Baptist young people at work ...

Table Of Contents

Chapter Page

Introduction 7

I. Why a Young People's Society ? 9

Introduction

The splendid advance in Sunday-school work these past few years has drawn off some of the enthusiasm formerly invested in the young people's society. But there are indications of a better understanding of the distinctive spheres of these two church organizations with a returning consideration of the young people's movement. It is felt that youth needs development in religious initiative. They ought to have a work which they feel is peculiarly their own. In many sections of the country they are making their society count for more than it has done for years, and are asking for practicable hints and helps. This little book is the response to that demand.

Workers among young people were surveyed with some care. Mr. Detweiler was asked to write the book because of his marked fitness in knowledge, sympathy, and powers of expression. As secretary of the Young People's Department of the Ohio Baptist Convention, he evinced a grasp of the theory

Introduction and practice of the young people's society, which he has admirably shown in these pages.

It is hoped this book will prove stimulating and suggestive to all Baptist pastors and to all Baptist young people. While some specific directions are given to workers of the Baptist Young People's Union, the author has also had in mind the Christian Endeavor Society and all other forms of organization.

William E. Chalmers, General Secretary B. Y. P. U. A.

Chapter I Why A Young People's Society?

The purpose of this chapter is to show that every church should have its young people organized into some group, whatever its name, that aims at definite spiritual culture and service. To say, as a pastor once admitted, " I have nothing for my young men to do but pass the hymn-books," is a confession of inefficiency. Surely we have no grander issue at stake than the conservation of the forces of Christian youth, the richest of our spiritual resources. It is in the ages between fourteen and twenty that the church receives most of her converts ; and in the latter part of the same period, when young people are looking upon life as a great dawn, the most heroic decisions are often made. Something corresponding to a young people's society is demanded by the needs of the young Christian, of the church, and of the world.

io Baptist Young People at Work

The Young Christian Needs:

i. Growth, which is the first business of the new life, and must be sustained by a regular use of the means of grace. When the evangelist and his meeting have come and gone, his critics who remain behind begin to count the converts that lose their hold and " slide back." Why this aftermath? It is not fair in most cases to say that either evangelists or converts were not in earnest. The trouble is that it was the church's business to care for these new-born souls in that crucial period that comes just after birth, and what was everybody's business became nobody's business. Some regular means must be deliberately provided for getting Christian youth individually into a habit of systematic Bible reading and prayer, and collectively into an atmosphere favorable for worship, fellowship, and distinctively Christian activity.

2. Expression. A recent speaker told how a family succeeded in killing a tree that cumbered its tiny city back yard. They could not cut it down, but they pulled off all its green. The tree answered by putting forth new foliage, but that too was pulled off. At last, as this procedure was kept up, nature succumbed, and the life that could not express itself outwardly perished. In the spiritual life the analogy is plain. As soon as I am a Christian I want to learn to express my Christianity. It is not meant that one should affect pious and stilted language, or talk, in evident bad taste, of his own secret walk

Why a Young People's Society? n with God. Because, in fact, it is so easy to do just this or else to be silent altogether, we need to practise expressing ourselves naturally and helpfully as Christians. This implies a meeting where we can worship, by prayer, praise, testimony, and otherwise. When we ask why the young people's movement grew from an enrolment of thirty-five in 1881 to almost a million in 189 1, we must attribute a large part of the increase to the fact that by this means thousands of young people found their tongues for Christ. But there are other ways of expressing the new life besides speaking. The businesslike committee meeting, the hearty handshake given to a stranger, punctual and cheerful attendance, thoughtful work in the study class — all are worshipful in spirit.

3. Fellowship, or Christian society. Individuals are not points in space, but circles overlapping each other. Three- fourths of what I am consists in what I am to others and what they are to me. Hence a soul is not entirely saved until it is in a safe place among other souls. Many of us see Christians " drop out " because, " I never could feel at home in that church." Young people need young people. Immense good has already been done on the part of young people's societies in improving their fine social mission. The demand for it is growing. The boy craves to be " in with the bunch." The girl talks about what " all the other girls are doing." The high-school class, the gang, the team, the fraternity, the social set, are all very real, and their hold on our young people will easily overpower the attractions of the church unless the church deliberately provides for a social life that is Christian.

4. Last but foremost, the young Christian needs service. The living things must work. " We study that we may serve " is the watchword of the Baptist Young People's Union, and Christian Endeavorers say, " For Christ and the Church." Some one has traced the origin of the young people's movement to the various clubs whose motto was :

Look up and not down; Look forward and not back; Look out and not in; and Lend a hand.

It is not enough to inculcate the generality of Christian service. We must learn to do by doing, and you must not despise us if we begin with simple and easy tasks, provided they are significant and worth while. Is it not the danger of " the average church-member " that he sits still and watches the minister and choir conduct a " service"? Does he not chronically need Professor James' "moral equivalent of war"? If so, when will you teach him to fight? Surely not when he is past forty, but while he is beginning to be a church-member. The Bible school does a great deal in educating us for the war; with modern methods and improved equipment, the children of Ephraim are armed and carrying bows as never before. But

IV hy a Young People's Society? 13

surely no one will accuse us of disloyalty to the Bible school if we point out that the great majority of schools are in no position to go beyond the activity of teaching and learning to the place of definite doing. " Must' there not come a time when the years of training find application in service, when the church has a right to say to the school : You have had this life in preparation for years; it ought to be ready for toil by this time ? " In these words Dr. Henry F. Cope points out that the school must lead on to a service that shall go beyond its own routines. Would it not be appropriate here to suggest a close relation between the school and some organization that shall give largest possible place to definite and active service? Such an organization we conceive the Baptist Young People's Union to be. The worship session of the church is inspirational; it puts the powder in the gun. The Bible school is educational, loading the gun with its bullet. There is needed an activity mainly practical, to aim the gun at its target and pull the trigger.

The Church Needs:

1. To develop efficient members. In a certain church in the middle West that stands easily among the first six Baptist churches of its State, a member arose in prayer meeting and called attention to the fact that thirty years before there had been a young people's association, which he believed was responsible for the greater part of the spiritual vigor of the membership. It was found that the old records showed over and over again the names of those who are the pillars of the church to-day. Their activity is especially evident in the prayer meeting. This is only one example of the influence the young people's organizations have been exerting in hundreds of churches. Another evidence of their influence in developing workers is seen in the increased efficiency of the Bible school, since the young people of a few years ago, trained in their societies, threw their energies into the newer movement of the organized Bible class.

In considering this whole matter recently, a ministers' meeting sustained the contention that it is still the young people of the societies who are at work in the classes. These young people are not content with the Bible school, advanced as it is, but have felt compelled, after the temporary experiment of taking a vacation from young people's work, to resume and push both lines of effort. Again, from the view-point of the local church nothing is more important than the matter of raising up ministers. The writer has been in the position to observe a good many young students for the ministry and know their history, and it is surprising how many of them attribute to the young people's society a very large part in enlisting them in their life-work. Finally, the Baptist Young People's Union and the Endeavor Society do a great work that cannot be more clearly defined than by saying that they help

Why a Young People's Society ? 15

church-members to get into the life and work of the church ; in other words, to be assimilated. When the report goes out " a hundred additions," why does it not occur to some one to ask, " How many assimilations, and how much dead matter ? " There's many a slip 'twixt the baptistery and the firing-line. 2. The church must keep young. It is said that the hymn beginning

Jesus ! and shall it ever be

A mortal man ashamed of thee?

was written by a boy of thirteen. Many of the apostles were young men; Saul of Tarsus is an example of youth swept by a great enthusiasm. To-day men say that the church is old and ultraconservative. Much of this criticism is unfounded, and yet it is dangerous for any church to keep the positions of responsibility filled entirely by the older class. Some congregations are known as " old people's churches." Just as the family loses when it fails to understand that John is leaving boyhood and becoming a man, so a church loses irreparably if it does not keep the loyalty of its young manhood and womanhood. And this it can do only by providing them a definite and recognized place.

The World Needs:

1. Soul-winners. And the young must be won by the young. " For God's sake, give me the other end of the plank ! " shouted a man who was sinking in the ice-cold river. A man on shore, alarmed and confused, had tried to save him by pushing out a heavy plank, but the end which was offered to the drowning man was coated with smooth ice. There are millions of unsaved young people. Give them the good end of the plank — not the routine service inside a church, but the personal friendship and Christian testimony of a young Christian. In every quarter appear evidences of this wide field that stretches out before the organized young people. Consider them just as an element of attractiveness in the church-building. Who has not seen the shy groups that cautiously peer through the door on Sunday evenings as though to reconnoiter an enemy's ground ? " Nobody inside but a few old ladies," and out they stay. But suppose a young man or woman watching at the entrance with a friendly greeting, and a bright room beyond with a meeting all of young folks, who will soon go together into the preaching service, and it is easy to predict what the visitors will do.

2. The world needs a modern heroism in the cause of humanity. Many are the causes calling for volunteers. Go over the names of the missionary heroes, and almost all of them made the decision to go to the heathen before they were thirty, perhaps the majority of them long before. Judson and his bride, William Carey, Henry Martyn, and Livingstone went out young. We need an agency to develop missionary zeal. Ask the student volun-

Why a Young People s Society? ij

teers and our mission boards what proportion of applicants have been developed largely through the young people's society. But we need not go abroad to find the call for heroism. Our bad social conditions at home, our crusades for civic reform, the temperance cause, poor relief, and all the countless opportunities for personal and collective consecration abound on every hand. And they who best provide some way of enlisting our young people to follow their Christ in campaigns that count are doing an incalculable good to the world.

Once, in the dusk, a passenger looked out from the windows of a trolley car and saw the locomotive of a freight drawing alongside. As the engine began to pass on ahead the fire-door was thrown open and a transfiguring glory swept up over the smoke, making it a pillar of fire by night. Poised on the plate between tender and engine stood the young fireman all aglow, proudly waving his greeting. A vision symbol of young America! Before it the furnaces of power that it kindles while the staid old engineers hold the throttle, and behind it loads of help for needy men. Young America indeed is filling up our factories, filling the ranks of army and navy, and standing in the little red schoolhouse to teach a still newer generation. Young America tends the big fires that drive the wheels of our civilization. Is there not a call here for us? Is there not enough to make us rise in the strength of God and cry, " Young America for Christ " ?

B

Chapter II

A Baptist young people's society, then, is a department of a Baptist church through which the church provides for the spiritual growth of its young people, develops them into efficient church-members, and enlists them in service for the world.

The word " department " is fundamental throughout. Again and again the question must be answered, What is the relation of the society to the church? We say that the society is a department of the local church in order to emphasize the demand for mutual loyalty on the part of the young people and the general workers. The use of the word " department " is illustrated very well for us by its meaning in business, (i) The department is thought of as another means of enlarging the whole business. (2) The general management equips, fosters, and owns the department.

The Young People Loyal to Their Own Church

The department does not exist for itself; it must pay its own running cost and make money for the firm besides. Far from weakening any other service of the church, a young people's union or Christian 18

Endeavor society must justify its existence by adding to the membership, spiritual life, and readiness for service of the whole congregation. Did you hear that evil whisper : " Now we young folks will be by ourselves, with no one to interfere, and we will have our own way entirely " ? In an army they sometimes call that mutiny. No young Christian, however enthusiastic for the society, can long be satisfied with a meeting that hinders any part of the general work of his church, nor will he walk unblushingly away from the building at the time of the preaching service. As young people, we respond gladly to the demand for loyalty to the athletic team, the college, the family, and no less gladly and proudly do we respond to the same demand coming from our church. All we need is the right relation emphasized at the foundation of our work; for we would be the last to deny ourselves the thrill and inspiration that come to those who, loyal to local needs, work to build up their own church as a part of that larger, world-dominating institution against which the gates of hell shall not prevail.

The Church Loyal to Its Young People

The general work must acknowledge the department, equipping it, fostering it, advertising it — in short, owning it. We want our church to say, " our society," " our young people," not " their society," or " the young people, they." A child learning to walk

2o Baptist Young People at Work

needs assistance far more than criticism. Leading a meeting is hard for anybody; some deacons make poor work of it, and the young people generally do better if not always so well. But why point out the failure, if there is failure? None of us would like to be in the shoes of the good church officers who took it upon them to tell Dwight Moody, the newly converted lad, not to speak in meeting because he did it so poorly. The older people can do a great deal to strengthen these younger ones. In the meetings, when present, they can refrain from long harangues, explanations, or prayers; they can avoid coming in with no little confusion during the precious last quarter-hour. They can give suggestions to leaders and devotional committees, and tell the young people all the encouraging things possible.

Steps to Promote Loyalty

1. Explain on the occasion of organizing and often afterward that the young people are a department of the church. The wise pastor will do this. The officers of the society ought not to neglect it.

2. Let the idea be kneaded into the organization itself. When it is first proposed to start a society, the suggestion may come from the advisory board of the church to the congregation for action. When the young people's society elects officers, let the congregation ratify. The pastor will be a member of every nominating committee. The president of the society is sometimes made a member of the church advisory board. At the annual meeting of the church the young people should present a good report and, if practicable, display an exhibit, this to include a directory of officers and committees, appropriate literature, a few statistics, and photographs of any significant scenes. Hang on the wall the motto, " For Christ and the Church." Finally, as part of the annual schedule, let the church set apart a Sunday evening to the young people's work, with an appropriate sermon and a special installation service for the new officers. Such a service can be made attractive to the whole congregation, and will certainly add dignity to the society. Appropriate responsive readings may be made up from 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, and similar passages. In these exercises the officers of the society, the pastor, and the whole people pledge themselves anew to the unseen Commander-in-chief and the ideals of his kingdom.

3. Like two horses in one team, let the Bible school and the young people's union be hitched side by side to the church chariot. If Bill and Fan keep step the farmer gets his load of corn to the market more quickly and with greater good nature. Let us have occasional conferences and luncheons for the two sets of officers. In a body as representative as the Convention of Ontario and Quebec a count that was taken showed an unexpectedly large proportion of people who were workers in both organizations — the Bible school and the Union. The same thing is true on the local field. The union should adjust its work to the needs of the younger " adult " classes and the teachers should cooperate throughout.

4. The society must be given some definite work to do in building up its own church. Many churches find that the young people are the forward force. One evening in a young people's meeting some one spoke about the emptiness of the front pews in the preaching service that always followed that meeting. Another said : " How many young people here will join a Front-seat Brigade, to fill up those first pews every Sunday evening ? " The response was good ; thirty or more stood up to promise their help, and the pews were filled. Sometimes the young people print a weekly or monthly church bulletin. Often they assist the pastor in calling, and are quite efficient in a neighborhood canvass for the Bible school or evangelistic meetings. In one church the pastor gave them his weekly prayer meeting once a month.

A Department of the Denomination

By means of loyalty to our local church we come into line with our great denomination. Northern Baptists are just awakening to the spirit of denominational unity and life, and we all want a part in the new forward movement. Every society should know something about the Northern Baptist Convention, especially considered as a sort of holding company for the organizations following :

1. The American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, with seven hundred and twenty-two missionaries, who reported last year over nine thousand additions to the mission churches in Burma, Assam, South India and Bengal, South, East, West, and Central China, the Congo, ( the Philippines, and Japan.

2. The American Baptist Home Mission Society, which organized last year one hundred and seventeen churches and carries on work in the great West, among the Indians, among the Southern Negroes, and in Mexico and the West Indies.

3. The American Baptist Publication Society, which provides us all the literature needed by Baptists, such, for instance, as our Bible school helps and " Service," besides carrying on a missionary work through chapel cars and colportage wagons, and an educational work through its many Bible school and young people's society experts.

4. The Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society and the Woman's Baptist Foreign Missionary Society are also affiliated. The names of these organizations suggest the character of the great work they are doing.

The Northern Baptist Convention has under its authority many lines of endeavor. Baptist young people will desire to keep themselves informed concerning all these.

The apportionment suggested to each local church is just the amount that seems, on the lowest possible estimate, to be that church's share in the general expense of this extension of Christ's kingdom. Therefore each young people's union that helps raise the apportionment of its own church is moving the wheels of vast agencies whose powers of blessing reach round the world.

A Picture

The inefficient young people's union is one that begins at the center of itself and goes round and round in a labyrinth, never getting outside, like this :

The efficient union has straight roads wide open from its own center to widening circumferences,

like this:

The Pastor's Relation to the Young People

As a department of the church, finally, the young people are a strategic part of the pastor's work. Many a pastor counts his ministry to his own young people as the most enjoyable part of all. The pastor is the pivot about which the success of the young people swings.

1. At the very first, when a young people's organization is being only thought of, the pastor should " get in on the ground floor." It is painful to come at last to the realization that it is too late for him to modify, Or to call his own, an idea that is taking hold of the minds of his people. Generally it will be easy and natural for them to come to him with all their ideas. It is better for him to be the first to suggest an organization. Some pastors have been at fault here. The traditional picture of the boy Haydn taking refuge at night in the garret for the sake of playing the instrument a wise parent might of his own accord have furnished him, is a parable of the furtive way some young people must reach out after greater things without the cordial help of their own pastor.

2. Doctor Pattison, in his book " For the Work of the Ministry," advises the pastor to keep his hand on the rudder-ropes. He can do this by acting ex officio on all committees. He cannot attend all of them every time, but once a year he can be in each of them, and often in the Executive Committee. One pastor enjoyed inviting the officers of the society to his home one evening a month. A pastor should have a definite educational policy to suggest' to the Educational Committee, and bring hints for the Devotional Committee to act upon.

3. In the weekly meeting the pastor should not always speak; and, if he must speak, should be brief — let us say it over again, all together — brief. He must not let the leader always ask him to pray, thereby preventing some young person who cannot pray well to have the needful practice in that art. Sometimes the pastor is called upon to lead one of the meetings. Then comes his chance to lift things out of the rut by showing other prospective leaders ways that are different.

4. The pastor's key to success in developing efficient young people, and, as a consequence, efficient church-members, is his ability to suggest definite tasks in Christian work that young people will enjoy because worth while. Leadership is largely ability to suggest. These tasks may be enterprises for " boosting " the church, community service, personal soul-winning, or occasional assistance in any of a hundred ways. Many societies are not doing more for the churches to which they belong because the pastor's work among them is largely " inspirational," and not wisely practical. Sermons on consecration vanish away like the morning dew when they cannot be followed by an appeal for help in some immediate need. " Training for service " must not be swamped by too much talking in meeting, or even by an excess of " study." No one stands in a position comparable to the pastor's in opportunity for insight into the needs of his neighborhood and church, on the one hand, and into the availability of his individual young members on the other. Let him keep his people active.

Chapter III

Generally the young people in a Baptist church will organize under the form of a Baptist young people's union. This brings it at once into touch, although in no sectarian spirit, with the great denominational cause, and gives the advantage of carrying out in some detail the plans best fitted for the development of young Baptists. It is not impossible by any means for a society of Christian Endeavor to take many features, such as the Christian Culture Courses, from the Baptist Young People's Union, and this is what many of them are doing. In describing the process of organization, however, we will here confine ourselves to that of the Baptist Young People's Union, for the reason that the plan of procedure will be very much the same in both cases.

Plan of Procedure:

i. There must first be some one in the church who really wants the organization. If there is, let him remember that one coal is enough to start any fire, if only it be a live one. This one person should be the pastor; but in case it is some one else, his first 28 duty will be to win the pastor to the idea, and any others, one by one, who may catch the fire.

2. When there seems to be a good opportunity, let there be a dozen or more of the most promising and most representative young church-members invited personally to spend an evening together in some home — preferably, of course, the parsonage — for preliminary consideration of a Baptist young people's union. Care must be taken not to slight any one who is interested enough to care for an invitation to such a gathering. At this meeting there should be enough copies of the model constitution, the magazine " Service," and other literature, to go round. First, have a social time, and then a few words from the pastor in explanation of the purpose of the meeting and the details of the proposed work. All should be urged to ask questions and to be free in expressing opinions. If, after a season of prayer, it seems to be their judgment to go ahead, let plans be made for a public meeting to be held shortly. Let some one present be asked to bring the matter to the consideration of the advisory board of the church, and two or three others, with the pastor to help them, to go over the constitution in detail so as to suggest any adjustments that may be necessary to local conditions. Before going home that evening let all covenant to pray daily for the new enterprise and to talk it up.

3. Next will come the public meeting for organization. This may be prepared for by a special sermon on the Sunday previous. Announcements will be made of a meeting, at which all young people who are interested in a larger service of their Lord may come together to form a Baptist young people's union. Besides giving due notice to the congregation, there should be special emphasis on the matter before those classes in the Bible school that are able to furnish members for the new organization. When the meeting assembles let the pastor open by suggesting a hymn and prayer, and then call for the selection of a temporary chairman and clerk, after which the following order may be observed :