# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1953_S1103
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

414
ONS 415

@ Congregation in Strasbo
: . urg, th i
gations at Schillersdorf, Obersaleheck® Tene Peyser; Congre,
7 » and Ws

MISSIONS

; from these synods. American representatives of our :
Synod took part in the discussions. ; :
Benevolent Society, representing particularly our pre- f
tly German churches in Alsace, made its first effort to bring
sa] to wider areas of the French population by lending a
hand in the establishment of the mission at Rouen, where
_floor living quarters of a three-story home have been

P a

Castors Kreiss, Bricka, Peyser, and Wolff orld yw,

sively 1, G their services Pastor Michall’s soy French ed into a chapel. The entrance way to this structure is to
y rman. Alsace, up to A.D, 1918 7 is done exely. ven a touch of ecclesiastical architecture so as to indicate

spore clearly its use for church purposes.

“‘gaxveB, Problems.

“A ig Native Frenchmen are assumed to belong to the Roman
Catholic Church. Multitudes, however, who may have been bap-
tized in the Roman Catholic Church today are quite unchurched.

~Ailarge percentage of France’s population has no living religious
faith whatever. It can, therefore, readily be understood that our
fellow Christians in France are deeply concerned about the spir-
itual welfare of their fellow countrymen. As in other European
countries, so also here the mere outward relationship of the people
to the Roman Catholic Church presents special problems for
church work.

“2 Our Church cannot be incorporated as a Church and has
no standing before the law. It is regarded as a sect. The Welfare
Society was formed, as first-century Christians organized burial
societies, to gain some status before the law.

¢ , “3. The antagonism of the French against the Germans prob-

ably has also turned the native French against the work of the

Free Church, so much of which in the past was, by force of cir

cumstances, bilingual.

“4. The location of our church in Paris, hidden away from
public view within a large business and apartment building, and
the scattered and time-consuming efforts of the pastor have con-
spired to prevent any kind of an encouraging growth in this city
of millions, many of: whom are unchurched. oe

“5. The problem of providing French native pastors who have
been properly trained theologically is most formidable.

“C. Recommendations.
“1, That competent representatives of the Free Church in
France make renewed efforts to secure government recognition and

official registration as a Free Church.”

Comment: The first recommendation of the Survey Commission
has not as yet. been carried out, but efforts toward this end are
being made and there may well be some tangible evidence of
progress by the time Synod is assembled in convention at Houston.