CHURCH'S SPHERE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23274, 17 February 1939, Page 15

CHURCH'S SPHERE

BBINGING GOD TO MEN LOST INFLUENCE DISCUSSED METHODIST PRESIDENT'S VIEWS [by telegraph—OWN correspondent] CHRISTCHURCH, Thursday The opinion that the Church still had her special sphere and should concentrate on work within that sphere was expressed by the president of the New Zealand Methodist Conference, the Rev. Angus Mcßean, in his inaugural address to the annual Dominion conference of the Methodist Church, which opened in Christchurch to-night.

It had become fashionable, lie said, to talk of the lost provinces of the Church, but he held that many of the activities in which the Church had once been engaged had been outside its real province. In the work which was peculiarly her own, however, the position was entirely different, for if the Church failed to bring God to men no one else would do it.

"It isn't a question of getting people to come to church, although that is difficult enough in these days of the week-end habit, the motor-car, and wireless," said Mr. Mcßean. "The question rather concerns what they find when they do come. Why do we ask them to come? What is expected to happen in the church service ? Are they to come in the expectancy that they might hear a good sermon ? There must be more. The people must not be spectators or listeners but worshippers. Obligation of Service "The Church must help to instil into the mind of youth the truth that life brings with it the obligation of service; that the self-centred life, grasping always to get, and always grudging to give, is a poor travesty of life. We must serve our age and our country. We want our youth to love their Church, and to work for her and for her Lord with all their lovely enthusiasm and all their best powers. But they must be taught that it is an essential part of their religion to cultivate their talents and devote their gifts to some service for the community.

"It would be a scathing reproach upon the work we have been doing through the years if it really gave any just cause for the idea that church work is confined to running the various organisations of the church," the president continued. "The Church's real work is to build Christian character and to train and inspire men and women for the service of God and their fellows in the home, in their every-day calling, and in the many-sided life of their community and their country. Challenge of the Times "How shall the Church meet the challenge of the times?" he asked. "There is need for a positive faith, and an experience that is deep, satisfying, and triumphant. Too often, in place of this we see little but , perplexities and problems. In some places everything is turned into a problem, even .Tesus Himself. It was not so with the apostles, once they knew the risen Christ. 1 know that even then they had some difficult questions to face; but Christ was not a problem. He was a wonderful Reality, and to live with Him was to find abundant grace, and victorious life. "We need more Christians in the Church to-day. But a greater need still is the need for Christians of a better quality. We need a renewal of the thought that the Church is the Lord's army, and that He is leading it onward in a mighty and triumphant campaign. We have been too full of fear. We have been satisfied to assume the defensive in the fight; and that is a poor defence."