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A Prophecy About Lay Preachers
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churches that in time will turn back what has been spent on them. In plenty of places that ought to have preaching no denomina tional board could figure out any such pos-_ sibility. Consequently they are neglected. Such places are rural neighborhoods in the older states, new towns and agricultural districts in recently settled regions of the West and settlements of foreigners in the outskirts of industrial cities. Hardly any thoughtful and observant Christian would be unable to name such a community- neighborhoods that nobody thinks of qs likely sites for churches but just places that even indifferent men will say “surely do need preaching of some kind or other to save th&n from turning clear heathen.” Now to meet that need there is just one way out for the churches, and that is to en courage lay preaching. The most optimistic conceivable notion on supply of the ministry and increase of- missionary funds can’t possibly calculate on ever meeting all this-necessity with or-^ dained preachers. And even if it were pos sible to count on a sufficient ministry, that would not be the best solution, for in many localities laymen can do the work better. To advocate lay preaching is not dispar aging the regular ministry of the church. It does not signify, any loss of faith in the' importance of the highest education and most rigorous training for that ministry. When a man settles down in a town to live there, counseling his neighbors about the supreme things of life, teaching them to think right of God and men, restraining them from their worst impulses and incit ing them to obey their best, he will have need of all the culture of soul which the very best specialist training for just that sort of work—and an unremitting self-edu cation afterward—can afford him.
TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND SER MONS. TWENTY THOUSAND OF THEM BY LAYMEN. That’s the record made every Sunday by the Wesleyan Methodist denomination of England. To Americans, used to thinking of preach ing as entirely the business of professional ordained ministers, such a tremendous over plus of lay effort in that particular line seems startling. But it is a safe prophecy that before Amer ican churches make themselves equal to the task of turning the nation to Christ, they must get along to1a point where lay preach ing will be a great deal more of a common place to them than it is now to the Wesley- ans of England. . That the force of ordained ministers available today is insufficient -for even the established pastorates of the various de nominations, is a familiar complaint. If posts already occupied are kept manned, not one of the denominations can muster enough ordained men-in addition to make a gen eral advance into the unoccupied places. This difficulty is rendered more difficult by the financial problem tangled up in it. A man “set apart” to the work of ministry must “live of the gospel.” Wherever he goes, a support must be provided for him. And that means there are many places where he can’t go, because there is no local support and. not enough mission money to supply the deficiency. Moreover it has always been felt, if not said, that home mission boards are respon sible to their denominations for a certain institutional economy in the use of the funds intrusted to them—that mission money should be spent on fields where there is reasonable probability of developing
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