Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 14
January 10, 1963
NUMBER 35, PAGE 11b

New Jersey Needs You

Bill Echols

Recently the Guardian has carried several fine articles stating the need for the gospel in various foreign and domestic places. I would again like to call attention to the needs in the state of New Jersey. All of the Northeastern part of our country is a needy field, and New Jersey is the greatest needy area in the Northeast, with the exception, perhaps, of New York City.

Of the thirty largest cities in the state, only five now have churches meeting in them. These five are Newark, Trenton, East Orange, Fair Lawn and Westfield. The remaining twenty-five have a combined population of 1,614,257, which is greater than the population of the following areas: Alaska, Arizona, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont and Wyoming. Each of these areas has several churches, while at the same time an area greater in population than any of them goes begging.

The population figure of these twenty-five Jersey cities is only slightly less than that of the states of Arkansas, Oregon or West Virginia. Brethren, can you imagine the zeal we could find if there were no churches of Christ in any of these states. Why, then, can we not find similar zeal for New Jersey?

I wish I could give names and addresses of several preachers who want to move here, but I cannot. I wish I could give the names of several congregations eager to support men in the Garden State, but, again, I cannot. I am in favor of sending men to every country of the world, to every state in the Union, to every village and hamlet in each of the fifty states, but the gospel is for the masses and we must go where the masses are. Few states in the Union are growing with the rapidity of New Jersey, but the Lord's church for lack of workers, is not growing with the state. Only a few states in the United States have a greater population than New Jersey, but we are passing by New Jersey. "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?" (Lam. 1:12)

How often the few have cried with Elijah, "I, even I only, am left." (1 Kings 19:14) Would that God would reveal seven thousand to us. Who will come? Who will send? Let me hear from you.

— 169 Main Street, East Orange, N. J.