# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S425
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

MISSIONS 425

ment of the work in all synodical Mission Departments as well
as the Church Extension Board, your Secretary of Missions and
his assistant have made it a point to attend as many of the regular
meetings of al] synodical Mission Boards as possible. Minutes of
these meetings are submitted by the respective departments and
placed on file in the office of the Secretary of Missions. The inter-
change of suggestions on the part of the various missionary -
agencies of Synod, made possible through the office of the general
Secretary of Missions, has been a real help in the solution of
numerous problems.

5: We look to the future. While we thank God for the splendid
; - progress which He has permitted our Church to make in the field
&. of missions during the first half of the twentieth century, this
is surely no time to “rest on our laurels.” This is a time rather
f.. to look forward into the second half of this momentous century ,
and to make energetic plans to meet its opportunities.

: To meet these opportunities we shall have to (a) “strengthen
® our stakes” and (b) “lengthen our cords.”

4 (a) Our program of world-wide missions is dependent upon
€ the vitality and strength of the home base. In order that the home
B base may be strengthened, your Secretaries of Missions are happy
eto endorse the memorial of Synod’s Board for Missions in North
and South America (page 328) which calls for an ever deeper
F devotion to the Savior on the part of our pastors and people and
Fan ever greater enlistment of our laity in the spiritual functions
g: of the Church.

(b) Our program of world-wide missions is dependent, further-
F’ more, on the constant flow of sacrificial offerings on the part of
= our members. During recent years our task of world evangelization
& received tremendous help from such special offerings as the Peace
’ Thankoffering, the Centennial Thankoffering, and similar special
- efforts. These funds have now been expended or allocated. The
© task of “lengthening our cords” will therefore present new problems
# and difficulties —in the measure in which these special grants are
s unavailable.

Your Secretaries of Missions, therefore, urgently plead that
provisions be made for the gathering of ample (if necessary, spe-
cial) funds for the continued expansion of our far-flung Kingdom
program.

; As our Church stands today at the mid-point of the most
momentous and epoch-making century since the birth of our Savior,
,, it must hear the voice of the ancient Prophet calling with increasing
% urgency: “Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth