EVANGELISM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23222, 21 June 1937, Page 11

EVANGELISM

ADDRESS BY YOUTH DIRECTOR "Evangelism and Christian Nurture " was the subject of an address to a morning meeting of the Student Christian Movement by the Rev. Dr J. D. Salmond, youth director of the Presbyterian Church. To evangelise, the speaker said, meant to preach the Gospel. The task of snreading the Gospel should never be divorced from other phases of church life and work, but should be wedded to education, to corporate worship, and to social reform. Every way that really led to and ended in Christ was essentially evangelical, and His Gospel was as large as was His own Personality. Evangelism was important because it belonged to the very nature of the Christian life, because it stopped the drift among young people, because it drove back unbelief, and because it brought about great social and ethical reforms. Much of the ineffectiveness in the Church's youth work in the last 20 years was due to lack of evangelical zeal. The Church had never been meant to be a happv little group of good people comforting themselves at home, but a great army on the march together into the enemy's country to capture new territories for their King. Every evangelistic effort had its defects and its excesses, and mistakes were often made concerning evangelism. It was noteworthy that in Christ the contrast between teaching and preaching, education and evangelism, simply did not exist, and it was a mistake to regard evangelism as identical with much emotion and alien from education. Emotion was nevertheless a drivirw force of life, the connecting link between thought and action. Education prepared the way for evangelism, and was, indeed, the main part of evangelism itself. It was also necessary to guard against divorcing social service work and social reform from the evangelistic appeal. Tht truest evangelism sought to regenerate the individual with a view to regenerating society. It was also a mistake to associate evangelism with set and cramped views of life, pious phrases and unnatural mannerisms; to preach the Gosgel in language not familiar to the people or to link the Gospel with anything that unnecessarily repelled; or to demand a standardised experience. In conversion what mattered was not the rate of speed with which one had turned, but the angle through which one had turned and the direction in which one was left facing. The greatest mistake of all was to be so afraid of making mistakes as to do nothing. The world's biggest advances had usually been led by men who had dared to blunder in some great-hearted, courageous effort to achieve something. There were many possible methods of evangelism. Friendship was always necessary, and teaching was particularly important at the present time. Evangelism in the twentieth century meant primarily education, and conversion involved the allegiance of the intellect. The common worship of the Church also, when it was pure, not only attracted, but converted. Both large meetings and small meetings had their place; but individual evangelism was perhaps supremely important. Christianity in the first centuries had passed through the world like a flame, because the laity, the soldier, the merchant, the slave, the lady, wherever they had gone, had at once planted the banner of the Cross, and with holy boldness and skill had begun to win those nearest to them. Whatever the | method or the occasion three things were necessary—a clear presentation of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord; encouragement and help in registering the final decision and in making the inward decision in some quiet and yet definite way; and afterwards ensuring that the new Christian recruit was given real fellowship, instructed in the great foundation truths of the faith and in habits of devotion, and taught , to regard his daily work as a real vocation. He should also be given some definite spiritual responsibility.