# Der Lutheraner_Frankfurt am Main_Juni 1948_S44
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Page 44 June 1948 Number 6

Lutheran congregational life in North America.

In the past year, Professor Dr. Martin Graebner stayed in Germany as a representative of the Ev.-Luth. Missouri Synod, in order to examine and become acquainted with the general situation as well as the ecclesiastical situation. He also used the time of his stay to report, in numerous lectures before congregations and pastoral conferences, on church life in America and especially on the work of the Lutheran church over there. Thus, shortly before his return to America in January of this year, he also gave a lecture before our two free-church Lutheran congregations in Frankfurt am Main on congregational life in the Missouri Synod, the essential contents of which we reproduce below.
Husbener.

When I begin a lecture on our congregational system in America and am speaking to a territorial-church congregation, I usually must first explain in more detail what a Lutheran congregation actually is. It is all the greater a joy to me that I do not have to do this here before these free-church Lutheran congregations; for a congregation of our synod in America and a free-church Lutheran congregation in Germany stand on the same foundation and display the same shape in their inner life and structure. Yet church life over there in our country has perhaps developed somewhat differently in some respects than is the case here in Germany.

America is a land of sects and a land of unbelief. The church is indeed supported by many who do not usually go to church, since it fulfills a good purpose. But only half of all our inhabitants belong as members to a church or ecclesiastical fellowship. Of the 140 million people, approximately 70 million are entirely without church affiliation, read no Bible, have their children neither baptized nor confirmed, and do not raise them in the discipline and admonition of the Lord. Of the other 70 million, most belong to the sects, that is, are Reformed or Calvinists. Lutherans in America number only 5 million people, that is, about 3 to 4% of our inhabitants, and of these the Missouri Synod comprises nearly a third, that is, somewhat more than 1½ million members. In such a country, church work also develops in a manifold and often quite varied way. There are indeed regions in the open countryside where the inhabitants of a place are entirely Lutheran or entirely Catholic. But in the city one often does not know who lives in the next house and to which church he belongs. Let me show you how a Lutheran congregation still comes into being there even now, in order to illustrate for you, by means of such an example, the development of church work and congregational life.

Even today a congregation still usually comes into being in such a way that a Lutheran member settles in a city in which there has until then been no Lutheran congregation. If he is a faithful member of the church, he soon finds out whether perhaps a Lutheran congregation exists in the neighboring town, and then often drives many miles on Sundays in order to attend the worship service. Gradually he also becomes better known in his own town and discovers to his joy that other Lutherans live there as well. They perhaps come together in their homes to consider God's Word together, and then also invite a pastor from a neighboring congregation to hold a sermon for them, baptize their children, and celebrate the Holy Communion with them. The number of members gradually increases