# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1941_S199
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Reports on General Missions ' 197

ur neighbor. An evangelical Christian is a person in whom
good news grows like a steady flame, giving joyful light to
‘as well as to himself.
. Missions is evangelism on a larger scale. Another purpose of
Call of the Cross is to teach our laity that there can be no
uch thing as a parochial Christian. That is a contradiction in
arms. When we become Christians, we accepted the Great Com-
mission, “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel.” - Unless
his Christian experience embraces the same universal world
hich the love of God embraces, our faith is weak and our
afictification far from what it should be. A Christian includes
"only the neighbor across the street but also the teeming mil-
ions in China, Africa, and India.
“Letters and personal testimony from District Presidents, Vis-
tors, pastors, and laymen throughout the country testify to the
sctiveness of the Call of the Cross work. They bear witness
ofa new vitality appearing not as yet everywhere but in many
Mplaces and in unnumbered lives. The Call of the Cross Committee
aims no personal credit for this, for this is the work of the Holy
‘Spirit within the organization of the whole Church as it responds

His dynamic force in the hearts of the members of the body

‘of ‘Christ. :
“+ We are far from having attained our goal. There are still
too many congregations in which the spirit of missions has not
ret been reawakened. There are still too many leaders in the
‘Church whose faith in the promises of God is too little to permit
‘them to dream dreams of expansion and to undertake great things
.. for God and expect great things from God.

What are the plans of the Call of the Cross Committee with
reference to the first phase of its work, namely, that of missions?
During the past months you have read in the Lutheran Witness
and in the Lutheraner reports on work done by congregational
committees. We hope that such reports are an example to many
to do likewise. In the near future the committee expects to send
out a questionnaire to all Visitors, asking them to make a con-
gregation-by-congregation survey in their circuit as to the work
done by each congregation along the lines suggested by the Call
of the Cross Committee in:

a. Congregational activities in the interest of local missions;

b. Personal evangelism.

A fourth paper in the series of “Let Us Search and Try Our
Ways” entitled “My Relation to the Unchurched” will be sent to
all. pastoral conferences for discussion.

e The next phase of the Call of the Cross Committee’s work,
- namely, that of Christian education, will not replace the emphasis