# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1928_S42
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

42 Proceedings of the thirty-first convention

says: "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." That applies also to our Lutheran Negro. Heart, mind, courage, thoughts, words and works have become new and different. For this reason the death rate among our Lutheran Negroes is also so strikingly different from the general death rate of the Negro population here. According to the latest report of our state government available to us, eighteen out of every thousand Negroes die annually. In our Lutheran Negro church, on the other hand, last year nine out of every thousand died. That is an astonishingly low figure. And this astonishingly low figure shows that our Lutheran Negroes are quite different people and live quite differently from their fellow countrymen. Truly, our labor is not in vain in the Lord!

Diligent Attendance at the Lord's Supper.

Dr. Luther says in his preface to the Small Catechism: "Whoever does not seek or desire the Sacrament at least once or four times a year," that is, at least four times a year — at least some four times a year —, "there is reason to fear that he despises the Sacrament and is no Christian." What pastor of our white congregations would not be greatly pleased if his members entitled to communion reached this goal! But it is a fact that our white Christians go to the Lord's Table on average only twice a year. Now many a one will think and say: "The ancestors of our Negroes were not Lutherans at all, but sectarians or entirely without a church. Our black people have not belonged to the Lutheran Church as long as we have. It can hardly be expected, then, that they will go to Holy Communion more diligently than we do." But whoever draws this conclusion is mistaken, and quite thoroughly. Our black fellow Christians go to the Sacrament on average three times a year. In some congregations the confirmed members receive Holy Communion on average even five and six times; some even present themselves every time it is celebrated. That recalls the first age of the New Testament church.

We had wanted at first to report only on two astonishing records, but now wish to add one more:

The Contributions of Our Negro Christians.

The contributions listed in the report of the treasurer of our mission do not state all the gifts that our Lutheran Negro Christians contribute. Thousands of dollars more are added, which they raise for repairs, light, fuel, sick relief for poor members, etc.

In the first four decades of our mission the contributions were comparatively small; in the last decade, on the other hand, a most gratifying advance is to be recorded. Eleven years ago the total amounted to about $5,600, last year on the other hand about $39,600, an increase of $34,000. Our Lutheran Negroes thus defray, despite their poverty, over a sixth of our annual expenditures. On average each confirmed member, young or old, gives more than $11 a year. That is remarkable when one considers that our Lutheran Negro Christians are not rich farmers, not well-to-do businessmen, not workers with large earnings.

Missionary G. M. Kramer in New Orleans, who on the 18th of August of this year completed twenty-one years in the service of our mission,