The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1927, Page 69

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

69

In the city of Detroit, for example, there are
numerous new suburbs where thousands of young
couples are building small homes and where within
an incredibly short time Sunday-schools and flour-
ishing congregations have been organized. Only
a few months ago the writer rode for miles along
Grand River Ave. in Detroit and had vast stretches
of city blocks with neat homes pointed out to him
which were said to be less than three yeurs old.

A large number of the newcomers to our cities
are not church-members. These unchurched people
we should not simply surrender to other church-
bodies as their self-evident missionary material. It
is our privilege, yes, our duty to get as many as
possible into the Church of the pure confession.
The fact of it is that we have a stronger claim on
these unchurched people than the other deno-
minations, since we have the pure Gospel
and the unadultered Sacraments, and to us,
therefore, above all others, the commission is
given to gather these millions into the fold
of the Good Shepherd. Up to now we have
largely welcomed only those who came to us
“from without” of their own volition; but
there is more than this to be done if we
want to do our full duty to these unchurched
souls in our cities. We must enter upon an
aggressive program and reach out for them
in every direction. We must go out and
compel them to come in by the force of a
strong evangelical appeal. In every larger
city there are many unchurched families to
be found, some of whom could very probably
be gained if we showed an interest in their
religious welfare. Some years ago the writer, soon
after entering upon a new charge, had a conversa-
tion with a man whom he asked why he did not go to
church. The answer he received to his inquiry was,
“Nobody ever asked me before this to come to
church.” What an awful charge against us Chris-
tians lies in this simple statement!

A Special Challenge.

The general trend from country to town and
from town to the larger city has torn thousands of
young people away from the sacred ties and in-
fluences of home and church and placed them in
new surroundings, which are full of great moral
danger. Not infrequently the young Christian suf-
fers complete spiritual shipwreck because of the
change. It is the duty of the Church to do all it
can to neutralize these dangers and safeguard the
young Christian’s spiritual welfare in his new home.

These young strangers in our large cities were in
many instances earnest members of their home
church, and if prompt contact be brought about
with them upon their arrival in the city, the chances
for holding them faithful to our altars are very
good. The pastors of these young people should
feel it their sacred duty to do all they can to secure
this prompt contact by notifying the proper persons
of the fact that they have left their homes to make
their livelihood in the city. Such a notice will
secure a warm welcome for the young strangers and
assistance in securing proper rooms and quarters.
Among us the Walther League is doing a fine work
in taking care of these young strangers. It has
organized a systematic Travelers’ Welfare Work for
this purpose. Every one of its societies has a local

Lutheran Church at Bayside, Long Island, N. Y.

hospice secretary to help the stranger, and in a num-
ber of the great industrial centers it has established
Walther League hospices to offer our young people
the advantages of a Christian home. This conser-
vation work of the Walther League is a most valu-
able missionary service, and we should do all we can
to assist the League and encourage it in its blessed
work along these lines. Such encouragement and
assistance by the Church at large would result in
still more efficient work and in a further develop-
ment of its program.

A Serious Handicap.

A serious hindrance to efficient and successful
church-work in the large cities is the constant moy-
ing of the people from house to house and from
apartment to apartment. "The change in member-
ship is great even in our small towns, but it is im-
measurably greater in the large industrial centers.