PASTORS NOT TOO OLD AT 45

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 June 1937, Page 10

PASTORS NOT TOO OLD AT 45

WHERE YOUNG MEN FAIL. LONDON. May 4. A protest against the “foolish preference" for young men. which was making ministers 100 old after Hie middle forties, was made by the Rev. Ernest Price, presiding yesterday at the Spring Assembly of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, in the City Temple, London. “In ihc ministry, above all vocation," he said, “age ought to be an asset rather than a handicap: amt a rich maturity <>f spiritual experience aught to count for more than youth-j 'nr assurance and agility. "It is high time we abandoned the' • iupid notion that only young men.

E 1 fresh from college—or perhaps with Ml wo or three years' experience in the !sowing of ministerial wild oats —can iappeal to youth. ■ "Some of the finest work that is ■ being done among young people in our i churches is being done by men over 150. and it. is certainly true that some ■of our bright young jninisters have ’j failed disastrously precisely at this ’ j point." •i Among tilings that struck him most ‘about many of the candidates who pre- ■ jsented themselves to their college were ■jtheir crude notions about religion and i t heir lamentable ignorance of the J Bible. The average marks in Scripture at Hie entrance examinations were I usually lower than in any other subject .