CANNOT FIGHT POVERTY AND THE DEVIL ALSO

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6911, 17 May 1929, Page 2

CANNOT FIGHT POVERTY AND THE DEVIL ALSO

WHY MINISTRY IS UNDERMANNED.

“Why is tiiero a dearth of candidates for the ministry? Why have we to rocord the lapse of accepted candidates, and the secession of ordained men, who have left tho Christian ministry for commercial pursuits? Were they self-deceived, or where they disillusioned in the ministry? _ It is au open secret that others will follow them. There is something wrong somewhere.” These challenging sentences were the keynote of an address delivered to the Congregational Union in Sydney lately, by tho Rev. T. E. Ruth. He frankly told the assembled churchmen that they must give serious thought to the conditions under which their ministers worked. Mr Ruth traced tho steps by which a man reached the ministry. Having spent years in rigid training, in the acquirement of theological, ethical, and sociological principles, he accepted a charge. But tho young minister, instead of “becoming an ambassador of the Eternal Throne,’ ’found himself a sort of errand boy to an audience, the collector of his own meagre salary, a manager of bazaars, a sort of bush lawyer. He was expected to engage in the activities of committees, sub-com-mittees, conferences, conventions —all dissipating the energy that should be devoted to the essential work of a preacher. “They want to be preachers,” said Mr Rutli; “that is tho last thing they are expected to be. They should be free from anxiety about their personal affairs, but they are. not. The preacher who has to fight poverty has no energy loft to fight the devil. They cannot bo blamed if they are disappointed, and leave the Church for secular occupations. “That is tho situation the Church has to face. Its work cannot bo advanced by an underpaid, underfed, and underread ministry. It would be better to have fewer churches and betterpaid ministers. If the churches want men who will say only the things expected of them, in stereotyped fashion, they may as well use dictaphones.”