This has been a progressive year in our college ministerial training program. A fresh impetus is being given to intensifying the practical approach in training our young men. We are beginning to realize the danger of the minister's living in a world of idealism, and being so constantly with his books that his actual usefulness is impaired when dealing with concrete problems and the inner needs of the people. Idealism is vital and gives reach to one's work. Books fill the man to overflowing, but in no profession should the practical and the theoretical be more skillfully blended than in the ministry.
It was felt that a descriptive report from the colleges relative to sharing training plans would be most helpful and stimulating. We have in hand enthusiastic word from several overseas schools, as well as our North American institutions.
Enrico Bertalot writes from our French Adventist Seminary : "Our school is located in the country. The nearest little town is several miles from here, and the means of transport are still quite limited. Yet last year, with the help of our ministerial class, we held a series of meetings in a rather large hotel concert hall in the neighboring town of Annemasse. Some good results were obtained.
"This year facilities were given us to cross the Swiss border, and our young people were able to take a good part in the effort held in Geneva, Switzerland, eight kilometers from here. Our students collaborated by presenting choir programs and by distributing tracts, leaflets, and invitations. The main work was assumed by the local minister.
"In spite of, and maybe because of, our out-of-the-way location, canvassing work is still our chief means for giving our young men a practical demonstration of soul winning. We go out by turns once a week, and we visit practically all the Savoie region around."
N. C. BURNS, who is directly connected with the training program at Australasian Missionary College, Cooranbong, New South Wales, tells us: "Every Sabbath afternoon about fifty young people leave the college in a bus to engage in evangelistic work in the country towns and villages situated between the college and the city of Newcastle, twenty-five miles away. As far as is practicable we draw from the classes in homiletics and evangelism. At the present time these young people, divided into groups, are working in six centers.
"The work is for non-Adventists, and Sabbath schools are conducted for their children. While the children are being taught, their parents and neighbors are visited and invited to listen in to the Voice of Prophecy, and the Voice of Prophecy News is distributed. The third step is to enlist these people, whenever possible, in the Voice of Prophecy Correspondence Course, and the people are told that the papers are corrected by the Bible department of the college. At present I am correcting about fifty papers weekly. The response is most gratifying. People are beginning to keep the Sabbath, and homes are opening up for cottage meetings. As a matter of fact, I am overwhelmed with work and possible interests.
"Every Sabbath morning some students leave the college to conduct church services in the near-by churches. I furnish the conference office with the names of the prospective speakers, and these names are listed on the conference 'church plan' for the month.
"Now concerning the practical work in the class itself. We begin eaCh class period (and this meets daily for one hour) with a few minutes in breathing and voice training. This is followed with a ten-minute sermonet in the chapel by one member of the class. A roster for this is drawn up at the beginning of the term, when I distribute the text on which the talks are to be given. Each student has a critic sheet, and assesses the value of the talks as they are given."
A rather unusual opportunity has opened in the vicinity of Philippine Union College. They have thirty young men and women enrolled for their B.A. with a double major in religion and history, a course that will be recognized by the government. In addition to these there are a group of eight enrolled in a two-year Bible instructor's course.
J. W. ROWLAND explains: "The ministerial association in the college includes men and women from all departments, premeds, nurses, commercial and education, numbering seventy very energetic and earnest members.
"Now, as to their work around the college, there are thirty churches that the mission presidents have allocated to them. Every Sabbath eight to twelve of the older ones assist in these churches, either in the Sabbath school, home missionary service, or the regular service. The younger ones assist in singing, in interpreting, and in other ways. This group is getting valuable training as prospective workers.
"There is another group of ten to fifteen that each Sabbath visits the leprosarium, having one thousand inmates, located twenty miles from here. They go into the dormitories and invite the patients to the recreation hall for the service. There are some who are very much interested and are being given special studies. Five have definitely decided to follow the Lord, and we hope to baptize them in the near future.
"A third group goes to the main prison, where a good interest has been awakened. Two young men have held services each Sabbath during the school year. A group of from forty to sixty have been regular attendants. Some are keeping the Sabbath, and others are deeply interested. Besides, meetings are being held for a group of Japanese war prisoners. Dr. Nelson, who speaks. the Japanese language, has fostered this effort. It is a very solemn situation, for many of these Japanese face the death sentence. In view of this, the truth has made its appeal, and some have yielded to the voice of the Spirit and are asking for baptism."
T. K. LUDGATE writes from Helderberg College, South Africa. Although at present Helderberg College offers but three years in ministerial training, the practical activity is carried on widely with encouraging results. "We have an organization known as the preaching band, which provides opportunities for theological students to obtain experience in practical work. Every Sabbath afternoon several groups of students go out to near-by farms and down into Somerset West, where they conduct Sabbath schools and preaching services for colored people.
"Last year one group of students followed up an interest which they had created the previous year in Somerset West, and they were rewarded for their labors by the baptism of four colored people in November. This same group of students has now organized for a third year's work in the same locality, and they have good hopes of seeing the company of believers grow.
"We have recently covered Somerset West and the Strand with literature calculated to persuade people to take the Voice of Prophecy Bible Correspondence Course, which is under the direction of E. L. Cardey. Last year 367 names were secured by students, and we are confidently looking forward to the good news of many people taking their stand for the truth as a result of this work."
H. H. MATTISON writes from Spicer Missionary College located in Poona, India : "Our ministerial department here is a very live one, although it is probably conducted differently from that of any other college. Spicer Missionary College is unique in several respects. Especially is this true regarding language groups represented here. We have approximately twenty languages represented in our student body, and English is our only common medium of instruction and communication. Therefore, our student seminar constitutes the chief practice program for our students. We, therefore, endeavor to make the situation in our seminar as real as possible. Students participating carry on advertising and publicity among the student body to get them to attend their meetings.
"Aside from this we have definite plans laid to conduct village efforts in the near-by villages by use of illustrated sermons. These will be conducted in the Marathi language, and the Marathi students will have to do most of the work in these efforts."
In reporting the activities of our overseas schools, we need to keep in mind the fact that although human nature is the same everywhere and the message appeals when rightly presented, methods of training have to be adapted to the specific needs of the field. Brother Mattison concludes by saying, "THE MINISTRY is greatly appreciated by our students. We feel that it is practical even to workers in fields where conditions are vastly different from what they are in America."
We have been impressed with the practical emphasis on rural evangelism. STANLEY BULL, from the West Indian Training College, Jamaica, British West Indies, writes : "Our senior class this year has a membership of nine, and because the school year starts in January, we cannot yet report on anything that is well developed. Every Sabbath students visit nearby churches, and have delivered nearly forty sermons and cared for a good deal of church work in other phases. Our most encouraging feature is evangelistic work done in the district on Sundays, for we have several meetings held in booths or improvised meeting places. These bamboo structures are easily built, and provide a good opportunity for meeting the people. Just a couple of weeks ago I went over to one of these improvised meeting places, and found more than sixty gathered together. Of course, in connection with these meetings studies are given and cottage meetings are held. We are keeping in touch with a number of groups around, and watching keenly for developments of interest so as to link up with the leading of God."
Now we turn to our North American schools. Several of our colleges have attempted plans out of the usual order of things. C. E. WITTSCHIEBE, chairman of the Bible department at Southern Missionary College describes the activities of the field school of evangelism conceived by E. C. Banks and F. B. Jensen during the latter's chairmanship a year ago. The field school was conducted at Asheville, North Carolina, during the summer months. E. C. Banks led out in the meetings and taught the evangelism classes. Dr. Wayne McFarland gave instruction on medical evangelism, and H. A. Miller taught the principles of evangelistic music. Brother Wittschiebe gives his reaction and plans for the future:
"In experience gained for the student participants, in help given in the local church associated with the effort, in souls won, the venture was a great success. This summer we shall have another, this time in Montgomery, Alabama. Professor Miller, as before, will have charge of the music. He enjoys this opportunity to bring his music and the men he has trained right up to the evangelistic firing line.
"Our seminar bands are currently serving about twenty-five churches. This is a regular program the whole year round, and is under the direction of E. C. Banks.
"More than half the officers for the college church, the largest in the Southern Union, are students. Under the guidance of H. R. Beckner and L. Tobiassen they get real practical training in church activities and Sabbath school organization.
"This year we arranged a series of appointments in which outstanding experts in various departmental lines came here and conducted seminar workshops in their specialties. Our objective in this was to integrate the classroom work more actively and practically with the current needs of the field.
"We have added to our courses a class in radio broadcasting. The work done in this class is exclusively in the field of religion. At present there are twenty-seven students enrolled. We have a radio outlet every Sunday morning for which the students prepare the script."
ANOTHER one of our Southeastern colleges doing a splendid job of ministerial training is Oakwood College at Huntsville, Alabama. C. E. MOSELEY has associated with him a strong staff. He writes : "The ministerial students of the junior and senior years preach in the several community churches, both Adventist and non-Adventist, and conduct a model church on the campus in connection with the seminar. Until this year our senior students in evangelism were divided into evangelistic groups and ran six-week meetings under supervision. Beginning this April 17, we will conduct our first field school of evangelism, calling in a rather successful evangelist to guide in this activity for a period of three weeks or more. If this is successful, we shall plan for a similar school to be conducted annually under the direction of one or another of our more successful evangelists. We believe this plan will offer more genuine help than perhaps any other."
We had hoped to include all the reports in this one issue Of THE MINISTRY, which would approximate the closing days of our North American school year. However, we will need to carry over a large share of these reports into next month's MINISTRY. There is room to add but one more.
E. T. H. JEMISON, of Pacific Union College, closely associated with the practical theology division, reports on the relationship of the Shuler field school of evangelism in Oakland with the college training program: "We have a group of four junior and senior ministerial students who are working with Elder Shuler in his Oakland meetings during the spring-quarter. These men are living in Oakland, which is seventy-five miles from the college, and are having the advantage of working with a large group in a regular evangelistic series. Each of these men is taking several hours of college work along with what is being done in connection with the meetings. I spend part time with them in Oakland, teaching two classes for them.
"This year we have been doing something different in the line of field work for our ministerial students. It has been our attempt to have every ministerial student, from the freshmen to the seniors, engaged in some type of field activity in connection with our personal evangelism crusade. The crusade has enlisted the help of nearly five hundred of our college students. As far as possible a freshman or sophomore ministerial student has been placed in each car that has gone out, and he has been given the responsibility of gathering the names of interested persons from the other members of the group. These in turn are passed to the district pastors, who are largely our junior and senior ministerial students.
"It is the duty of the district pastor to go with the student who has been taking literature to the interested person, and try to discover the degree of interest, so that additional literature may be sent, questions answered, or Bible readings arranged. This is a lifelike situation, because it is the type of work that many of the men will be doing when they have their churches organized for service. The men are gaining valuable experience in personal work. Several are conducting Bible readings and cottage meetings with from one to three families in near-by towns.
"Both of these activities are departures from the regular line of field experience for ministerial students, but we are happy with what we are seeing as results."
