# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1926_S142
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

128 Proceedings of Thirty-Third Regular Convention,

General Church Extension Board.

Report of the Board.
(German Report, p. 214.)

Within the past few years, especially since 1917, the fund of the
General Church Extension Board has been productive of much good.
Traceable to this fund is the building of 456 edifices, among which
28 schools, 80 parsonages, and 348 houses of worship are enumerated.
The total of loans allowed for these buildings aggregates about
$1,155,000. Probably a tenth of all our church-buildings, valued at
nearly $60,000,000, has come into being by the aid of the Church
Extension Treasury. The monthly returns to the treasury from the
debtors are somewhat in excess of $8,500. Because of the deprecia-
tion of the value of farm products, because of crop failures, of non-
employment, and of Jabor troubles a number of debtors are asking
for time to meet their annual instalments.

Encouraged by the convention of 1920 (cf. Bericht der Delegaten-
synode zu Detroit, 1920, p. 115), the Board requested such congrega-
tions as have borrowed money from-the Church Extension Treasury to
vote one collection annually to the fund; furthermore, pursuant to
_ resolutions framed in former conventions, the Board appealed for
loans. ‘The results of both efforts were disappointing. In this way

a total of only $105,000 was collected within the six years. Perhaps
it is well to emphasize again that such loans are as safely deposited
with the Synod as with the reliable bankers of our day; yes, occa-
sionally more safely. No one who has in the past entrusted his
moneys to the Board has ever lost a cent or waited for the repayment
of this loan upon demand. Loans are the need of the hour. It is
regrettable that so much money hidden in ridiculously unsafe places
cannot be pressed into the service of the Gospel. Should we not .
more insistently urge our people to make their bank deposits and
other deposits a power for lasting good, to put them to work building
churches and schools? ‘

In comparing the sums loaned formerly with those now granted,
we call attention to the following. Whereas the sums granted until
1917 went out in small portions of about $500 to a congregation in
its building crisis, the average reached $2,700 in 1917 and is now
$6,200. This marked advance is partly traceable to the generally
higher cost of building operations and partly to the laudable desire

-of erecting structures somewhat agreeable to modern architectural
tastes.

The Board has worked very well under the scale of limits spon-
sored by the Board of Directors, which placed the maximum loan at
$10,000. in a given instance. Serious emergencies, however, were
met with larger aid, upon the ratification of Synod’s Board of