NOT KEEPING UP

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 31, 16 November 1939, Page 6

NOT KEEPING UP

THE CHURCH AND THIS AGE. SUFFERING DEFECTIVE EVANGELISM. iVIINISTER EXPRESSES UNEASINESS. “I am not at all satisfied with the cheerful atmosphere of this meeting or of the Synod as a whole. I inn not easy about Alethodism, for the statistics I have been able to peruse show things that give mo grave thoughts, and the district returns do not give a great deal to comfort ,me.” This statement was made by the Rev. H. L. Richards, ol Waipiate, when he addressed a social function held last evening to welcome delegates to the annual Alethodist Church Synod which is meeting in Ashburton. Mr Richards appealed for a more forceful presentation of all that the church stood for and declared that the church was falling behind the age. Congregations were not what they used to be. He found this in his own experience and others had told lym similar tales, so the same thing seemed to bo the rule everywhere. It might ho, as some people put it, • the age wo were living in, but that was no argument for the state of affairs that existed. If it was a question of lagging behind the age, why was the church not reaching out to the age and conquering it? Some people said it was the motorcar that was the trouble. The car certainly was taking the people to the beaches and to other placees, hut why was it not taking them to the churches ?

The fact was that the church was not keeping pace with the mental equipment that was being supplied to the’ young people in the secondary schools and in the universities. It would he a mistake to turn the pulpit into a University Chair, hut at the same time it was a fact that ti’ue spiritual culture had as part of its. programme ministry to the mind. There may bo a lip serviqo response and there may be goodwill, but the appeal that had to be made must be to the heart.

A writer had stated that we were suffering from a-defective evangelism. The church was out to make people like Jesus Christ and to form character, which was the product of two forces. A vital and fundamental feature of this was the inner urge, when an appeal for personal salvation was made, and there was no doubt that man was to the extent of 50 per cent, the product of his environment. The evangelism that was going to produce the goods in the days to come was that which would attack every evil that assailed the life of man, ‘Mr Richards said. It would have to be a passion for man. The church must evangelise tho social order and not leave the evils entrenched to attack man.