# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1938_S120
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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120 Young People’s Work

tion of our work is done by correspondence. As chairman of the
Board, Dr. Graebner gives considerable time and thought to com-
munications with the District committees, circuit officers, pastoral
conferences, and local leaders of clergy and laity. He also plans
and conducts the regular meetings, of which there have been some
thirty during the past term. In addition to these regular meetings
there have been numerous special conferences for special problems:
Our Board. has been represented at many synodical District con-
ventions and at meetings of smaller groups. Outstanding among
such meetings were the Conference of Visitors at River Forest in
1936 and the seminar at our St. Louis Concordia in 1937. We ac-
knowledge gratefully the generosity of Mr. L. H. Waltke, who
financed these conferences. It is also worthy of note that a pre-
convention meeting of District representatives for young people’s
work will be held in connection with the Delegate Synod. This is
the first time a gathering of this group has been arranged, and we
hope that the success will warrant their continuance hereafter.

The very valuable assistance given by the Walther League to
the cause of youth conservation should be increasingly appreciated
by the Synod and its congregations. We are in a position to know
the executives and other leaders of the League and to observe the
work and study the policies of the organization. It is our con-
sidered judgment that the League is getting a reasonably high
degree of program penetration at a cost commensurate with its
achievements. This applies not only to the administration of its
general program but also to the Unite the Youth Endeavor.

The Unite the Youth Endeavor is a project of continental
proportions. It is still too early to measure the final results of the
enterprise, but already very favorable reports of growth and im-
provement are arriving from many sections of the country. One
pastor remarked that the results achieved by the U.Y.E. in his
congregation were among the most gratifying experiences of many
years in the ministry. Certainly the progress thus far recorded
would have been impossible, at least in so short a time, without the
well-organized drive and power and resources of the Walther
League. The prominence of the League in the endeavor has in
some quarters led to the belief that the U. Y.E. is nothing more
than a Synod-wide membership drive by and for the Walther
League. This is a misconception. Fundamentally it is an intensified
expansion of the Synod-wide roll-call which has been conducted
annually by your Board for Young People’s Work through the
statistical office of Synod. Obviously the League has played a major
role in the U. Y.E.: it has supplied the needed materials, given its
leadership, and enlisted a host of workers for the good of the whole
cause of young people’s work. The League has earned its prom-