Making Lemonade out of KFUO Lemons – A Motion to Fund Seminarians’ Tuition

A group of conservative/confessional folks have been thinking about the recent KFUO situation and have crafted a motion that makes lemons out of the lemonade by using the proceeds to assist seminarians who sometimes go to their first calls with tens of thousands of dollars of debt.

It would be good for each of our readers to ask their congregations to consider sending this motion to the synod in convention. (Click here for details from the LCMS handbook on how to do this – see section 3.1.6. Congregations are members of synod and have the right to submit overtures. By the way, the Blue Ribbon proposals will diminish the congregation’s right to do this and centralizes control in many other ways.)

Whereas, Holy Scripture mandates that all congregations should be served with one of Christ’s undershepherds – a pastor, (Titus 1:5), and

Whereas, our Lutheran Confessions also describe the absolute necessity of faithful and well prepared pastors within every congregation, (Tractatus – The Power and Jurisdiction of Bishops, 60-61), and

Whereas, one of the objectives of The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod is to, “Recruit and train pastors, teachers, and other professional church workers…”, (Constitution of The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, Article III, 3.), and

Whereas, the Synod in convention in 1995, Overture 5-02A, voted to set as a goal in the final Resolved, “…the ingathering of funds sufficient to cover the cost of all tuition for every student enrolled in the seminaries for the purpose of entering LCMS pastoral ministry…”, and

Whereas, to date The LCMS has been unable to implement that overture, and

Whereas, General Ministry seminary students, due to the increasing costs associated with higher education and the decreased support of the synod to the seminaries, are incurring and graduating with educational debt loads often well beyond the means of a pastor’s average salary to repay, and

Whereas, such debt loads place an added burden upon the pastor and his family and thus also on his ability to serve joyfully and effectively in the parish, and

Whereas, General Ministry seminary students incur the greatest proportion of educational debt in preparation for entrance to the Pastoral Office, and

Whereas, President Kieschnick has frequently warned our Synod that our future supply of pastors will be inadequate due to the retirement of the “Baby Boomer” generation of LCMS pastors and the need for pastors to serve in new mission starts, and

Whereas, the sale of KFUO-FM has brought to our Synod unexpected income, therefore be it

Resolved, that the Synod in convention establish two KFUO-FM endowment funds for the support of tuition payments on behalf of General Ministry seminarians at our two seminaries utilizing all current and future funds received from the sale of KFUO-FM to fund the endowments, and be it further

Resolved, that Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, and Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana, each be allocated one half of the proceeds received from the sale of KFUO-FM for investment in their respective separate endowment funds which each seminary will administer.

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