In this series we are reprinting Spokesman articles by early leaders in the CLC. Pastor James Albrecht is the curator of the series. Pastor Maynard J. Witt (1913-1992) was a leader in the formation of the CLC. He served parishes in Palouse and Spokane, Washington. He was synodical vice president for a time, and a longtime member of the Board of Doctrine. He also served on the committee that oversaw the purchase of the current ILC campus in Eau Claire, and the “transplant” of that institution from its original home in Mankato, Minnesota. This article appeared in the Lutheran Spokesman of March 1963. Scripture quotations are from the King James Version.
Scripture advises us to count the cost when we build a tower. This is what the CLC did at the special convention, January 9-10, 1963, at Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The tower was the Ingram estate at Eau Claire, which was offered to us as a permanent site for our Immanuel Lutheran College at a cost of $85,000. Beside this initial cost there would be the expense of modifying existing buildings, of providing adequate classrooms, and of moving the faculty and school equipment. So the question was: Could our young church body of approximately 5,500 communicants make this gift of God her own? We deliberated; we counted the cost.
Our educational institutions were born out of the conviction that our survival and the good of the church make it compelling that the future workers in our midst be trained by teachers who agree with the purpose of our existence as a Church body. There was also the conviction that our minimum obligation to our young people is to give them maximum Christian education within the means which God has given us. We did not want to slight this gift of Christian education which God gave us.
History, however, has taught us that great difficulties arise when churches establish and then try to maintain educational institutions which involve costs beyond the means of the congregations. It is clear that under such circumstances not only the educational institutions themselves suffer, but that a crippling effect is also evident in all other efforts. Besides these matters, the effect on the congregations, the faculty, and the student body of transplanting the educational institutions deserved our attention. None of us would want to bring about harm to another institution or gift of God by the transplant, and no one would want to hamper mission opportunities by a top-heavy budget of the educational institutions. We weighed; we deliberated; we counted the cost.
It was concluded that the opportunity to purchase the Ingram estate as a permanent site for our Immanuel Lutheran College was a gift of God. Together with this opportunity God indeed gave us not only the time and season but also the means to make this gift our own so that possession of it need not hamper or hinder our work in our home congregations or in the mission fields. Truly, He who spared not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, has with Him freely given us all things. God the Father is such a generous merciful Provider for us because of His Son who died for us. This is the source of our trust and confidence by which God’s gift shall become our own.
To make God’s gift our own was the unanimous and joyous resolve coming from gratitude. We set our goal at $100,000 by August. So now, having considered the cost, the blessings, and the opportunities, we will all set out to possess the gift that God has given us.
– 1913-1992