Our Relationship to God's Work

Presentation, Spring Council, Chicago, April, 1944.

By HENRY L. RUDY, President of the Canadian Union Conference

During this spring meeting of the General Conference Committee, two very significant statements have been made in relation to the building up of the work of God. The one has come from the president of the General Conference, in which he stressed the necessity of building up the financial resources of the denomi­nation, and of making provision for a possible slump in our income that should be anticipated when the present war inflation has terminated.

The second statement comes from the statistical secretary of the General Conference. It shows that 13,311 members were added to our churches in the United States and Canada in 1943. During this same year 6,135 members were dropped because of unfaithfulness or because their whereabouts were unknown. For each one hundred members entering the church in 1943, fifty-two members were lost because of apostasy and failure to keep contact with their churches.

There is a very close relationship between these two statements. The one emphasizes the need of building up denominational resources, and the other points out the lack of gain in souls which the church is stistaining in these prosperous times. Both these statements were timely and very much needed. As we look into the future, with its un­predictable possibility and needs, and note the great losses we are sustaining in members leaving the church, it becomes very evident that immediate steps must be taken toward the building up of the denomination's resources. Experience has shown that the greatest asset in times of financial crisis is a strong church membership. It logically fol­lows, then, that the surest way for us to meet the future is to strengthen and greatly increase our church membership. Unfortunately, we have failed to do this during these recent years of pros­perity, as the statistical report indicates.

Surely the time has come when the leaders of this denomination, from the General Conference down to the local church, must examine the situa­tion confronting them, and address themselves to applying the necessary remedy. A factual survey of our work reveals a number of reasons for our failure in evangelism. Let us notice some of them.

1. Financial Prosperity.—The peculiar condi­tions of this time, when money flows freely, ought to lead us to place our emphasis on greaer evan­gelism and the building up of our churches. But is this the case ? In the days when most of the con­ferences had to spring their budgeted income from year to year in order to provide adequate financial support for the ministry, the emphasis was very strongly on evangelism. Why are not our churches and ministers more careful about dropping mem­bers from the church ? Years ago. much personal work was done in behalf of discouraged and miss­ing members, but all too often today members are dropped with but little effort to reclaim them. "

Is it possible that financial prosperity is too much for our good? Are we interested only in in­creasing the church membership in order to as­sure a certain financial income to the conference ? The present trend in our work is sufficient reason to cause every worker in this denomination to ex­amine his own personal relationship to the work he or she is doing.

2. Machinery A Poor Substitute.—A second reason for our failure in building up a strong church membership appears to be in a denomina­tion-wide tendency to multiply costly machinery to replace personal evangelism. The idea of win­ fling souls by proxy has fastened itself so strongly upon us that we are in danger of losing the real power to win people. So many are satisfied with the mechanical equipment at their disposal as the only means for success in soul winning. They believe that the radio, Bible correspondence schools, picture rolls and films, and many other excellent helps are sufficient guaranty for success. These methods and means are good as far as they go, but they are a poor substitute for personal evangelism.

God has chosen the foolishness of preaching and personal witnessing as His means for making known salvation to others. He has not changed His plan, even though He does bless these modern means as far as it is possible for Him to do so. The personal messenger is still, and always will be, the primary factor in communicating the truth to others. Every worth-while program of evan­gelism is inspired by a deep burden for souls—not merely to build our membership, but for the sake of the lost men and women themselves.

3. Overdepartmentalization.-A third reason for our failure in evangelism is our tendency to­ward overdepartmentalization. God has given us right counsel regarding departments in His work. This counsel still stands, and to a certain extent we must maintain the departmental organization. There is no fault with that phase of our organiza­tion, but the mistake lies in overdepartmental­ization. We have added many departments to our work, and this is good, but have we developed the reasoning that the only way to solve a new problem is to create a new department ? Would it not be better to permit strong men to do an outstanding work somewhere, without feeling the necessity of calling them away from their soul-winning endeavor?

4. Too Many Councils and Conventions.-This introduces the fourth reason for our failures, namely, "councilitis." With all these new crea­tions added to the standard organization along these lines, it has come to pass that there is almost a continuous round of councils and conventions and committees. There have been periods up to six months in duration, in recent years, when it was utterly impossible for a local conference to plan work at home for its officers and departmental secretaries, because they were required to attend so many meetings outside the conference.

What was accomplished in some of these coun­cils? Well, the men had a get-together, and some­times little more was accomplished than working out a new kind of report blank to further bewilder the harassed church officer!

This matter of overburdening the churches has become serious. Some of our most talented mem­bers refuse to accept church offices because they are mortally afraid of all that will be thrust upon them in the way of collecting and sending on re­ports, etc. Whenever a new department, or branch of a department, is created, it means that new sec­retaries must be elected in the churches, in the local conferences, and in the unions. It means more reports, more conventions, etc., until we become involved in a continuous cycle of activity. Let us ask ourselves the question : Are we using time and means that could better be devoted to actual soul winning? And are we not thrusting our lead­ers into situations which require so much of their time and energies on committees and traveling that greater and more urgent problems cannot receive the proper consideration?

5. Frequency of Calls and Transfers.-There is one other disturbing factor which per­haps constitutes one of the major reasons for our failure in soul-winning success. During the last three or four years, since conferences have had larger financial incomes, there has developed a ruthlessness among the brethren in the matter of transferring workers, which has been far from helpful to many a young man in this work and has caused infinite losses in souls. Evangelists have often been disturbed in the midst of a successful effort. The financial loss incurred is but a minor item. Our greatest loss is in the disturbance of their work.

We rejoice that the recent Chicago spring meet­ing has taken some steps to prevent the irregular­ity of the method of calls. Already the wholesome effect of this action can be felt in the local fields. This is a trend in the right direction. There still remain other decided steps to be taken before we are in a position to build up the Lord's work commensurate with current needs.

What Is the Remedy?

How can we save the situation ? First of all, the hands of our denominational leaders and of our ministers should be freed of much of the de­tail and routine of the work. This would give them the needed freedom to devote their greatest strength and best talents to the work of soulsaving. There must come a reform in the attitude of our denominational leadership toward their own rela­tionship to the Lord's work. God's work is not done automatically. It is linked with personal leadership, and leaders must be free to give the needed direction to the work. Instead of having to spend the major portion of their time in stuffy trains and council rooms, our leaders should be permitted to spend the major portion of their time with their conference workers and churches.

The Holy Spirit is awaiting the opportunity to work through consecrated gospel ministers in be­half of lost mankind. But He cannot do such work when we are out of touch with the world that is to be saved. Our children and youth must be saved. We can save them by building and maintaining Christian schools for them. Our dis­couraged, tempted church members, who are los­ing their hold on the truth, must be saved. They can be saved if the ministers visit and labor with them, instead of spending their time in undue trav­eling and unnecessary gatherings. The interested people who have been reached by the radio, Bible lessons, literature, etc., are waiting for the per­sonal touch of the Lord's ministers.

Evangelism without and soulsaving within the church cannot be accomplished without the living preacher. The living preacher cannot do this per­sonal work when his strength and time are taken up with other less important matters. The time has come when either the souls of men or the me­chanical routine of the work must be sacrificed. Every true worker for God knows which one of the two is more important.

Someone has rightly said: "The reason for our past comparative lack of power and success is the fact that we have put ourselves, our plans, our organization, and our methods in the way of the Holy Spirit." Can it be that such a statement ap­plies to us as a denomination? As we change in our personal attitude toward God's work, He will give us grace to lay aside the less important ac­tivities and will help us to undertake the most im­portant of all our responsibilities-that of saving souls for the kingdom of heaven.

God's work must and will expand in these troublous times. Great resources will be available for the finishing of the divine task, and these re­sources will come as precious souls are added to the Lord's flock. The advent message has the same power it had in its inception. What is needed now is not merely talking about the message and encumbering its proclamation with nonessentials but preaching the Word earnestly and with vigor in full assurance that God will give an abundant reward.


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By HENRY L. RUDY, President of the Canadian Union Conference

August 1944

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