The Call of the World Part 9

=1. Christ's Missionary Program Includes Study (John, iv. 35).=--If a man cannot be thoroughly loyal to Christ without active partic.i.p.ation in the spread of the gospel in the world, it is equally true that a man is disobedient to the missionary call of Christ who does not study missions. Information is essential to intercession and intercession is the greatest human missionary force. "Facts are the fuel with which missionary fervor is fired and fed."

=2. Missions Is the Greatest Living Issue.=--There is no question before the world to-day which involves such large forces, such mult.i.tudes of people and with such tremendous issues. There is nothing greater to which a man may relate his life.

=3. The Study of Missions Is the Only Possible Way to Keep in Touch with World Progress.=--In order to read the magazines and newspapers intelligently constant study of missions is necessary. Progress in our time is largely along Christian lines. The progress of the world is only another way of saying that Christ is increasingly possessing the world.

=4. Men Cannot Be Qualified for Leaders.h.i.+p Without Study.=--There never was such an urgent call for leaders or such unlimited opportunities for the investment of talents as in our day in this greatest of movements. Real leaders.h.i.+p is trained leaders.h.i.+p and training involves study.

=5. World Conquest Is the Biggest Business Proposition Before the Church.=--The enterprise has in it all the elements that go to make big business so fascinating to strong men. Here is an opportunity not only of displaying the business talents which men have, but to display them in an enterprise which brings the most satisfactory returns to men in the way of the enrichment of their own lives. The keenest sagacity of business men is sorely needed in all the councils of the Church to-day, and in no place is the need more urgent than in the service of world-wide missions.

=6. Investigation Will Suggest Definite and Practical Missionary Activities.=--It is not enough to be sentimentally interested in missions. That day has gone by. The calls of our time demand definite and practical plans and methods and there are no members of the church who are in a position to render larger service than the business men.

=7. It Furnishes Intellectual Outlook and Spiritual Uplook.=--One of the great drawbacks of modern business life is that the horizon is narrowed and life made provincial. There is but little in ordinary business to furnish spiritual stimulus. A church service one day in seven is not sufficient to cause the springs of spiritual power in a man's life to burst forth into activity. Here is a cause which brings the keenest intellectual and spiritual delight. The study of missions will give men a greatly enriched Bible because they will discover that it is the great missionary Book. This fact and the consequent intellectual and spiritual stimulus justify any amount of time spent in studying the program of Christ.

=Studying the Church.=--The Word, the World, and the Workman--these are both the sources of information and the objects for study. Not only must modern men study the world and the Word, but also the Church which is G.o.d's appointed instrument for achieving his world purposes.

One of the first problems confronting a man who desires to relate himself to the world program is the study of his own local church to see how he can make possible the relating of the whole church to the whole task in such a way as to release the full power of the whole const.i.tuency. This will necessitate careful study of the present missionary organization and life of the church to which each man belongs. He is now determined to become an efficiency expert in the matter of the world-wide propagation of Christianity. He will apply the same principles to this study that he applies to his daily business. In some cases it will be discovered that there is very little efficient organization, or if there are organizations, they will be found to be sadly lacking in a big and definite objective.

They have been content if they have done as well this year as they did last, or if their record compares favorably with the record of a neighboring church. In other words, their achievements have been measured by some standard which has seemed a possible goal at the time rather than by the great and final aim of getting the whole task of Christ accomplished.

It is also often true that the church is not organized to reach the entire community in which it lives. One of the first duties will therefore be to relate the church in a vital way to the entire community. The church is not a field but a force with which to work the field. The field is the community, the state, the world!

In some cases it will be necessary to create new machinery for this work. However, it is much wiser to use the existing organizations of the church if they can be made effective.

=The Missionary Committee.=--The one type of organization in the local church which has met with most general approval by Christian leaders is what is called "The Church Missionary Committee." Even where several distinct missionary organizations exist in the local church there is still urgent need for this committee for two very important reasons.

1. It unifies the missionary activities of the church. The most fruitful way of organizing the committee is to have representatives of all the existing missionary organizations upon it. The pastor should by all means be a member of this committee but ordinarily not the chairman. The committee should always be definitely appointed or at least confirmed by the official body of the congregation. By thus bringing together all the leaders of the various activities, a unified and well-articulated missionary program is made possible.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CHURCH MISSIONARY COMMITTEE

ITS FIELDS (INNER CIRCLE) ITS FUNCTIONS (OUTER CIRCLE)]

2. The missionary committee represents the entire congregation. In the past it has been true that only a fraction of the congregation has been enlisted in definite missionary activities. Only small groups have been organized for missionary service. The men especially have been unreached. Obviously the first move to make if the church is to meet its full missionary responsibility is to plan to enlist the whole const.i.tuency. This committee should have enough meetings to plan a comprehensive policy for the entire congregation, including all the lines of activity indicated in the missionary commands of Christ to which reference has been made, also to check up results. A meeting for the whole congregation should be held each year at which reports are made and plans projected for the succeeding season. The pamphlets on the Missionary Committee and its work listed at the end of this chapter are earnestly recommended to the thoughtful study of every man who desires to relate himself effectively to the problem of making a missionary church. The policy outlined by the committee, after a study of these pamphlets, should be adopted by the official body, presented to the whole congregation, and explained at a regular church service.

To make the preceding suggestions effective calls for a high type of ability and the conspicuous and continuous application of all those traits of character which have been developed in the business and professional men of the church.

II. UNWITHHOLDING CONSECRATION

Your money and your life! What greater gifts can a man bring? G.o.d cares more for men than for anything else in the world. It is life laid down for him which gives joy to the heart of the sacrificial Savior. But money represents life--nay, it is coined personality.

Millions of money beyond any previous gift will be needed before the world can be won. Here is the hardest personal battle for a mult.i.tude of men. After the personal battle is over others must be persuaded by the victor to share in the enterprise.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PLAN FOR THE ORGANIZATION AND WORK OF THE CHURCH MISSIONARY COMMITTEE]

As a result of experience in thousands of churches in all parts of the United States and Canada it has been demonstrated that the Every Member Canva.s.s is the most effective financial method now being employed by the churches. No program of finance in the local church is complete without an annual Every Member Canva.s.s.

The adoption of sound principles of stewards.h.i.+p, and life brought into deepening harmony with those principles is a part of the price of victory in this war. Such principles are essential to the development and enrichment of character and necessary if there is to be proper expression of character in doing the will of G.o.d.

There is hardly any outstanding question in the Church about which there is such confusion and therefore so nerveless an appeal as the subject of stewards.h.i.+p. It is a difficult question and an unpopular one. Inadequate thinking is very common and practise is even more inadequate than thinking both in pulpit and in pew.

The fact that little constructive attention is being given to this subject by the leaders of the Church was well ill.u.s.trated at one of the Silver Bay Conferences a few years ago. In a group of about seventy-five men, where the subject was under discussion, the leader of the conference asked how many of the men had ever read a book on Christian stewards.h.i.+p. Not more than one half of the men raised their hands. When asked how many had read a book on t.i.thing not more than one fifth responded in the affirmative. If such a representative group of picked leaders is uninformed or uninterested in so vital a matter, the rank and file of the Church must surely need their attention powerfully called to the subject.

The Bible gives a much larger place to the matter of giving than is generally supposed. Some one who claims to have counted the Scripture references says that giving is mentioned 1,565 times in the Bible. One of the significant things about the parables of Jesus is that thirteen of the twenty-nine have some reference to property.

A group of men recently worked out a statement of the principles of stewards.h.i.+p and the methods of applying these principles to life.

These principles are worthy of careful study and wide adoption. In May, 1912, they were adopted by the governing body of one of the denominations as the guiding principles and methods for that church.

=Principles of Stewards.h.i.+p.=--_G.o.d is the Giver and is the Absolute Owner of All things._--This invincible conviction lies at the base of all correct thinking about stewards.h.i.+p. To commit oneself to the inspiring idea that G.o.d is the owner of all things is to take all bitterness and drudgery out of stewards.h.i.+p. When a man realizes what kind of a G.o.d he has, that he purposes his best for every man and wants him to know how rich and powerful and loving his Father is, the practise of stewards.h.i.+p becomes one of the enriching joys of life. The base-line of all geographical measurements is the level of the sea; prairies or mountains or canyons are all measured from this same base-line. It is a unit of measure. Likewise the owners.h.i.+p of G.o.d is the base-line for all measurements of truth about property. Having laid down and accepted this fundamental proposition that G.o.d is the owner of all there follows another truth or corollary, namely,

_Under grace man is a steward, and the steward holds and administers that which he has as a sacred trust._ Life is a trust, not a possession. We are stewards of money, not creators. Receiving a trust and rendering an account are inseparable. Responsibility and accountability are twin brothers.

_G.o.d's owners.h.i.+p and man's stewards.h.i.+p are best evidenced by the systematic application of a portion of income to the advancement of the Kingdom._ Giving should be _regular_. All educational processes are made effective by continuous repet.i.tion. The needs of the work are also regular and therefore call for regular contributions. This application of a portion of income should be _stated_. It is a definite transaction with a real personal G.o.d. It involves amounts, totals and increments. It should be _wors.h.i.+pful_, remembering who he is to whom we bring the returns of our labor, and in order that there may be the largest blessing every offering should be an act of wors.h.i.+p. It should be _sacrificial_, bearing in mind that no fraction set aside can exhaust our responsibility or express the depth of true love for G.o.d.

_Biblical and extra-Biblical history point to the setting aside of the tenth of the income as a minimum, and indicate a divine sanction of the practise and the amount._ The tenth and _Beyond_ is the Bible rule! The Old Testament emphasis is on the _t.i.the_, the New Testament emphasis is on _The Beyond_. The Old Testament asks a tenth, the New Testament demands less but expects more. The one tenth tests our obedience, the nine tenths tests our consecration. The Old Testament principle is, "The t.i.the is the Lord's." The New Testament principle is, "He that forsaketh not all that he hath cannot be my disciple."

If the adoption of any principles of stewards.h.i.+p are to be adequate, every man must finally go the whole length as expressed in the words of Jesus just stated. The sooner this is done the better, but the full conception of stewards.h.i.+p breaks into life gradually with most men and a large majority begin by setting aside a small proportion of income.

The adoption of a regulative principle, even though inadequate at first, is a powerful spiritual force in a man's life. When the practise of systematic and proportionate giving is begun, the first important step is taken which often leads to complete devotion to G.o.d.

_There should be careful, intelligent, personal, and prayerful consideration of the uses to be made of the money thus regularly set aside. This will require study not only of the local situation, but also of the missionary and benevolent work of the Church._ This principle provides for a thorough-going educational process and is indispensable if the Church is to improve her great opportunity.

Individuals, churches, nations cannot come to the highest efficiency without recognizing and accepting their world responsibility.

_Consistent use of the balance of the income not set aside._ All the preceding principles are undermined if a man does not adopt this last principle as a safeguard. It pries down deep into men's lives and uncovers their secret motives. If men are to have an adequate program of stewards.h.i.+p, it must be adequate educationally, spiritually, and financially. It is believed that the six principles stated are adequate, in the sense just described, because:

1. These principles are taught in the Bible. They are a summary of the total message of the Scriptures on the subject and especially of the essence of the teachings of Jesus.

2. The testimony of history, both Scriptural and extra Biblical history, gives sanction to the principles stated and the amount set aside, always remembering that the New Testament emphasizes _The Beyond_.

3. These principles are accepted because of their effect on character.

No life can grow rich and strong without increasing giving. G.o.d is much more interested in the making of a man than he is in the making of money and the adoption of sound principles of stewards.h.i.+p is vital to Christian character.

4. The adoption of these principles by Christians generally would meet the practical needs of our time for the spread of Christianity throughout the world so far as money can ever meet the needs of mankind.

=Methods for the Application of These Principles to the Life of the Individual Christian.=--_The Actual or Constructive Separation of the Proportion of Income_ which complies with the foregoing principles.

This does four things:

1. It preserves the integrity of the proportion set aside and guards against the evil of only estimating what is due.

2. It is a concrete and vital expression of the principle. Mere mental a.s.sent to a principle without practical expression is deadly to the spiritual life.

3. It provides regularly for the regular needs of the Kingdom.

4. It is the best antidote to selfishness.

_A pledge in writing, in advance, of the amounts to be applied to the regular work of the Church (current expenses, missions, and benevolences)._ These pledges should ordinarily be considerably less than the whole amount to be devoted during the year.

_A weekly payment of the amount so subscribed, deposited as an act of wors.h.i.+p at a public service._

_Payments from time to time, out of the sums set aside, but not previously pledged, to special causes as may be desired._

_The plan of keeping a separate "Lord's Treasury" is recommended for those who cannot attend the services of the Church._

_Free-will or thank-offerings._

This method is a safety valve for those whose income is growing and who can easily afford to give large sums in addition to their regular offerings. G.o.d expects cash and consecration, gold and goodness, riches and righteousness to increase together.