To Reorganize the Synod’s Higher Education (not including Seminaries)

Rationale Soon after The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) was organized in 1847, it received two institutions of higher education: Wilhelm Loehe’s Seminary in Fort Wayne, Ind. and the gymnasium and seminary founded by the Saxons in Perry County, Mo. As time went by, the Synod either opened or acquired additional higher education institutions whose primary, if not sole, purpose was to teach future church workers. Foralmost its entire history, the Synod has operated with the tacit understanding that no one else can train its roster ed church workers as well as it can. A task force reporting to the 2023 Synod convention says that after 176 years, major change is needed. It holds that Lutheran identity will be enhanced at institutions that provide undergraduate church worker education if the Synod places them into a new and untried category:“affiliates”ofthe Synod.The taskforce is basically telling the Synod that church worker training will be improved at these schools if the Synod does not own and operate them. The task force’s proposal is remarkable and unprecedented. It proposes to draw institutions closer to the Synod in mind and heart by organization ally de-coupling them from the Synod. Delegates to the 2023 Synod convention might do well to note this point and ponder it. A feature essential to the task force’s proposal is the Synod’s future monitoring of the “affiliate” schools by regularly posing questions to them. Yet this reliance on questions can itself be questioned.Why are the contemplated questions not being asked at present? If these questions are being asked at present, why has the Synod’s higher education reached such a state that the drastic step is proposed of taking institutions that are currently agencies of the Synod and making them into “affiliates”instead?Andif these questions are not presently being asked of schools that are currently agencies of the Synod, why should anyone think these questions will be posed more effectively in the future if the schools turn into mere “affiliates”? There is no similar proposal for the two seminaries to be rendered “affiliates” of the Synod. Why not, though? If “affiliate” status befits institutions that train both commissioned church workers who are to assist pastors and pre-seminary students who will one day become pastors, why should it not also encompass the institutions where future pastors receive their final training? Why not? Because we still understand that no one else can train pastors for the Synod better than the Synod itself can! Should the quality of education for our other church work students—as well as pre-seminary students at a relatively early stage of pastoral formation—suffer by comparison? The task force’s task has been unenviable. For some years, the Synod’s colleges and universities have been proceeding on a premise that is making it nearly impossible for the Synod to carry out its historic determination to give church workers the best possible preparation. The Synod must abandon this premise right away. The premise is that we finance the education of our church work students at least in part on the money of others. These“others” could be non-church work students in a variety of disciplines and at a number of academic levels, or government. Giving up this premise will not be easy because it amounts to relinquishing a great deal of financial support. It will likely require significant sacrifice. Moreover, even if the Synod gives up this premise today, it will take a while to implement the changes that would necessarily follow. There is no time to waste. Therefore be it

Resolved, That the Synod today declares certain bedrock principles to guide its higher education efforts into the future: also the undergraduate institutions that prepare its church workers. It will subsidize the undergraduate institutions for at least two-thirds of their total operating expenses, and it will require that these institutions accept no money from federal, state, or local governments.

2. This will require a massive shift in the Synod’s funding priorities at the national level, quite possibly resulting in a reduction of parish services Synod-wide. The 1.1.1 mission funding model, one dollar per member per week, (2019 Resolution 8-02, “To Encourage a Synodwide 1.1.1 Funding Model for Defined Mission Outcomes”) may have to be diverted from use at district level to the national level.

3. The colleges and “universities” that the Synod owns will have it as their purpose to prepare church workers for the Synod and perhaps its sister church bodies. Other students may attend, on the understanding that they will content themselves with the course offerings that are provided to the Synod’s church work students. Undergraduate students from LCMS congregations pursuing study in non-church work programs would be encouraged to attend the Synod’s schools especially for their first two years, to get a good Christian liberal arts education in a safe environment before they perhaps matriculate elsewhere to finish their bachelors’ degrees. reduction in the number of institutions that the Synod owns as well as reduction in enrollment at such schools, possibly also campus modifications at any schools that remain agencies of the Synod. limited extent in graduate-level teaching under the direction of and with the approval of the Concordia University System (CUS) Board of Directors. While under no requirement to do so, they may offer masters’ degrees in fields directly related to church work specialties— specifically, education, family life, church music, and theology. No more than one institution is to offer the Doctorate in Education, or Ed.D., degree. This degree program and any of its sub-specialties—curriculum, leadership, counseling—would be designed especially for LCMS church workers. No other doctoral programs will be offered by the Synod’s colleges and “universities.” the Synod. Some sort of recognition relationship with schools in the latter category may be developed, subject to approval by a future convention of the Synod. But to become commissioned roster ed LCMS church workers, graduates of those institutions would have to go through the Synod’s colloquy process.

and be it further

Resolved, That the Synod directs its Board of Directors and the CUS Board of Directors to make the changes necessary to act consistently with the above-enumerated bedrock principles by the time of the 2026 Synod convention, including proposing to that convention any desirable refinements or additions for the Synod’s bylaws; and be it finally

Resolved, That Synod also directs its Board of Directors and the CUS Board of Directors to provide the 2026 Synod convention a full report on the implementation steps that have been taken.