Q. I'm attending a public university here in Wisconsin, and I have been asked to join a Christian fellowship student organization here on campus, "Student Impact" which is an off shoot of the "Campus Crusade for Christ." They hold Bible studies and hold prayers and the like every week. It is an interdenominational organization, by my understanding, so I want to be careful here, with respect to my membership in the LCMS and adherence to our church's doctrines, beliefs, and practices. Is it  permissible of me to be a member of this group, or to attend any of their sessions--Bible study? Prayer? I just want to make sure I don't cross any lines here that I  shouldn't be crossing.

A. Decisions of the kind that you are facing have generally been left up to the discernment and judgment of individuals, in consultation with their pastor(s). The Synod's position on altar and pulpit fellowship applies principally to the members of the Synod in the technical sense, that is, congregations, pastors and other rostered workers--not to individual lay members of synodical congregations.

Perhaps it should be noted, however, that over the years our Commission on Theology and Church Relation's (CTCR) office has received evaluative comments from individual pastors of the Synod who have had contact with Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) and its programs. Questions and concerns have been raised about a number of theological emphases of CCC. Often noted is the organization's failure to present what the Scriptures teach concerning the  sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper and its confusion of the Law and the Gospel. For example, the believer's response to the Gospel is often described in language that makes faith a causative agent in the assurance of the forgiveness of sins, when in fact the objective Gospel itself proclaimed purely and the sacraments are the sole assurance of forgiveness and grace (not something within us). That is to say, spiritual experience, if not in theory then in practice, seems to be regarded by CCC as more important than the means of grace when it comes to being sure of one's salvation (the so-called "conversion experience").