YOUTH AND CHURCHES.

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 18030, 27 May 1930, Page 8

YOUTH AND CHURCHES.

SUNDAY SCHOOL FAILURE.

OUTLOOK OF MODERN CHILD. In his address as chairman of the English 'Congregational Union of North Wales, the Rev. Ambrose Evans spoke on youth in the churches. 'lt was a mistake, he said, to refer to youth as a problem. Youth was nothing like the problem presented by those who looked upon it as such—the problem occasioned by the tendency to get into grooves and ruts and to keep there. The most tragic loss of the war was the loss of virtually a whole generation of influence and power, with the result that there was a great gulf in the churches. There were the old and the young. Were they now going to rest contented while another generation went adrift? “We are losing our young people from church and school," he said. “Our failure lies with the children between thirteen and sixteen, a period corresponding to the school-leaving age. There is every probability that the school-leaving age, will be raisedAre we prepared to meet the situation, and are our present methods likely to succeed? The story of the past few years does not make me very sanguine.” Laxity of Parents. 'Much could be said about the laxity of parents. It was not easy to make an enthusiast of a child that came from an apathetic home. But he was convinced that one reason for the loss was the entire lack of sympathy with youth that was apparent. He believed those who died in the war would have saved the situation had they lived. They would have had sympathy and understanding: “We shall utterly fail to understand the modern child,” he added, “if we merely gaze at him through the glasses of our own youth.”

'The whole trend of the world today was to make extroverts and not introverts. The child to-day was objective in outlook, living as he did in a world where all manner of things fascinated and allured him. He had no time for introspection. 'The floodgates were wide open. Daily newspapers, magazines of thrilling interest, radio, the theatre, the “talkies" —all these things contributed a constant play upon his sensations. Declaring that it was time for the churches to take steps to evangelise their own districts, the speaker said: “Of what avail is it to talk of evangelising the whole world when we are allowing our own country to become pagan?” In a reference to the wisdom of introducing modern methods into the Sunday school, he said that many of the Sunday schools apparently did not wish to alter; they preferred to lose their scholars rather than change. ■The leakage in their Sunday schools between the ages of 13 and 16 was between 75 and 90 per cent. If that leakage was allowed .to go on,. in a few years’ time there would be nothing but empty seats. Something had got *to be done.

Children Not Interested. Why did these young people leave the Sunday School? For the simple reason that they werfe; not interested. They felt the great difference between the day school teacher and the Sunday School teacher. That was a gulf which could and must be bridged. He advocated the systematic training of Sunday School teachers, and advised churches to send teachers for training to the centres which were ready to receive them for instruction and enlightenment. 7 Even as education without religion was a danegr, so there was the danger in the Sunday School of endeavouring to teach religion without due regard to the intellectual. They were also, he said, losing their young people from the churches. This again was in great measure'due to lack of sympathy between old and young. There were some people who did not seem able to speak of a young people’s organisation without a sneer. Nothing alienated youth niore than bitterness and sarcasm. “Trust youth,’’■** he pleaded. “There has been too much repression. We must cut away some of the old methods.”