THE quickest way to kill a church is to institutionalize its ministry. Significantly, the church did not begin as an institution, nor was the ministry a profession. The original organization of the church was a response to its growth, and the complexity of its multi-faceted operation. Organization and the creation of levels of authority did not give birth to the church, rather the growth and the health of the church necessitated organization. The church at its healthiest stage has recognized this and refused to allow organization or its administration to become ends within themselves. But in moments of declension as during the Middle Ages and the post-Reformation period, the church retreated from its virulent mission-oriented policies and be came a giant hierarchy dedicated to self-nourishment. This danger always accompanies bigness, and unless it is actively resisted it will subtly and naturally become for the church a way of life.
The burden of this editorial is that the Seventh-day Adventist Church will maintain and strengthen the Biblically-inspired cycle of the subservience of the machine to man and of the man to God. The church cannot live as a missionless institution, and this is true of every segment of its operation. To illustrate: A church-operated hospital is not necessarily in good health because it balances its books and is self-supporting. Rather I suspect that on heaven's ledgers the amount of charity cases that a hospital handles and its attitude toward the poor who cannot pay is a better measuring stick. Add to this the degree of exposure of the patient to the knowledge of the saving grace of the Lord Jesus. These factors alone distinguish a church-operated institution from all others.
Similarly, a ministry or clergy who thinks it's safe now to turn inward and to simply maintain what we have and provide for the world a shining example of what it can be under the guidance of God has embraced only part of the mission of the church. Had the building of the church depended on this concept, we would hardly have gone to the ends of the earth with the message that we bear.
So the original command of our Lord and Founder was aggressive in nature: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15). This single command if obeyed would safeguard the church from becoming an institution, however splendid and moral, sitting as an island of righteousness on a sea of sin, affecting its environment only in the sense that it provides an example. The New Testament church was all of this and more.
It was an aggressive, Heaven-inspired, fighting force. The rider on the white horse of the Apocalypse is pictured as going forth "conquering, and to conquer." There is pictured here an emergence from behind the cloistered walls and stained-glass windows of the church as an institution to become a truly significant force in the community at all levels of human welfare. This does not envision the church as an instrument of political manipulation on the part of government nor of a church-dictating political policy to secular government; but it does envision the church operating in the community of man as a vital force in his spiritual, physical, and mental uplift.
The church does not believe in war, but it will send its sons to the battlefields where war is taking place to bind up the wounded and to comfort the troubled. The church does not believe in rioting, but it will send its members to the streets with relief for the hungry and healing for the wounded. The church is not a political organization, but it must, like Jesus, move in its own sphere for the relief of the oppressed. The church does not attack political governments, but it does attack the fruits of autocratic political orders. The church wars on ignorance, hunger, disease, and filth; but its primary rule in the world is the spiritual rebirth of every candidate for the kingdom of God, and the church considers every man a candidate.
In the development of its present leadership, the church then must give priority to conquest. Aggressive warfare must never be shunted into the background. Graduates of the university should be put with men of experience in evangelism and get their first taste of the gospel ministry in aggressive spiritual warfare. It is well-nigh fatal to the young man upon his emergence from the seminary to be introduced immediately to the institutional aspects of the church operation. This can put a mold on his concepts that will be difficult to erase, and he may die before he has truly lived.
The writer is aware of the many needs of the organization and of the necessity to fill pulpits that have been long vacant be cause of the shortage of ministerial talent, but he is also aware that the growth of the church and the extension of its lines of influence are still dependent primarily on the public preaching of the Word. Therefore, to maim the spearhead operation in the interest of conservation is not the solution, but we have seen a growing thing that may point the way to the future Pentecost predicted by the prophets; namely, ministers and departmental men are in increasing numbers devoting portions of their year to public evangelism or some form of personal witnessing. Just last year in the South Atlantic Conference the lay activities secretary ran a campaign in Charlotte, North Carolina, and baptized seventy-two believers. That was in addition to his multitudinous duties.
What this says is simple, and the message is clear: No church responsibility should be allowed to insulate a man against some form of personal witnessing. There is Biblical indication that the Lord God is waiting for just this spirit; namely, that every possessor of the truth become a personal communicator on some scale in some way at some time. Ellen G. White speaks of seeing large numbers of our congregation waiting for some compelling power to take hold of them. She states that they are wrong and that they must act and the promised blessing will come, the Spirit manifesting Himself through their earnest efforts to save the lost. So it is an aroused church that will attract the double portion of the Spirit of God in its midst, it is the Spirit-filled witness that will bring on persecution, it is persecution that will scatter the saints and hence the gospel through out the dark counties and parishes and unentered areas of the earth, and it is the completion of this work of ministry that will hasten the coming of our Lord.
The sequence just stated is vital to our understanding, for being a people of prophecy we are naturally a bit futuristic in our thinking, and prophecy has pegged the greatest manifestation of evangelistic activity as occurring during the little time of trouble. Inadvertently some have concluded that we must await this time period for this fuller manifestation. The suggestion of this writer is that we as leaders of the church must enter now upon this program of total witnessing, and program our members into the same. Thus we will bring on the "little time of trouble," during which time our people who are concentrated in large numbers in specific areas of the earth will be scattered to those neglected areas where they will shed the light that they have held so closely. It is this that will enlarge the concern of the enemies of truth and thus intensify the affliction of the saints, further spreading the gospel until the work is done.
The picture just drawn is not the work of a conservative, polished pulpiteer. It is not the work of a man who is so conscious of his image that he dare not disturb those who oppose his views. Binding rules and cautious methods will have no place in the final burst of Heaven-directed soul-saving effort. This is total effort, and even little children will be pressed into the spiritual fray. Their young voices will be lifted even in sensitive councils of the earth in praise of Jehovah and in support of His truth. The artificial barriers between pastors, counselors, administrators, and evangelists will crumble as did the walls of Jericho before the sledge-hammer blows of Jehovah. The question of who shall be the greatest in the kingdom will be totally consumed in the white heat of evangelistic fires. Waiting for "teams" and "specialists" will be relegated to the Laodicean age, where it belongs, as an aroused clergy and an aroused laity rise up to perform the commandment of their Lord.
