METHODIST CHURCH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22827, 11 March 1936, Page 6

METHODIST CHURCH

PRESIDENT’S VISIT The Rev. E. P. Blamires, president of New Zealand Methodism, and director of the Youth Department, was welcomed in Trinity Church on Monday night. A tea table fellowship had been arranged" by the president of the Sunday School Onion (the Rev. G. Densom) for the officers of the Sunday School and Bible Class Unions and the Ministers’ Fraternal, followed by an open evening for all interested in the leadership of youth. Long-service certificates were awarded to three members of the Cargill Road Church—Mr MTndoe, for 38 years’ continuous teaching at Cargill Road; Mrs MTndoe, for 25 years’ unbroken time, and Mr W. Ashby, who for 53 years had been leading classes and schools in various parts of the Dominion. The Rev. G. Brown stated that Mr and Mrs MTndoe as teachers influenced his life as a Sunday school lad in the church of which he was now minister. A letter of congratulations to these loyal workers was received from Mr A. H. Reed.

The tea table discussion centred around Disraeli’s saying, “What we say matters little; how we say it matters more; but what we are matters most.” Froebel had said, “ Watch the child and he will show ua how to teach him.” The child saw much in the teacher, but be was also to the teacher a demonstration of whole-hearted sincerity and effective method in charcater-building and worship. The Rev. E. P. Blamires illustrated the influence of progressive childstudy on methods of teaching since the inception of Sunday schools. To-day, he said, schools were graded, and as the nature of the child unfolded so religious education was adapted to harmonise. The child brought to the church school his reaction to influences both helpful and harmful. The youth of to-morrow would choose his way alone. This was the teacher’s greatest opportunity, and constant and wise education in religion was increasingly in evidence in practical Christian living. Unions and conferences characterised the age, and hastened perfection in all common purpose. At the world’s Sunday School Convention, to he held in Norway, Methodism, which represented one-third of the world's Sunday school system, would have direct representation from New Zealand. The increasing development of the purpose of the Youth Department of the Methodist Church in New Zealand was traced through influential lenders, lesson schemes and organisation from 1905. Experiences shared were helpful, but world conferences recommended each country to evolve its own system according to local needs. New Zealand, still striving for the ideal in many directions, was leading the world in others. The strongest national movement in this country was a Christian one, for the Bible class system of several deominations was the strongest national movement in the world, and a stimulus to the youth loaders of other The encouragement of to-day was youth S' desire to base life on Jesus Christ. Team spirit must grow until love for one another, individually and nationally, penetrated differences of opinion. If each and all followed the will of Jesus Christ the vision of the possibilities would he clear, and right thoughts would promote right actions.