The number of men graduating from the ministerial departments of our colleges is increasing year by year, and this we should expect, for the cause of God must grow and demand more and more laborers for the field. In order to give some ministerial graduates an opportunity to demonstrate their ability as ministers and evangelists—as well as to prove to themselves that they are called of God to do the work of the church—the ministerial internship plan was developed.
This year almost a hundred young men will find their way into the ministry through this avenue. But there will be another hundred or more for whom there will be no possible ministerial internship arrangement. There is, however, a wonderful plan which Seventh-day Adventists have developed, and that is soul winning through colporteur evangelism. No better opportunity can come to a young man than that of sitting down with a man or woman, or family, in the privacy of a home, where they can quietly study the Word of God. A colporteur evangelist is a self-supporting missionary. He is doing the highest kind of evangelistic service. He is doing the work in the way Christ did a ; namely, through the individual, the one-man audience.
Scarcely any field of endeavor offers more benefits to a Seventh-day Adventist young man than does the colporteur-evangelistic work. Not only is he teaching the truth to the people in a most favorable environment—that of their homes—but be is earning his own way, and thus making it possible for the truth to reach many more individuals than through the paid ministry alone. We earnestly recommend this plan to ministerial graduates, and we hope a hundred or more young men may find their way into the hearts and homes of the people by this means.
The object, of course, is not to make money but to win souls. However, the Lord has promised that the man who goes forth to win souls will be supplied with his daily necessities. We are urging this plan as a means whereby many of our ministerial graduates may not only gain a field experience but be able to build up a credit in the Book and Bible House, so that at the end of a year or two they will be able to come to the Theological Seminary for a year or more of graduate study in the field of theology, and this on a self-supporting basis. The colporteur-scholarship idea has been extended to include the students of the Theological Seminary, and at a recent meeting of the General Conference Committee it was voted to apply the regular policy of colporteur-scholarship discounts to the benefit of Seminary students.
As it works out, the expenses for a single student (including room, board, tuition, fees, books, etc.) amount to $1,262.00 for a twelvemonth period. The contributing organizations (publishing house, Book and Bible House, conference, and Seminary) grant a discount of $270.00 on this scholarship. That discount subtracted from the total cost of $1,262.00 leaves $991.40, or the amount- of cash which the colporteur or worker selling books should turn into the local Book and Bible House in order to receive the scholarship premium. In other words, he will have to sell $1,982.80 worth of literature in order to have the $991.40 to return to the Book and Bible House. Of course, he will have to meet the other requirements of the scholarship plan; namely, four hundred hours of canvassing and the payment of all his personal expenses. This new plan is being written up in the Seminary bulletin, and also in the scholarship-plan leaflet sent out by the General Conference Publishing Department.
Thus, we are looking forward to having many young men come to the Seminary through the avenue of the colporteur field. It has been demonstrated again and again that the men who get the most good out of their graduate theological training are those who have spent from one to three years in practical field work before beginning their advanced study. Such practical field work is necessary in order to help the ministerial graduate to know and understand his own needs and points of weakness. He finds out exactly what he does not know but still must learn in order to do effective ministerial work. Having found this out, he comes to his graduate study with definite objectives and a keen desire to fill the gaps in his college training, and illuminate the dark spots in his undergraduate courses.
We are looking forward to the month of June, 1949, when some of the ministerial graduates will be assigned to the ministerial-internship plan, and when as many or more will find their way into the cause of God through this special colporteur-evangelistic plan of field work. Remember that the "super-scholarship plan" for Seminary students can well mean the solution to the problem of advanced graduate training for many more Seventh-day Adventist ministers than we have been able to reach in the past.
