A major field for evangelistic labor is that which comprises the children and youth of Seventh-day Adventist parentage. For many years the need in this field has been the chief study in the councils of Missionary Volunteer Department workers.
In each division and conference in our organized work the situation, as concerns the conservation of our young people, is alarming. A religious statistical survey made in one of our union conferences in North America, reveals the fact that two fifths of the duce success may be noted and used young people between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, connected with Ministers who were used as helpers in Seventh-day Adventist homes, are not members of the church. From a division conference comes the report that paigns of their own. In the efforts 38 per cent of the young people of Seventh-day Adventist parentage in that division territory do not attend church services. A cross section of reasonably accurate religious statistics in North America covering Seventh-day Adventist young people from six to twenty-five years of age, indicates that only 41 per cent have been baptized. The same statistics show that the peak point in conversion is reached at fourteen years of age. In North America 2,851 young people were baptized in 1930, which is about four fifths of the usual number baptized each year.
There is urgent need for more intense soul-winning efforts to be put forth for young people especially; and there is perhaps no field of labor more productive of results in baptisms and in stabilizing Christian experience. The youth in their immaturity are the objects of Satan's constant attack; they are continually confronted with temptations of a nature which test the faith and courage of the most experienced Christian, and they will usually welcome any sympathetic interest and offer of help in their problems. Our youth need the constant support of parents and ministers.
Many times a young person passes through the eventful period of decision without being definitely and personally invited to accept Christ. He listens to the appeals to accept Christ which are made in the churches, but he may conclude that such appeals are for those who are older and more experienced than he. Instead of searching him out and making a personal appeal to him, it is often the case that parents and ministers, who should enter into his experience in a definite and helpful way, assume that "everything is all right" with the young man or woman who attends church and has heard the general call for consecration. But everything is not all right, and suddenly there is a turning to the world pn the part of the young people, causing sorrow and regret to the church.
How often our youth come up through the Sabbath school and the church school, and perhaps follow the right way until they are fifteen or sixteen years of age. At this period of life they are faced with the problems of doubt, and must often secure employment and find new associations outside the home. Unless, at such a time, there is a rich current of Christian faith flowing into their lives through the influence of home, church, and ministry, they will become bewildered and confused, and be very liable to drift out into the current of the world. It is vitally necessary for every Christian worker to have "a happy acquaintance" with the children and youth within the range of his influence.
It would be of decided advantage if ministers in general would arrange to hold regularly a short series of meetings, similar to the services held during the Week of Prayer In schools, with the definite object in view of bringing the young people to decide for Christ and become established in the message. These efforts should reach the youth in churches where there is no connection with our schools or institutions; for it is these young people who, because of lack of funds or for other reasons, fail to receive the guidance and encouragement of Christian teachers in their school life, and are in the greatest danger of drifting into the world. These young people in the home churches are greatly in need of spiritual help, and far too little effort is put forth in their behalf.
The result of definite evangelistic effort in the churches in behalf of the young people always shows a large fruitage in souls won in proportion to the expense involved. For example, the spring Week of Prayer, or Missionary Volunteer Week, as observed in the Ohio Conference, called for concerted effort on the part of the ministry, and as a result there were 189 young people enrolled in baptismal classes, 131 were baptized before the close of the the Southern New England Conference, and eighty young people made their decision and were baptized. In the North Dakota Conference seventy-five young people were converted. In each conference, in addition to those baptized, many other young people were reclaimed from a backslidden condition.
Of the conferences in North America, only thirty-nine reported the results of special effort for the young people during a designated Week of Prayer in 1930. Some conferences held such an effort in only one church, and in other conferences the special effort for young people was made in varying numbers of churches. But in the thirty-nine conferences reporting, there were 741 young people who joined baptismal classes.
In every church, at least once a year, a revival effort in behalf of the young people should be definitely planned for and conducted. The evangelism of our youth holds first place in importance in the onward movement of the church for the evangelization of the world.
Washington, D. C.
