Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Board of the Church Erection Fund

In 1844 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (Old School) committed itself to aid financially weak congregations build better churches, funded through systematic benevolence giving. In 1855, it appointed a Committee on Church Extension, headquartered in St. Louis near the frontier country where most of the aid was to be extended, that was directly responsible to the General Assembly. In 1860, this work was assigned to the new Board of Church Extension, which continued to aid weak churches in their building problems until the reunion of 1870. In 1853, the New School Assembly appointed a Church Erection Committee. Unlike its Old School counterparts, the New School program called for a permanent fund which extended loans to needy churches, that were then repaid. This policy continued until the reunion of the Old and New School branches in 1870, when church extension and church erection agencies consolidated their work in a new organization known as the Board of the Church Erection Fund. During the 1870s and 1880s the Board enlarged its scope by building chapels in advance of building churches in the frontier country of Utah, New Mexico and Alaska. By the mid-1880s, its work was again extended with the establishment of schools and chapels among the Mormon, Indian and Spanish-speaking populations. In the reorganization in 1923 the work of church erection was placed under the Board of National Missions though the original name was retained for legal reasons.

From the description of Records, 1853-1946 (bulk: 1870-1946) (Presbyterian Historical Society). WorldCat record id: 9544407

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