The Church At Podunk Avenue And Wehunt Streets
"'The churches' should cooperate. Whether it is doing benevolent work or carrying out the world-wide project of the great commission, churches can and must cooperate together.
"Note how 'the churches' worked together in New Testament times:
"1. The Jerusalem church needed help. Paul gave apostolic orders `to the churches of Galatia' to make up a cooperative contribution to send to Jerusalem, and ordered Corinth to join in this cooperation. (1 Corinthians 16:1-3)
"2. Men were chosen by letters from the churches to handle the funds (1 Corinthians 16:3); these became 'the messengers of the churches, and the glory of Christ.' (2 Corinthians 8:23)
"3. The 'churches of Macedonia' also joined this cooperative enterprise, 'by the will of God.' (2 Corinthians 8:1-5)
"4. The church in Corinth pledged to the fund a year before, and Paul commanded, 'Perform the doing of it." (2 Corinthians 8:10,11)
"5. Titus and an unnamed brother were 'chosen of the churches,' and evidently by all the churches, 'to travel with us with this grace which is administered by us to the glory of the same Lord.' (2 Corinthians 8:18,19)
"6. The money was sent `by the churches' to the brethren in Jerusalem (1 Corinthians 16:3), evidently according to the pattern of an earlier action. (Acts 11:27-30)
Do Not Fear This Example
"Here — in this case of CONGREGATIONAL COOPERATIVE ACTION — more than one church chose a brother to go out among more than one other church, and promote a work which demanded raising funds from more than one church, which funds were sent FROM the elders of several churches TO another eldership." — (Logan Buchanan in Gospel Advocate.)
Now in view of this unanswerable (?) array of matter, the elders of the church at Podunk Avenue and Wehunt Street, propose a great work, to be carried out exactly according to the above arrangements:
The said elders propose to put into the field three hundred evangelists. (Who will dare say that is not a good work?) The said elders believe the laborer is worthy of his hire, too. The said elders consider themselves capable of selecting properly qualified evangelists. They also propose to pay said evangelists $100 per week. Who can doubt that a great work can be accomplished by this means? Besides, "the field is the world"; and the said elders of Podunk and Wehunt are capable of selecting the right field of labor for each of the said evangelists.
Of course, this great work is beyond the financial resource of the said elders. But, in view of the array of matter first presented above, we call on all the churches everywhere to come forth and "join the cooperative enterprise"; send us the money, please. It will require only $1,560,000, and surely that is a small matter for so many churches that are obsessed with "big" ideas!!!
Brethren, if you will show me what is wrong with the above proposed set-up, I will show you exactly what is wrong with another matter that is much in the public eye.