Securing Christian leaders for tomorrow; a study in present porblems of recruiting for Christian life-service

Preface

A sense of need, springing up in many quarters, for restudying the whole problem of recruiting for Christian life-work, is responsible for this book. It is not the product of any one person’s thinking or experience. Behind it lies a series of conferences held by an informal group which included the representatives of many Christian organizations. These conferences, more than a score in number, covered a period of two years.

Grateful acknowledgment is due most of all to Fennell P. Turner, Secretary of the Foreign Missions Conference of North America and formerly General Secretary of the Student Christian Movement, who, as the chairman of this group, gave an unstinted measure of his time. Others who made especially important contributions by reporting on particular aspects of the subject were:

Miss Eliza Butler, Head of Johnson Hall, Columbia University; formerly executive of the Personnel Division, National Board of the Young Women’s

Christian Association.

Vii

Vill

PREFACE

Rev. William H. Crothers, Pastor of New Providence Presbyterian Church, Maryville, Tenn.; formerly Associate Secretary, Board of Christian Education of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A.

Dr. Robert L. Kelly, Executive Secretary, Council of Church Boards of Education; executive officer of the Association of American Colleges.

Rev. Paul Micou, Pastor, St. Luke’s Protestant Episcopal Church, Bethlehem, Pa.; formerly Secretary, Department of Religious Education, National Council of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

Miss Florence E. Quinlan, Executive Secretary, Council of Women for Home Missions.

Burton P. St. John, of the G. W. Carnrick Co., New York City; formerly Candidate Secretary, Student Volunteer Movement.

Rev. Wellington H. Tinker, Student Secretary, National Council of Young Men’s Christian Associations.

A still larger number, who contributed more informally to the body of common knowledge and experience, included the following:

Rev. Alfred Williams Anthony, formerly General Secretary, Home Missions Council.

Miss Leslie Blanchard, Secretary, Student Department, National Board of the Young Women’s Christian Associations.

Edward P. Gates, General Secretary, United Society of Christian Endeavor.

Rev. Walter Getty, Director, Young People’s Division, Committee of Publications, Presbyterian Church in the U. S.

PREFACE ix

Rev. Lewis B. Hillis, General Director, Department of Recruiting, Board of Christian Education, Presbyterian Church in U. S. A.

Raymond P. Kaighn, Secretary, Personnel Bureau, National Council of Young Men’s Christian Associations.

Rev. William E. Lampe, Secretary, United Missionary and Stewardship Committee, Reformed Church in the U. S.

Rev. C. M. McConnell, Life Work Committee, World

Service Agencies of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

President George L. Omwake, Ursinus College, Collegeville, Pa.

David R. Porter, Secretary, Student Department, National Council of Young Men’s Christian Associations.

Mrs. H. R. Steele, Secretary, Board of Missions, Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

President J. Ross Stevenson, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, N. J.

Rev. Harry T. Stock, Secretary, Student and Young People’s Department, Congregational Education Society.

Mrs. Jessie White Cook, formerly Secretary, Student Fellowship for Christian Life Service.

Robert P. Wilder, General Secretary, Student Volunteer Movement.

Miss Winnifred Wygal, National Student Secretary, National Board of the Young Women’s Christian Associations.

Rev. W. N. Wysham, Candidate Secretary, Board of Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A.

x PREFACE

At first it was expected that the results of the conferences would appear as a report of the entire group. It was found, however, that, in order to fuse the diverse materials into a unified and readable whole, it would be necessary to entrust them to a single editorial hand. More important, there were many phases of the question which needed additional study and which it did not seem possible to provide for in further meetings. Having served as secretary of the group, I was therefore allowed to exercise full freedom in the drafting of the final manuscript, and since under these conditions no one but myself could fairly be held responsible even for any part of it, the volume appears over my signature.

At the same time, the book represents, in general substance and conclusions, the results of extended group-discussion and interchange of experience. Whatever value it has is derived from this fact.

My special thanks are due to Miss Twila Lytton, Dean of Women at Lawrence College, who has made many helpful suggestions, and to Miss Aenid A. Sanborn, who has prepared the manuscript for the press.

SAMUEL McCrea Cavert, General Secretary, Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America.

Introduction

The first and oldest summons of Christianity was the call to Christian life-service given by our Lord to the young men by the lakeside of Galilee, “Come ye after me and I will make you fishers of men.” The last injunction of the same Lord to the same men and to the larger group which had become associated with them was likewise a commission to life-service, ‘“Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and unto the uttermost

parts of the earth.” It was not long before an even “more powerful man than any in this first company was added to the propulsive forces of Christianity, under a direct commission of Christ, ‘““Depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles.”

The nature of the call and commission may have altered with the years, but the fact of it and the increasing need of the commitment of human life to the task of Christianity in the world abide. They are as clear and urgent today as they ever were in all our communities both at home and abroad. In those direct and immediate forms of service most definitely involved in teaching and preaching the

Gospel, there is need of more good and capable men xi

Xii INTRODUCTION than ever before. And, in addition, innumerable ways of extending the knowledge and influence of Christianity, supplementing the traditional forms of teaching and preaching, have been opened in God’s providence, and vastly greater numbers of men and women are needed for these.

The idea that the call for direct lifetime Christian service is waning is a wholly mistaken idea. The types of such service are richer and more appealing than ever before, and even for the familiar types known in the Church in all generations the call is clearer and more pressing than ever.

The very errors which underlie any opposite view are evidence of the need of a new generation of Christian men and women who, with no false conceptions of hardship, will nevertheless recognize the opportunity and duty of so following and serving Christ that their work will be a constant summons to others to follow Him and to give Him His place of lordship in all of human life.

In a field of action so vital and critical as this, there exist many differing judgments as to methods and even as to ideals. There will be a diversity of emphasis on the so-called human and divine elements in the discernment and determination of duty. There will be supplementary and at times conflicting representations as to comparative needs and claims and values.. There will be some who will set the consideration of personality and its enrichment

INTRODUCTION Xill in the foreground and others who will set first the work needing to be done in which individuals must lose themselves, if they would be saved. Some will value and use the most urgent forms of influence and persuasion and others will fear such pressure. Our viewpoints and forms of action will be as various as the richness of human life itself and as the manifold need of the world-wide and age-long work which is to be done.

The essential thing is that the Church should realize its responsibility for conscious and deliberate effort to provide the recruits needed for what we think of as distinctively Christian service for the coming generation, and that it should see that this responsibility is to be disharged, as this study indicates, through the influence of Christian homes and pastors, of individual friendship and of the wisely organized action of the forces of the Church. Such effort will not weaken—on the other hand it will greatly strengthen—the true Christian conception of all life as a vocation and of every form of work and every action of life asa field for glorifying God and serving the world.

Rosert E. Speer.

«YG a4 wag v.-. ve . ee ne = a ae - ee os On aa