# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1947_S880
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

880 MISSIONS

Since the cost of our missions has risen with all the cost of
life, we urge this Convention and the membership .of Synod to
support both our Home and Foreign Missions treasuries even more
liberally than in the past so that the work of the Lord may not
be hindered for lack of funds and our missionaries may be able
to devote their time to their work without having to worry about
the necessities of life.

Report of the Board for Home Missions in Europe
(Memorial 408)

Since the Board which was elected at the Saginaw convention
was, with one exception, made up of members who had not pre-
viously served on the Board for Home Missions in Europe, the
Board, consisting of Pastors Aug. F. Bobzin, Louis T, Buchheimer,
and Paul G. Sander, Messrs. Fred Schurmann and Herbert Thien,
reorganized itself with the Rev. August F, Bobzin as chairman, the
Rev, Paul G. Sander as secretary, and Mr. Fred Schurmann as
treasurer,

During the first year of its existence the war in Europe was
raging, and no actual work could be done by the Board. The Board
conceived its first task to be a restudy of the situation with regard
to missions in Europe for the purpose of discovering changes in
policy and program made necessary by the changed situation in
postwar Europe. Soon after V-E Day the Board endeavored to
send one of its members over to Europe to-make such a study, but
the inability to obtain the necessary passport and military permit
made this plan impossible.

In the spring of 1946 the Board resolved to engage a European
representative on a full-time basis for the purpose of making the
above-mentioned survey and continuing to represent the Board
in Europe. The Rev. Walter C. Daib, who had served in the Euro-
pean theater as chaplain, was chosen as European representative.
He was able to obtain the necessary papers and sailed for Europe
in July, 1946. He spent almost six months in making a survey of
European Lutheranism, paying special attention to the Lutheran
Free Churches which our Synod had supported in the years before
the war. Since the results of that survey are basic to the recom-
mendations we shall make, a digest of his report follows:

I. Survey of Conditions in European Lutheranism

A. Germany
The organizational picture of German Protestantism is- one
of great complexity because of the ‘political and religious develop-
ments in the last four centuries. Although there is a loose federation
of churches at the top, known as Die Evangelische Kirche in

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