THE PRESBYTERIAN SUSTENTATION FUND FORWARD MOVEMENT.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2041, 24 August 1906, Page 5

THE PRESBYTERIAN SUSTENTATION FUND FORWARD MOVEMENT.

(Contributed). The Rev. Robert Wood, organising agent of the Sustentaion Fund Committee of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, is spending two weeks in the Clutha Presbytery to visit the congregations of Balclutha and Tokomairiro and to awaken special interest in a conference that will be held in Milton on August HOth. Successful conferences have already been held at lnvercurgill and Gore, and arrangements are made to have similar meetings in Dunedin and Oamaru. These conferences an? being held under a motion of the Assembly's Sustentation Fund Committee on the suggestion of Mr Wood. Tt was mentioned by Mr Wood at the conference at Gore that the lir»t notice that the Church got of this new departure in work by his appointment was in a short report of the meeting of Wellington Presbytery which dealt with his resignation of the charge of Masterton at the invitation of the Sustentation Fund Committee to take up the work. The conductors of the Outlook either through ignorance or lack of interest, took no notice of Mr Wood's appointment ; and so it was found necessary, by a ser.es of Presbyterial conferences to do what the agent expected would haVe been done by the official organ of the Presbyterian Church--viz.,create an intelligent interest in the movement to lift up the Sustentation h'und and therein - furnish

an adequate' stipend to ministers who are now underpaid, and to open the door for the expansion of the Church sanctioned by the erection of Mission Stations into sanctioned charges. The forward movement represented bv Mr flood's special work originated with the Dunedin Officebearers' Association. It did not, therefore, originate with the Ministers who were suffering from the increased cost of living and a fall in their stipends. This fact, however, was noticed by. the Dunedin officebearers. Thev observed that dur-

irijjj recent years when the colony was experiencing prosperity and the earning power of trades and professions was increasing, the stipends of Ministers whose whole income was the Sustentation Fund dividend had steadily fallen and in consequence they agreed that a /Minister should be set apart for the special work of visiting congregations and getting this fund put on a proper footing. The resolution of these oilicebrearcrs went from Synod to Assembly witli the result that the Assembly's committee agreed to ask Mr Wood lo accept the appointment of organising agent. Mr Wood has boon at work in the congregations in Southland Presbytery and several aid receiving congregations wish to be rated at £<2oo instead of £ 175, and congregations which were self-sustaining will now become aid-giving. Mr Wood has not finished his Southland programme, but has broken upon it to stir up interest all over the Church by conferences of officebearers and ministers in each Presbytery.

The Dunedin oflicebearers, who originated this Sustentation Fund Forward Movement, hold the stipend represented by the present dividend of the Sustentation Fund, which last, year was £lO7, is too little. ft is a disgraceful drop from the £250 minimum stipend laid down at the first meeting of Otago and Southland in ISf>(>. When the Synod was ten years old it cordially approved of the opinion expressed by the then convener of the Sustentation Fund Committee, Captain Thomson, whose report closed with those words, " Your Committee would express hope that during the current year all the officebearers and members in each congregation will so exert themselves that the dividend will be raised to at least £250 per annum, „ and that by the blessing of God this fund which is really the only means of maintaining church ordinances in almost every part of the province may be more and more supported and increased until every minister of the church is placed above the cares and anxieties which are in. separable from the receipt of an insufficient stipend." Several causes account for this fall in dividend. The large and rich congregations are giving less. A Dunedin congregation last year gave £383 when thirty years ago it gave .£6lO. The gross givings of this congregation is probably not less than it was, but it is spending more on itself and is giv ng to objects other than the central fund of the Church. The liberality of the large and rich congregations has to some extent been chilled by the way the Fund has been abused in some cases. Congregations have leaned on the fund that should have been

severely shaken up and told not only to stand on their own feet but to stretch out the hand of help to otWs.

Not a few people , assume there is a mysterious source of wealth in bum-din and it is right they think for them to get their congregation to lean on the fund as long as it can, and by doing so they punish their own minister and all other ministers whose whole income is the Sustentation Fund dividend. But the chief cause of the drop in the dividend has been the rise: of a large number of congrep.t « i/- who pay" supplements, and who pu.uically ignore the Sustentation Fund. If such congregations contributed to the fund at the rate of one pound for every two paid to their ministers as supplements, the Sustentation Fupd Committee would likely be able to pay a dividend of £250.

Probably the least aggressive Church as regards Home Missions to-day is the Presbyterian Church. The Church is awake as regards Foreign .Missions. It is aggressive in far-oil' fields, and. it, pays its agents an adequate stipend. This is as it should be. But in Home Mission work, through its sustentation fund and church extension schemes, north and south, its expansion is arrosted through ignorance and indifference. The total amount of the aid giving contributions to these schemes last year did not amount to more than £2OOO, and this sum divided among the members of the Church all over New Zealand, works out at the rate of Ud per months or 1/6 per year. The Methodist Church' with only half of the membership and less than half the wealth is spending 'twice this amount in aggressive work in New Zealand.

Mr Wood, in preaching and lecturing at Balclutha on Sabbath ami Tuesday appealed for a forward movement in Christian giving in the congregations in the C'lutha Presbytery. He said that as a result of a study of the "Assembly Proceedings " ('lutha was not doing so wi>lf as some o.ther Presbyteries ill the Church. The " Assembly Proceedings" credits the 17 sanctioned charges and mission stations with giving last year for all purposes £5(569, and when this amount is divided among the KiS9 members and adherents attending services it works out at i\/- per head per annum, or less than (id per week. An extra penny per week . per worshipper would increase the givings by CIOOO per annum, and this would make every ('lutha congregation self-sustaining, , lift up the Sustentalion Fund dividend, and enable the church to carry on ,more aggressively the work of extension. The following figures taken from the " Assembly Proceedings " showing the gross givings of each congregation in ('lutha Presbytery, tli • number <)f worshippers, and the amount contributed by worshippers, may be profitably studied by all interested : Number Total Amount attending giving per services to all \Yor-

Congregation objects. .shi ppiT C Halclutha 21)0 101 27/Clutlm ISO 2f,:t 2»/:. Kaitangata 350 :sx<) 22/Lawrence -ISO 544 22/Lovells Flat •240 2:50 19/i\lilhiirn •220 2*7 20/OwuUa 2(10 292 22/Ponot iinoa 1500 323 2! A Stirling :)20 4 Hi 24/Tokomaii'ii'o 550 807 32/IVailiola 240'. 254 21/. Waitahnna 210 321 30/Waiwi'ra 275 33<; " 24/Warepa 270 . 364 27/-