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May, 1944
He does come in—“Behold, all things are become new” ! ' Whole Families for Christ I believe intensely in family evan- gelism. The farnily Is the oldest insti tution in the world, antedating gov ernment and the church. God has ordained that man and woman should marry and set up a household, and that within that household children should be brought up in Christian nurture. A Christian home Is every child’ s divine birthright. Even psychologists, who a few years ago ■said children should be reared impersonally and efficiently, now say that mo t h e r s should give their children an abun dance of affection- Cuddling Is as necessary to a baby as food. Grow ing children, too, need love. And love that endures, lqve that is Unselfish and beautiful, is that bom of the realiza tion that God Himself is the source of love, and that its supreme manifesta tion was the death of Christ on the cross. I look for the time when evangel ism will stress the coming of whole families to'the altar to make their con fession of Christ. The family is the true unit of society, not the individual. If the household becomes one of faith, how strong will the household be! I believe that if pastors would hold “ Christian Hofne Revivals’^ in which the conversion of whole families was stressed, the harvest would be astound ing. Any church on earth— no matter how cold and dead it is, what prob lems it faces, or what its difficulties are—can grow strong and fruitful If it will follow this pattern: Pastor and 4 few faithful Christian members band together without fanfare for daily prayer. If these individuals do not have the family altar, let each begin one. . Spiritual fervor will become con tagious. Opportunities will open up. The pastor can quietly visit his people, tell them the joys o f the Christian home, and invite them to have daily Bible study and prayer. There cam be a beautiful service of dedication of a home, with the minister committing the household to God in prayer and conducting the first family altar. From one home to another he may go, mak ing each a house of prayer. Eventual ly a strong, spiritual congregation will develop, and they - will form a church instead of a. social club, and the pastor will have the joy of being a shepherd instead of just a secretary. The future of any nation lies in the integrity of its homes. Here is the one sure way that the inner menace of America may be removed and its fu ture insured — through yieldedness, loyalty, and devoted service to Jesus Christ, the Saviour of men.
windows 'o f heaven are opened^ and blessings are showered down. You know the joy and thrill when yoUr son, brother, or sweetheart, long absent at the war front; comes in through the front door for a visit at home. I know it, too. When one of my boys comes back, the house is filled with joy and light. You know the de light of returning to the sanctuary of the fireside after, a long, hard day’s work, or a vacation away. You know the deep pleasure that is yours when some loved one whom you have not .seen for a long, long time, enters the portals of your home. That’s the eagerness, the expectancy, the gladness, the longing, and the hope we must feel when we invite our Lord and Master to be one with us in the family circle. He must be wel comed, or He will not come. But when
family altar. This Is something that must be done with tactfulness and ' patience. How to Begin Most people should first seèk out the old, familiar passages—-Psalm 23, Psalm 91, 1 Corinthians 13, the Ser mon on the Mount, the parables, and the accounts of the nativity, cruci fixion, resurrection, and ascension— and study these portions anew for a blessing. », You see, most of the pleasure-mad, careless adults o f today had at least a taste of Sunday-school when they were children. A renewal of the read ing of these best-known chapters will tie in with the childhood-memories, bring back happy thoughts of other days, and give the person a feeling o f c o n f i d e n c e , a sense of being on familiar ground. This sense of assurance and prog ress will make it easier to establish the habit of daily devotions, after which a family or an individual can take up unexplored portions of the Bible and begin to find brand new treasures as well as the old.; Then is time enough to pursue the life of Christ, the missionary journeys of Paul, or to go thoroughly into one of, the. G o s p e 1s, or to take up the prophecies. The habit of prayer will come, easily if there is no worry regarding it. Re member, many people feel music arid cannot express it; likewise, others want to pray but cannot vocalize their thoughts. The main thing is the desire to have fellowship with God through Christ. Children easily learn prayers which they may repeat; all can repeat the Lord’s Prayer. In the course of time, spontaneous prayer can be culti-, vated, and the altar thus made'com plete. The one compelling thing, though, is that great earnestness, attend the establishment of the family altar in the home. We must remember Jesus’, own words: “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteous ness: for they shall be filled”—which means that if we don't hunger and thirst, we never shall be filled. Anyone . who casually establishes Bible reading and prayer-t}ttering in his home, just as a form, and in the hope that it will work a miracle, is doomed to disappointment. There is no riaagic in mumbling words out of the Bible—I don’t care whether it is done in the pulpit or in the home; and there is no , efficacy in Just words addressed to an unknown Deity. People who establish family worship must literally hunger and thirst for fellowship with God. They must yearn to have Him as the Head of the house, the Unseen Guest at every meal, the Silent Listener to every conversation— at the wall motto has it—before the
People listen to this man McDermott speak. That is, some 425,000 of them, do, for he addresses that many sub scribers in his work as Religious Edi tor of the Chicago Daily News. Other thousands know him through articles on religion,- personalities, and com munity betterment, published in Col lier's, Liberty, Coronet, Good House keeping. He has had thirty contribu tions in Reader'« Digest, largest cir culation magazine in the world. Not afraid to speak of his faith in Christ, "I'm a foundationalist," he in sists; " 'other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ"' (1 Cor. 3:11-). General Secre tary of the Family Altar League, he Is also a member of the board of sev. eral other Christian organizations. In a recent letter to the Managing Editor of this magazine, he went on chattily like this: "I think we ought to preach the gospel wherever we get the chance. We ought to busy our selves with seed-sowing and leave the gathering-in to the Lord of the har vest. Too many churches today are busier with statistics than they are with souls." This is the man who writes about "Family Prayer—That Works I" Don't you want to go back and read again what he says?
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