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

Until 1844, church erection in the U.S. had been regarded as a local responsibility. However, in 1844 the General Assembly (Old School), in response to an overture, committed itself via the Board of Missions to the task of aiding financially weak congregations to build better churches. This was to be done by the churches through systematic benevolence giving. In 1855, the General Assembly appointed a Committee on Church Extension. With its headquarters in St. Louis near the frontier country where most of the aid was to be extended, the Committee 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 the Old and New School branches in 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 rather than annual benevolence giving which would be loaned to needy churches for a period of time and then repaid. This policy continued until 1870.

In 1870 the 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. With the general 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.