# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1887_S59
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Fifth Delegate Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, 1887. 59

Home Missions.

"The report hereby presented to the Reverend Synod covers the
period of three years, from the last Delegate Synod, assembled in May 1884
at St. Louis, up to today (May 1887), since the same is now in session at
Fort Wayne.

"The task the Commission of the General Synod has set itself with
this report cannot be to show how the spread of the preaching of the
Gospel, and the gathering and founding of congregations, has progressed,
how matters stand with the number of traveling preachers and their
annual increase, and the like, since that is in the first place and above all
the business of the Districts and is reported on during their
conventions. Our own Statistisches Jahrbuch [Statistical Yearbook], p. 55f.,
also gives the necessary information on that score. The Commission
believes, rather, that it owes it to the Synod to set forth, in some
overview, how matters have stood and now stand — from quarter to
quarter during the three years named — with regard to the support of this
highly important cause of Christ's kingdom, its pressing needs, and their
relief from the Home Mission treasury. By this means the Reverend
Synod can also form a judgment as to whether its Commission has at
least striven to distribute the funds according to justice and equity. The
resolution of the Reverend Synod authorizing quarterly distribution of the
funds reads as follows: 'The Mission Commissions of the several District
Synods shall henceforth be permitted to report four times a year, namely
on January 1, April 1, July 1, and October 1, so that the funds needed for
carrying on Home Mission work in their District may be drawn from the
General Mission Treasury promptly after the report is made.' (Report of
the year 1884, p. 65.)

"But before the report proceeds to the stated presentation, one more
thing should be said in advance. During the period in question a few
petitions also came in which the Commission believed itself entitled to
answer in the negative, or to refer to the Districts concerned — for
example, a request for travel money in the amount of $150.00 toward a
pastor's impending relocation. Then, too, a request to provide help to a
pastor in needy circumstances who lives within a District that already
draws quarterly support from the General Mission Treasury. The
Commission grounded this practice of its own in the fact that it has to do
only with the Districts as such, and must therefore give consideration
only to petitions from the District presidents or from the Mission
Commissions concerned.

"Now to the task already mentioned, which the Commission has
believed it must set itself with this report. — The first (third) quarter
after the previous Delegate Synod comprises the months of July, August,
and September 1884. At the start of it the following petitions came in,
which, as always, [came] from the District presidents or

[SCAN: faint word-fragments show through on the left margin from the facing page (p-064); not transcribed.]