and NLCM.

Regular meetings of the church bodies’ national
campus ministry executives have taken place for the
exchange of information and to plan new developments
in common work.

Campus Ministry Communications

Circle, the packet of campus ministry news and
resources issued eight times a year by CMC, has added
new supplements dealing with contemporary spirit-
uality, theology, and metropolitan campus ministry.
Recent issues of the newsletter Upkeep have focused on
a local congregation’s ministry to students, religious
illiteracy, and married-student ministry.

The CMC calendar distributed widely for the 1977—
78 school year was designed by artist Richard Caem-
merer and featured quotations from Sunday Epistle
readings. The 1978—79 calendar was designed by Cam-
pus Pastor Paul Bosch and featured Sunday Gospel
readings.

Newly produced materials have included a 16-page
Bible study booklet on Daniel by LCMS Campus Pastor
Michael L. Meier of Corvallis, Oreg., and a similar
booklet on Micah by LCMS Campus Pastor Norman P.
J. Metzler of Eugene, Oreg.; a four-page resource called
“Questions for Christian Scholars” designed to stim-
ulate thinking about the relationship of faith and
academe; and a 1978—79 edition of Idea Bank, which
lists over 1,500 films, books, games, ideas, and other
resources on 64 pages.

Over 2,000 packets containing articles and other
materials on today’s cults have been sold, and an
updated edition is in the works. A new packet called
“Student-to-Student Ministry” presents a variety of
models describing how students can minister to one
another.

The unit has arranged for many showings of a
filmstrip, “Campus Ministry Today: A Report,” and has

sent banners and materials about campus ministry to
numerous district-synodical and national conventions.

Other Programs

The college and university services desk in Wash-
ington, D.C., provides full staff support for the Lutheran
Educational Conference of North America (LECNA),
including arranging for its annual meetings and
helping with its current Curriculum Consultation Pro-
ject. The desk monitors Federal legislative, regulatory,
and judicial developments having an impact on
Lutheran higher education and shares this information
through a newsletter, Description, and occasional
memoranda. The desk also coordinates an annual series
of Lutheran College Days at which admissions officers
are available to meet with prospective students and
their parents.

The Lutheran Student Movement receives assistance
in general administration, publishing newsletters and
resources, supervising field secretaries, and holding
annual assemblies. Attendance by 302 students at the
assembly in August 1978 at Wittenberg University,
Springfield, Ohio, was the largest in the movement’s
10-year life and included 22 students from overseas. The
assembly adopted a position paper on homosexuality
calling for “the church to reassess its attitudes toward
homosexuality in the larger context of the full range of
issues related to human sexuality.”

In theological education supervision is given to the
intern cluster program, currently involving 11 semi-
naries and 450 interns-vicars who get together with
their supervisors in 60 clusters for discussion and
educational programs related to parish ministry. Assis-
tance is also given to the annual meetings of Lutheran
seminary presidents and deans and of internship and
field education directors. Lists, surveys, and reports are
prepared dealing with transferred theological students,
Lutheran students and faculty at non-Lutheran theo-
logical schools, Lutheran doctoral candidates in theol-
ogy, and staff salaries at Lutheran seminaries. Material
collected in a study of Lutheran seminarians is being
published by Augsburg Publishing House, Minneapolis,
in a book entitled Ten Faces of Ministry: Perspectives
on Pastoral and Congregational Effectiveness Based
ona Survey of 5,000 Lutherans.

Included among the many activities of NLCM is the
giving of research and program development grants.
These have included a conference on the Christian faith
and recent developments in technology at Penn State
University, a series of training seminars in lay leader-
ship for campus ministry in Ohio, a study of the role of
women in the church today at Portland State Univer-
sity, and an international seminar on the Middle East
held at Columbia University in New York City.

Office for Governmental Affairs

The Office for Governmental Affairs monitors gov-
ernmental activities that would affect the life and
ministry of the church; communicates the information
gathered to interested Lutherans through a monthly
publication called Focus on Governmental Affairs,