# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S602
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

602 FINANCIAL MATTERS

c. Through the availability of these moneys our work has
enjoyed, under the blessing of God, a greater forward move-
ment than in any comparable period in the one hundred
years’ history of the Missouri Synod. These funds provided
grants for at least some of the urgent requests for special
projects and made it possible for the Missouri Synod to
enter the second century of its existence with an unprece-
dented impetus for Kingdom work throughout the world.
To gain a full appreciation of what this has meant to our
world-wide missions, it is but necessary to contemplate the
status of our work today if there had been no funds available
for these unforeseen and emergency needs in Europe, Africa,
South America, Central America, Mexico, the Canal Zone,
Hawaii, the Philippines, Japan, China, India, foreign broad-
casts, the tremendous volume of relief, and, last but not
least, in our home mission fields and in the building program
for our educational institutions in North America.

4, Most assuredly we of the Missouri Synod have no valid
reason to believe that the years in the immediate future will offer
less urgent or fewer opportunities in all parts of the world than
have the years of the immediate past. We can confidently expect
from God that He will continue to give the same and ever greater
opportunities for Kingdom building to us in this next triennium.

5. During these past years our people have willingly and
cheerfully given more than most of us, in our little faith, expected
them to give. If anyone had had the temerity in 1946 to predict
that within the next four years our people would give almost as
much for extra-budget purposes (for budget purposes $12,000,000 —
for extra~budget purposes $11,500,000), he would have been labeled
a dreamer. And please bear in mind, the above total does not
include the twenty-five million given for relief.

6. We furthermore know that God continues today to give our
people more than sufficient material and spiritual capital to main-
tain and to accelerate our expanding Kingdom work.

7. It is furthermore in total harmony with our faith, prayers,
and experience that we can expect from God an ever greater
measure of the grace of giving in the coming years.

8. Thus, taking all factors into consideration and projecting
ourselves into the next triennium, we know that a large sum of
money will be necessary (over and above a normal increase in
the synodical budget from year to year) to meet even only the
most urgent of those many obligations which will continue’ to
devolve upon our Synod as a chosen people for Kingdom work.