# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S437
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

MISSIONS 437

missionary. The speed with which the world is moving, the com-
plexity of missionary life and work, the tension of uncertainty on
the political scene, the pressure of national antipathies and baffling
opposition and numerous frustrations, and the improvement in
means of transportation and communication simply call for such
breaks and furlough opportunities. Besides it has been beneficial
for the Home Church to see a good deal of their missionaries
through the lecture activities of the latter during their home stay.

Under the compelling urgency of the present situation and
with the reflection that time may be running out on us for doing
missionary work, our beloved Synod needs to develop a new
approach to the entire question of World-wide Missions. We must
cease to think of it as something foreign, something outside of the
sphere of our usual interest, something rather haphazardly tacked
onto the tag end of the work of the church, but that it is a definite
integral part of the work of the church. It should be looked upon
as an honor to be given & share in that work. We should give
this work the proper dignity and standing also in the matter of
allocating men and money to its support. The whole church must
be behind this endeavor, we must definitely take World Missions
into our planning for meeting manpower needs. We must save
Foreign Missions from being the last fringe at the very end of our
activity, which is then the first to be cut when budget revisions
are attempted downward and which is most helpless to ‘take care
of its needs when we fail them.

We need laborers for the whitening harvest fields of the Lord,
many more men. We must make men available for that work,
men with a burning desire to bring people to faith in Christ. And
we need money to send out the workers, to support them on the
field, to give them the equipment they need. To be sure, recent
wonderful offerings in Synod reflect their fruit also on our foreign
fields, with many new homes for missionaries, with added chapels
and schools and much in the line of equipment items, etc. There
have been splendid special gifts, frequently a patent answer to
prayer. The spirit of our missionaries has been wonderful, working
amid so many dangers on foreign soil, in the face of many frus-
trations, but ever with one thought: unitedly, fervently, to do the
work of the Lord. Let us here on the home front not fail them.

Thanking the Lord for all past blessings, and looking forward
to the continuation of His guidance and protection for our mission
work and all its participants, bespeaking the gracious support
and sympathetic interest of our entire church body, looking forward

to a still further vigorous development of the work of the Gospel