Mission Of Church In Urban Industry

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32019, 20 June 1969, Page 3

Mission Of Church In Urban Industry

Churches had failed to find the kind of liturgy for Sunday services in industrial cities which had relevance to the working man, the Rev. R. M. O’Grady told the women’s committee of the National Council of Churches last evening. “What hymn do you choose for him?” he asked. There were plenty of hymns about sheep and shepherds and about work in rural communities. But there was nothing in the hymn books which related to the city man with a job in industry. - “No wonder the working man does not come to church on Sunday when we ask him to sing the things we do.” he said. This was a small point, but one which illustrated why many, including trade union representatives, saw the church as increasingly irrelevant in the modem industrial revolution. It was time for a re-assess-ment of church worship. "And what have we been doing all these years in really standing beside the man facing problems and difficult situations in this complex, developing world?” he asked. Impotence One of the shocks which had come to the Church in the last decade was its impotence

to deal with what had been described in the United States as the urban crisis—rioting and shooting in the streets, he said. Since society had developed furthest in that country, it is reasonable to look to America for a taste of what our own city life could become, he said. The Church in New Zealand must be prepared to care for the whole of society, do research on the needs of all persons and plan on the basis of this. Mr O’Grady said specialised ministries must be developed in the Church, such as industrial chaplaincies. “We have one at Manapouri and a few others are planned. But in Australia last year there were 117 part-time chaplains and four staff chaplains working in 133 plants, Government offices and stores," he said. Growing Pains New Zealand cities were already beginning to suffer the shock of growing pains, yet within the next generation there would be more building than there had been in the entire previous history of the country. One of the world’s leading authorities on urban development had said that cities of the year 2069 would certainly be vast in size, but man had the power to make them “horrors or havens.” “This poses a threat and a challenge,” Mr O’Grady said.

The Church was in danger of becoming a bystander in a growing revolution, a spectator whose only function was to “hand out the lemons at half-time”—not take part in the game, in the progress of humanity. “The extent to which we are concerned with the urban industrial mission and the progress of mankind will be determined by how far we take our responsibility,” said Mr O’Grady.