PILLARS OF CHURCH.

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 17803, 30 August 1929, Page 11

PILLARS OF CHURCH.

FOUR ESSENTIAL THINGS. REV. H. E. JONES’ SERMON. The Rev. H. E. Jones, until recently vicar of St. George’s Anglican Church, Frankton, was the preacher at First Presbyterian Churcn on Sunday night. The Rev. Lawrence Rogers took the first part of the service, and introducing the speaker said that this was the first time that Mr Jones had preached in a Presbyterian Church since his decision to leave the Anglican Church and become a Presbyterian. He welcomed Mr Jones, and in the name of the church wished him happiness and success in the new work to which he was called. Mr Jones took his text from the second chapter of Acts, “They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.” These four things, said the preacher, were the pillars of the church. No church could succeed unless it was firmly planted on these pillars. A true understanding of the Scriptures was essential to progress and success.. The more the church caught the spirit of the apostles’ thinking, the nearer would it get to God. It was not man’s thought so much as It was God's thought that the church should present to the world. Again, true fellowship, the fellowship of equality and of love, was an essential foundation. A church without the spirit of friendship was a church without the spirit of the apostles and of Christ. There should be friendship between the churches as there should be between individuals. Barriers raised between one church and another church were an indication that those who raised the barriers had lost something essential from the teaching of the apostles. Further, the breaking of bread in the eucharist was in one sense an indication of the unity of the church. It indicated that we 'were all members of the body of Christ —fragments of the whole. Finally, no church was a Christian church unless it was built on prayer, for prayer was the uniting of the soul to God. And it must not be .mere formal prayer, but prayer to the heart of God from the heart of man.