The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1932, Page 82

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82

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

Let Us Be Up and Doing!

The Christian Church here in the United States
is a stupendously large body. Its history reaches
back to the very beginnings; its influence is felt in
every community. It is calculated that the financial
investment of all Christian religious organizations
in this country is more than three billion dollars.
In one single year twenty-five of the largest Prot-
estant denominations spent $340,000,000 in carry-
ing on their home work and gave more than
$90,000,000 for benevolences. But in spite of these
great sums expended we still ask whether the
bearers of Christ’s name are doing all they should
do to carry out the Savior’s command to bring His
Gospel to all creatures.

Is the Church faithfully and zealously carrying
out her mission of winning souls to Christ? How
successful is the Church in bringing men and wo-
men into the fold of Christ, the Good Shepherd?

What Two Denominations Found.

One large Protestant Church, with a communi-
cant membership in excess of two millions and more
than nine thousand churches and ministers, recently
made a searching inquiry as to its efficiency as a
means of gaining followers for Christ. It made the
surprising discovery that three thousand of its nine
thousand congregations had not received a single
new member. Just think of it! Three thousand
congregations with not a single new member gained
for Christ in a whole year! Can we believe that
these three thousand churches were aware of their
primary purpose? Does it not seem as if the mis-
sionary spirit in these three thousand congregations
and their pastors must have been dead? Taken as
a whole, this same denomination won one new mem-
ber for every twenty-five old members. In other
words, it took twenty-five members a whole year to
add one new member to the membership of the
average church of this denomination. It is par-
ticularly noteworthy that the country churches with
resident pastors in this denomination were propor-
| tionately less effective than the larger city units,

_ though in the country personal contact on the part
_ of members with the unchurched is much more
os easily made and though rural resident pastors

ire of than their brother pastors in the city.
_ The religious census of 1926 reveals that another
denomination in our country, which was once

which pastor and members had labored a whole year
without having the pleasure of gaining one new
member. In this denomination it took twenty mem-
bers to gain one new recruit in a year’s time.

The two denominations here referred to include
no fewer than 25,000 congregations and more than
one-fourth the Protestant church-membership in
our country. And in view of the fact that we find
such deplorable lack of success in the gaining of new
recruits for the army of Christ in these bodies, we
may well ask whether we are not here facing a
situation which characterizes the Church as a whole.

Of course, there can be no question as to the
power of the Gospel of Jesus. The question is
whether the churches are applying the Gospel to the
hearts of the unchurched as they should. We say
that we are crusaders, soldiers of the Cross; but
are we? Jesus has called us to a crusade; are we
following His call? Are we manifesting a real pas-
sion for the souls of our fellow-men? Are we
zealously striving for the extension of Christ’s king-
dom on earth?

The Unchurched in the United States.

The number of unchurched in our country, as
given by Dr. G. L. Kieffer, the Lutheran statis-
tician, is 68,198,700, out of a total population of
122,775,046. Only 54,476,346 are connected with
some church. In the strong Lutheran States of Min-
nesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa half, or even less than
half, of the population is churched. With very few
exceptions our larger cities have more people out-
side of the church than in them. Apparently most
of those church-members who refuse to give for
Foreign Missions because, they say, we have heathen
enough in our own country are doing very little at
decreasing the number of our domestic heathen.

What is to be Done?

For one thing, we shall have to realize more
than we do what the Gospel has done for us. Per-
sonal work upon others will never come to its full
strength until the churched consider seriously what
the Gospel and what Christ means to them. There
has been too much thoughtless saying, “Lord, Lord,”
among church-members and not enough serious
thought as to what it should mean to us that Jesus.
is our Lord. Every one of us would be a more ag-
gressive home missionary if we had a lively con-

‘sciousness of what Jesus and His Gospel have meant

to us in our lives.. Then, we are sure, it could no.
longer be said that in one year our congregations
made an average gain of only six children and one-
adult. ;

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