The primary step in organizing the church for effective work in any line is to establish a spirit of unity, confidence, and co-operation, first among the members of the church board, and then throughout the entire membership of the church. A divided church means failure from the start. There must be not only unity of plans and purpose, but united prayer for the success of the effort. Only on such a platform of unity of prayer and purpose is it possible to create a "church spirit" which is so essential to best results.
The entire church membership is segregated into missionary bands, with an appointed leader for each band, who is expected to visit every member of his band as often as once a quarter. We find that the Sabbath school organization offers a good basis for the missionary band organization, wherever practical making the Sabbath school teacher the missionary band leader. Each Sabbath, during the fifteen-minute missionary service between the close of Sabbath school and the opening of the preaching service, the band leaders secure the missionary reports from the members of the bands.
The band leaders are furnished with blanks on which to record information of great value to the pastor, and as every member of the church is included in a band, and as each band leader visits every member in his band as often as requested, an accurate tabulation of the entire church is made available at the regular meeting of the band leaders each quarter. The information called for by the blanks is as follows: (See PDF)
In organizing for a special evangel istic campaign, I seek to enlist every member. Slips are passed around to everyone in the church, on which are to be written: (1) name, (2) address, (3) telephone number, (4) the days and the number of hours each day to be devoted to distributing announcements of the meetings. I then take a map of the city and cut it into sections, pasting each section on a card, and place these cards with the church members, according to the time and the amount of territory each agrees to cover, the understanding being that each home in the section is to be visited once each week. Calls are made for volunteers who will use their cars to assist the Bible workers in making visits, and also volunteers to join the choir and otherwise assist in the music.
We make sure that every church member has a definite work to do. Some cannot do more than visit the homes in their city block each week, but this all helps, and if the block lies within the section covered by another worker, the proper adjustment should be made for each. By following this method, we never fail to get all the help we need in announcing our meetings, and in continuous lines of follow-up effort.
Grand Rapids, Mich.
