# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S260
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

310 YOUNG PEOPLE’S WORK

Ill. YOUNG PEOPLE’S WORK

[301]
Report of Board for Young People’s Work

By the grace of God your Board for Young People’s Work
has been permitted to serve the cause of youth during anothe
triennium, 1947—50, and herewith respectfully submits to Synog
a brief report of its activities.

Any thoughtful review of the youth work of your Church
today must be mindful of the tensions and pressures in our culture
which are a constant peril to the Christian life and faith of our
young people. They must make their Christian way in an environ.
ment which is predominantly unfriendly and contrary. The climate
of the modern world is not conducive to the cultivation of Christian
growth. This fact places tremendous responsibility upon the youth
work of the Church. Both the young people whom the Church
is not holding and those whom it is holding are a profound concer
of the youth program. In addition, the activities of our youth groups
must be a means of Christian growth and development for the
young people who faithfully participate in them.

In view of the urgency of these tasks, it is impossible to con-
sider the youth work of the Church with apathy or with pessimism,
The difficulty of youth work in our congregations today emphasizes
how crucially important it is to develop an effective youth program.

The Walther League

Synod has on a number of occasions recommended to con-
gregations and pastors that they seek to affiliate their young
people with the Walther League, and it has declared the Walther
League program to be its youth program. That being the case,
your Board for Young People’s Work feels it imperative that the
closest working relationship exist between your Board and the
Walther League. With this end in view the youth problems have
received mutual consideration. At least one of the members of
your Board is present at the Walther League Executive Board
meetings, and one of the members of the Walther League staff is
present at the meetings of the Board for Young People’s Work.
Your Board also met jointly with the Walther League Executive
Board during the early part of the year. Members of the Board
for Young People’s Work also attend the International Walther
League conventions and are called upon to preach some of the
sermons and to assist in other ways. One of the members of your
Board usually installs the officers of the Walther League in the
closing service. of the convention. One of the papers presented at
the Lutheran Youth Conference in Chicago, January, 1950, treated

YOUNG PEOPLE'S WORK 311

the harmonious integration of the synodical and the Walther League
Youth Boards on synodical and District levels, as outlined in the
Handbook of Synod. Members of your Board regularly serve on
the faculty of L.S.V. schools, on summer conference camp staffs
in the districts and at Arcadia, and as representatives of the In-
ternational Walther League at Walther League district conventions.

To be effective the youth program must in every activity
apply and release the power of the Gospel, which alone is able to
win and to hold young people for Christ and His kingdom. The
Christ-centered program chart of the Walther League graphically
portrays this essential need and clearly indicates the way by which
it can and must be met. A program chart, however clear the prin-
ciples which it outlines, is at best only a theory, a vision, or a goal.
It meets the needs of our youth program only when its principles
are translated into the practice of every one of our youth groups
in every activity. To make the Walther League program effective
in the local society is one of the great unfinished tasks of our youth
program. To this vital task the Walther League and your Board for
Young People’s Work are devoting their energies and their re-
sources.

The materials on youth work which the Walther League pro-
duces in the Walther League Messenger, the Workers Quarterly,
the Bible Student, and in special pamphlets and reprints concen-
trate attention on the necessity of making every activity of the
youth group a process of Christian growth and on the Scriptural
methods by which this can best be done.

In recognition of this tremendous task the Walther League
has initiated regional youth work under a trained worker whose
task it is to help our young people and leaders of youth in applying
Christian truth in everything they plan and do together. This is
a most significant step in the endeavor to make the Christian
philosophy of youth work a reality at the grass roots.

In addition to this emphasis on the development of its pro-
gram as both a process and a product of Christian growth, the
Walther League has continued its projects of Christian love. It con-
tributed more than $5,000 for CARE packages for the summer -
conference program of our Free Church in Germany. It gathered
more than $12,000 for youth work among the Chinese in our True
Light Church in New York and in China. It is this year engaged
in directing attention to the missionary opportunities in Japan by
urging offerings for a youth center at the University of Hokkaido.
These mission projects are developed in consultation with ‘the
Board for Foreign Missions and are an integral part of the mission
study program of the Walther League.