METHODIST CHURCH

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 46, 24 February 1942, Page 4

METHODIST CHURCH

PROBLEMS OF YOUTH WORK PLAN OF CO-ORDINATION (P. A.) WELLINGTON, this day. The Methodist Conference yesterday decided to accept the report of the Youth Board to co-ordinate its work in order to free men and women from administrative work to give more time to vital spiritual youth work. Mr. A. E. Bate, Auckland, in presenting statistical returns of Sunday schools, stated that where decreases in Sunday schools were reported they were mainly in the senior classes, showing the imperative need for reorganising Sunday school work in the senior classes. The fact that an increasing number of infants was being registered in the cradle rolls and that many of them were being 1 presented to the Church for baptism, was at once a source of gratification and a challenge. j

Fifteen hundred children were added to the cradle roll during the year, which was 336 more than for 1940 and nearly double the number enrolled during 1936. If Methodism could capitalise this great opportunity, the problem of senior membership should become a thing of the past. Unfortunatelv a leakage occurred at the very point where young life first came under the care of the Church.

A lengthy discussion took place on the report of the Youth Board on the question of co-ordination presented by Mr. N. R. Seddon. He said that under the new scheme, which had been before the Youth Board for several years, the aim would be to simplify this branch of the work of the Church.

The conference decided to accept the principles of co-ordination as outlined in the report, and the youth department will now proceed to bring the scheme into operation as authorised by the conference