“Church Is Not Closed Society”

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31628, 14 March 1968, Page 3

“Church Is Not Closed Society”

The church that was striving for material gains such as better buildings, increased membership, and financial resources was doomed, Mrs Lieutenant-Colonel P. L. Smith said in Christchurch yesterday.

“The Church is not a building and it is not theology. Nor is it a closed society with beautiful singing. It is the people,” she said. “It is the personal involvement that counts, and Christianity is only in its right perspective when we are really personally involved.” Mrs Smith, an officer with the Salvation Army in Wellington, was speaking at the second day of the inter-church school arranged by the women’s committee of the Christchurch branch of the National Council of Churches.

She is involved particularly with the Army’s youth work and the Girl Guide Association, but has also been a member of the women's committee of the N.C.C. in several towns and president of the Auckland branch for two years.

“It is fairly simple to be a member of a church or missionary society and it is quite easy to come to an ecumenical gathering," she said. “But is it really easy to be personally involved yourself?

“We must ask ourselves if we are prepared to be a living epistle or if we are quite prepared to be a cosy member of this society or that,” she said. “We need reformation, not in church theology, but in the getting together of people who can accept the challenge of personal commitment.

Mrs Smith said that spiritual hunger was far more devastating and dreadful than physical hunger. There were and always would be millions and millions of people hungry for God’s love, conifort, hope, and compassion.

“Not all these people are in South-East Asia," she said. “They are right next door to you, your home, your children, your sisters, or someone in your church community. “Our theological togetherness, social togetherness, and ecumenical togetherness are of little or no spiritual value unless we have something to do with Christ and the cry of humanity.”