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PLACE

Within the three major Campaign components of Pastors, Place and Promise, Place serves as the campus component, or capital portion, of How Will They Hear?  

The goal for PLACE is to raise $17.75 million of the overall $77 million campaign.  These funds will help modernize existing spaces and the campus, initiate increased efficiency and operational effectiveness, and provide a place for the Seminary to adopt various tools and services.  The long-term intent is to provide a place where:

¨    A campus mission and facilities master plan can be designed.  This extensive planning effort will result in a blue-print for the Seminary to follow in the years ahead, including advanced planning for new construction.  For example, the need for a new library is well known.  The master plan will include input from those with proven expertise in the areas of facilities planning and space utilization.  Funding needs include architectural work and consultants; institutional research, data, and assessment; and research and surveys.

¨    The best theologians and mission practitioners can provide students, clergy and lay leaders faithful yet innovative training, necessary skills, theological sophistication and leadership abilities for ministry in the 21^st century.

¨    The needs of the new student can be met, to include housing and food service.

¨    Pastors, missionaries and lay leaders in remote settings can receive quality theological instruction via distance learning and continuing education activities.  Distance learning is a proven educational tool that can help grow a shrinking LCMS that has declined slowly but steadily over the past three decades.  This expansion of educational capability will help expand efforts to share God’s word.

¨    The latest technology can help transform seminary education by combining biblical, confessional theology with the most       

         relevant, immediate insights from experts and practitioners world wide.

¨    Concordia Seminary can expand its capacity and ability to form more pastors, deaconesses, and leaders, and provide a special education for those serving in highly specialized ministries. 

A partial listing of examples of the Place work that lie ahead include: 

¨      Complete the renovation of  Stoeckhardt-Koburg-Wartburg Halls into a unified “commons.”  Used for more than eight decades, primarily as the dining center for single and residential students, it did not provide for a variety of community-building needs.  This complex of three buildings is being converted to provide a community gathering venue where students and faculty can meet for fellowship, share meals, study, or simply relax.  The intent is to create an efficient, usable location that allows students, faculty, staff, families and visitors to live within a mutually supportive Christian community.   This completed commons will greatly improve the sense of community on campus.

¨    Convent a building such as Graebner Dorm (I Dorm) into a conference center for current pastors and graduate students who want to refresh, add skills, or seek and advanced degree.  Continuing education courses, the graduate school, and the Doctor of Ministry program are flourishing at Concordia Seminary.  Two-week intensive terms (one in the winter and two in the summer) allow pastors to take “sabbaticals” from their parishes in order to study at the Seminary campus.  The new facilities will offer current parish pastors and laity an attractive, state-of-the-art facility for meetings and retreats – a place in which to grow in terms of their knowledge and skills to better serve their congregations or participate in mission work worldwide. 

¨    Provide adequate space for the growing Specialized Ministry  Pastor program (SMP), Ethnic Immigrant Institute of Theology (EIIT), and the Center for Hispanic Studies (CHS).

¨    Address a number of maintenance and campus infrastructure improvements.  The Seminary must bring the 1926-era buildings into compliance with current building and fire codes and address concerns with student safety.  (For example, retaining walls, delivery roads, docks and dumpsters will be relocated to less conspicuous or traveled areas.)

¨    Remove outdated and inefficient heating, mechanical and electrical systems and replace them with modern, energy-efficient systems, allowing students, faculty and staff to focus on the tasks at hand.  By undertaking these types of renovations, the Seminary will realize considerable savings on annual operating costs such as heating and cooling.

(Campaign gifts to date have already funded some projects.  Additional projects, including those listed above, will commence as new gifts from this Campaign and future efforts become available.  Note the Seminary policy precludes beginning actual work until 80% of the project costs have been received.)

“How Will They Hear? They will hear from the lips of those pastors, missionaries, chaplains, and deaconesses who are formed for service on the campus of Concordia Seminary.”  -- Dr. Dale Meyer