# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1947_S518
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

450 CONSTITUTIONAL MATTERS

To date, two Districts, North Dakota and Minnesota, have
been introduced to this idea with outstanding success. Similar
results were experienced when workshops were set up at the
Southern Illinois Teachers’ Conferences last month, in Kansas
City, Kans., Norborne, Mo., Waterloo, Iowa, and St. Louis, Mo.
Considerable interest in our workshops has been evidenced by
Concordia Seminary, where the possibilities of audio-visual educa-
tion were presented to the graduating class and at River Forest
Teachers College, where regular courses for our Department are
contemplated. ;

Available Equipment

In order to meet the standards of other denominationally
owned audio-visual education departments, we must furnish our
salesroom and display floor with the latest and best visual aid
equipment. This necessitates considerable amount of testing and
trial work before we are certain that the equipment is suitable
for various uses in our parishes. At the present time we feature
movie projectors of larger companies, such as De Vry, Bell & Howell,
Victor, Picture Recording, Inc., since their materials are generally
of a better caliber. Our slide projectors, through which slides
as well as silent film-strips may be shown, are purchased from
Gold E, De Vry Filmatic, and Society for Visual Education. In
addition to the above-mentioned items our Department features
viewers for slides, turn tables for recordings, microphones and
loud-speaker equipment for outdoor and public services.

“Power of God” Film

The “Power of God” film has been by far our most popular
item in the entire Department. More than 3,000 congregations of
Synod saw this film, comprising an audience of over 495,000 people.
Through these showing the entire expense of producing and promul-
gating the film were paid for. Since then (1945—1947) over 700
bookings have been made, whereby we have received an average
income of $639 per month.

Not only was this outstanding movie film shown to our own
people, but 95 prints have been sold to other regularly established
film libraries. Through these libraries, which work principally
on the rental basis, we realize royalty for approximately 65 bookings
a month, giving us an additional $640 per month for profit, Our
Synod can be justly proud of “The Power of God.” It was the
first film of its kind ever to be produced by us. From its very
- incipiency the attention of many Church bodies was focused on its
progress. Our success in this respect should be an encouragement
to us as well as to all other Church groups, some of which already
have preparations for similar religious productions.