# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1947_S891
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

MISSIONS : 8901

In the meantime Pastor Michael, a graduate of our Seminary,
had been sent to Germany to establish a mission of the Saxon
Free Church in Hamburg. From here he gradually extended his
work to Kiel, Flensburg, and then to the near-by Danish city of
Haderslev. In the latter city he made contacts with the Danish
Evangelical Free Church and their pastors and eventually joined
this body. At various times after the death of Pastor Grun-
net, Sr., Pastor Michael had the assistance of other pastors, but
for the most part he was working alone until he accepted a call
to Dresden in 1925.
Present STATUS

The present Danish Evangelical Lutheran Free Church is com-
posed of five congregations, located in various parts of Denmark;
it has 123 souls and 87 communicant members. This represents
the remnant of a long period of practical inactivity, since Pastor
Walter Michael, son of the original Missouri Synod pastor and the
only remaining pastor, was drafted into the German Army and
was unable to serve the congregations for almost five years. Dur-
ing this period a retired pastor, C.J.O. Nielsen (now deceased),
attempted to serve the congregations as best he could.

Future ProcRAM

Now that Pastor Michael has returned to Denmark, we were
confronted with two possibilities. The first, to permit the Danish
Evangelical Free Church to die a gradual death by merely con-
tinuing to give them a minimum subsidy until its dissolution and,
the second, to begin an aggressive mission policy on the basis of
what we have there now, using these five congregations as nuclei
of a well-supported “Each One Reach One” program. Your Board
has decided for the second course. Therefore it is necessary to
call at least one additional pastor to act as leader of this program.
One pastor must concentrate his work in Copenhagen, where the
possibilities of mission work that are found in every large city
cannot be ignored nor neglected. The second pastor will work on
the Peninsula of Jutland, where we have two congregations.
Eventually another pastor should be placed on the Island of
Langeland, where particularly the laity has proved itself to be
active and mission-minded. Their handicap is the lack of a church
building in which they could center their activity.

Another point in the future development of the Danish Evan-
gelical Free Church is the necessity for the publication of orthodox
Danish literature. The religious literature published by the mem-
bers of the Danish State Church suffers from the dominant
Pelagianism and Modernism of the Church. Even the Danish Bible
translates the word “hell” with “realm of the dead.”

TL ETE TE,

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