# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1941_S185
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

_ Reports on General Missions 183

_ Report of General Church Extension Board
(Memorial 402)

_ Forty years ‘ago, after repeated efforts to raise funds for
‘mission-chapels through pleas in our church-papers, Synod pro-
; led for a permanent revolving fund for the purpose of financing
“such chapels, and this revolving fund has operated during the past
forty years under the name of “General Church Extension Fund.”
The fund has gradually grown large through various accretions
“and has been a veritable boon to many mission-congregations.
“Without help from the Church Extension Fund many a struggling
““ mission-congregation would never have been able to own and
-., ase a Chapel, but would have been forced for many years to con-
‘tent itself with rented halls, store-buildings, and the like. The
Church Extension Fund has enabled many of these congregations
to erect a building long before their own strength made the
venture possible. 750 loans have been made from the Church
Extension Fund during the forty years in which it has been in
operation. During the three years covered by this report, 1938,
1939, and 1940, 72 loans were made. The following figures will
show the activity of the Church Extension Fund during these
three years:

Total Total
Year Requests Requested Granted Granted
1938 54 $170,370 33 $ 84,300
1939 35 200,570 18 97,200
1940 44 289,750 21 105,150
133 $660,690 “12 $286,650

In granting or declining to grant a loan the Church Extension
Board has kept in mind the regulations by which it is governed
and the rules that Synod has made from time to time. Thus it
has been the policy of the Board to limit its loans to sums below
$10,000, to make loans only to Districts, to lend money for small
mission-churches, to refuse to make loans when the money is to ~
be used for the payment of debts, to consider chapels first, to select
the most important requests from the number presented, and to
keep the loans in any District from becoming too large. The Board
meets regularly every two months and gives very careful attention
to every request. The requests come on forms supplied by the
Board, and the chairman prepares a careful digest of each request
a week before the meeting and submits this digest to the members
of the Board several days before the meeting. Your Board believes
that it has exercised the most meticulous care in managing the
large fund placed at its disposal; wherever a loan has been granted,
or wherever a request has been denied, your Board feels that it
has followed its best Christian judgment. The Church Extension