# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1941_S204
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

204 Reports and Action on Various Mission-Fields

The question was raised whether Mission Expansion funds
could be granted also large congregations in the midst of a promis-
ing field but unable to call permanently an assistant pastor or an
assistant to the pastor to help meet the opportunities at their very
door. We have a large number of congregations that are unable
to salary another pastor because of the heavy overhead, on account
of Christian day-schools or other obligations. Having the full
equipment of a developed Christian congregation: the house of
God, a school, possibly a parish-house, together with all the organi-
zations: the Sunday-school, Bible class, young people’s group,
ladies’ aid society, men’s club, etc., it seems as if such congrega-
tions might be helped from the Mission Expansion Fund, with given
restrictions, for a certain period of time. The Board of Home
Missions awaits the ruling of this venerable convention.

Church Extension. — As we enter upon a more extensive and
intensive mission-expansion program, an enlarged Church Ex-
tension Fund becomes a dire necessity. Many of our mission-
stations holding forth excellent prospects for development cannot
thrive and grow because they lack the necessary equipment.
A dwelling, a store, a hall, a barn, a garage, might be a temporary
abode, but none of these can and will in the end aid the struggling
mission. A modest chapel, however, properly located and equipped,
will give the little mission the necessary impetus to go forward.

Glancing over the past year, we find that the General Church
Extension Fund looks very much improved. The ‘feasible repay-
ment plan offered by the Board to struggling missions gave them
a new lease on life. They again began to repay on the accounts
long past due. If all congregations indebted to the General Church
Extension Fund would fall in line and repay according to their
ability, the church-extension problem together with the developing
mission-expansion program, would be solved, at least in part. If
the repayment of Church Extension loans could be doubled, we
could come to the assistance of at least thirty-five mission-stations
to build the necessary chapels. — A word of encouragement will
help the cause.

Home Base, — The Call-of-the-Cross effort has done much to
bring home to our Christians the need of strengthening the home
base, the home church. Many joined hands in seeking the un-
churched, the wayward, the erring. Hundreds were led to Christ
or back to the fold. We dare not relent and grow weary in the
supreme task of going out personally and individually to win the
sinners lest we incur the wrath and the displeasure of Him who
so graciously has given us the Word of Salvation. Failing to add
to the church at home, we shall be a dying Church, and as a dying
Church we shall not measure up to the task before us. We shall