WHY ARE OUR CHURCHES SO POORLY ATTENDED?

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 66, 18 March 1915, Page 8

WHY ARE OUR CHURCHES SO POORLY ATTENDED?

(To tne Editor.) Sir, —The above is a burning question not only in New Zealand, but in other lands. In an article dealing with the Scottish churches, the "Scotsman" says: For the last twenty years eleven' churches ,of the United Free Church have been extinguished in populous dis-1 tricts of Edinburgh. . These churches disappeared not because of dwindlingl populations but because of dwindling attendances at their ordinances in crowded districts of the city. In other, days, it says, the churches were after men, but now they are after money. That religion which began on earth as the proclamation of good tidings to the poor has come to this. Its emissaries go down to the crowded poor and they say, pay so much per telling and we will declare the glad tidings, and when the people cannot or will not pay, then the Canongate is left with only one church for every 5000 of the population. But the poverty or unwillingness of the people to contribute to the support of the ministry is not the only cause for' diminishing congregations, for instance, the Bishop of Carlisle, Dr. Diggle, in his new year pastoral, in referring to the way in which some of the clergy neglected their duties, said: "Two or three of the clergy are approaching the brink of exposure for their habits. Others seem affected with incurable indolence. The less they have to do the worse they do it. Others are dull and listless, they get through Sunday, hut Sunday does not shine through them; they do not visit sympathetically, they take little loving interest in their people, and consequently their people take little loving interest in them. Their churches are shut from Sunday to Sunday, and on Sunday they are empty." The great Dr. Fitchett, of Melbourne, says, "There are churches that I know of where if the poor came to them, the great company of the poor,! they would feel themselves very strange, yet the church that does not find place in its ranks for Christ's poor has no I right to exist." That our churches can be filled. I, think there can be no doubt, if the I ministry will only take a - living in-' terest in the people, and throw their j ticaTt and soul into their work. Let mc finish thi3 epistle by giving an example of what can and has been dona ! The minister of a Rochdale (Lancashire) church mentioned that the. building in which ■he and his people worshipped seated between 900 and 1,000. but the attendance had only been about 250. To alter such an unsatis-! factory state of affairs he pledged himself that, assisted by .'llia wife and j daughter, they would fill four of the empty pews, and he got others to do the same. Fifty-five promises were got during the week, and on the first Sunday night 44 people were in the special scats. On the second Sunday evening the gallery congregation was swelled, to 150, and on the third Sunday there were 300 people there, whilst on the fourth ■ the chapel was packed. On ■ Saturday evening about thirty of the workers had processioned the town singing and j speaking in the open air. But the moat i effective method had been morning canvassing. He and his wife and; daughter had got up at five> o'clock each morning, and armed with invitation cards, had sallied forth to : meet' the i null operatives on their way to work. This was how they had got the eongre- j gation. We commend the foregoing as ] a cure to the officials and ministers, oli those churches, and their name is! legion, that are suffering from continually dwindling congregations.—l am, etc., * •' ' ! PRO BONO PUBXrTCO. \