Can Churches Cooperate?
Once upon a time the Christian Standard, which led the fight for the missionary society and is now alarmed at the power which it has assumed, discovered the "living-link" method of missionary work. The plan was simply this: Let one church support one missionary. The church will be intensely interested and will keep in close touch with the worker. The missionary will know exactly who is supporting him, and will report directly to that church. There will be a living link between the church and the man on the job. They would go on with the missionary society, but wherever possible this plan would also be inaugurated. This was the best plan I have ever heard of — in truth, it is the divine plan. But cannot churches cooperate in supporting a missionary, where they are not able to support one individually? In so far as I know, yes; but I do not recommend it. It is only fair, I presume, that reasons should be advanced for not advocating a plan which is to all appearances scripturally admissible. Here they are:
1. The best plan by all odds is for each congregation to plan its own work and work its own plan. Every congregation is equally equipped with divine wisdom, incentive, and opportunity. This plan generates more genuine interest, thus guaranteeing that the work will be carried through to a successful culmination. The cooperative plan has to have somebody to keep it going. It creates jobs, overhead machinery. The local congregation already has somebody to keep its own program going. But not only does the real interest generated by the divine plan insure the permanency of the work; it reflects greater blessedness on the congregation doing the work. To subscribe grudgingly to a cut-and-dried plan does little permanent good outwardly and reflects no good at all upon the one subscribing. If a good plan interferes with the best plan, that which is good becomes the enemy of the best. The human plan interferes with the divine plan being followed. When a congregation begins subscribing to cut-and-dried plans, it does not initiate its own work; hence, that which is indifferently good becomes the mortal enemy of that which is best.
2. The above is predicated in part upon the second reason why I do not advocate cooperation among churches --that is, it is not necessary. The churches can choose between planning their own work or subscribing to cooperative schemes. If it were impossible for a church to choose the best, it would not be blamed for choosing the second best, provided the second best were permissible, and the good would not be the enemy of the best. A church that is not able to support a missionary for full time in the foreign field is just not able. No individual (nor church is expected to do that which it cannot do. But that does not mean that every church cannot plan a good work that it can do. And all gospel work is as much missionary as any gospel work. Let the church do what it can do. A missionary cannot go to the foreign field for half time, but one can go to the local field for half time or less. 'What would he do the rest of his time?" you ask. Just what he would have done all of his time, if you had not supported him for a part of his time. What does a preacher do the other eleven and a half months when you employ him for a two weeks' meeting?
After all, the best place on earth for the local congregation to do its work is at the closest opportunity to it. That is in keeping with the divine plan which the apostles followed: Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. Against that plan there is not an intimation in reason, nature, nor revelation. All the parables which bear upon the method of growth of the kingdom conform to it. The one seeming exception is the Macedonian call which Paul received. The Lord was directing. He has not taken us into his confidence and explained why he led Paul by missionary fields, where Paul later did labor, to Macedonia. If we do not know why this exception was made, how can it be of any practical value to us in determining our policy? Certainly it would not be intelligent to follow the exception instead of the rule.
If we were to guess, the only reasonable supposition would be that the Lord in his wisdom knew that there was a greater opportunity in Macedonia at that time. Very well, let us take advantage of the ripest opportunity first. But we cannot follow divine wisdom where that wisdom has not been revealed; and if we follow our own judgment, I feel sure that we will work closer to home first. It is less expensive, more effective, easier to check — in short, it is the sane, sensible, natural order. The clue the churches need today is contained in the examples of such churches as Holdenville, Okla.; Wewoka, Okla.; Paris, Texas; and scores of others, to evangelize the communities around them. This method, followed to its logical conclusion, will evangelize the world far more quickly and effectively than all the artificial cooperative plans ever concocted in the brain of man, from our own self-appointed one-man missionary societies to the largest missionary machines in existence. If a church is able, and many of them are, let them send a missionary anywhere on the face of the earth they want to send him. That is their privilege. And if every church that was able to do so did send a missionary, there would be more missionaries in the field than are being supported now by the piecemeal, dribbling, cooperative plan we are following.
3. Cooperation of independent churches has been the first step in every digression, from the Roman apostasy to the United Christian Missionary Society of the Christian Church. It was experimentation in cooperative efforts that led to our present situation, where we have all the evils and none of the safeguards of a missionary society. Nobody is particularly to blame. The one-man missionary society is a development. It is the logical fruit of cooperative efforts. It is only humanly natural that a movement of that kind grows beyond the bounds of the intention of those who start it. When churches and individuals cooperate in pooling little disgraceful contributions together to do their work, there will have to be somebody to look after it, for nobody has any particular interest. That is proven by the size of the donations. Machinery requires mechanics. Sickness calls for 'nurses. But the local congregation has its own equipment!
If we would avoid every appearance of evil with respect to unscriptural organizations, we had best forego all cooperative work between independent congregations. We can do this without the loss of a single ounce of Christian energy. We cannot maintain autonomy without exercising it. The force of history for nineteen hundred years is utterly wasted upon us if we do not appreciate that fact, and act accordingly. The Lord's plan is the best plan to get the results the Lord desires. It may not get us to the "uttermost part of the earth" in this generation. But we have only been there once, effectively, in sixty generations, and that was under the plan of congregational action, as directed by the inspired apostles.
For all of these reasons I conclude that the Lord's plan is best. It is the most excellent way. It is the royal road to spiritual success. To temporize with artificial substitutes means that to the extent we follow them the Lord's plan will be neglected. And since every congregation is free under heaven to choose the best, or to accept the doubtful plan of cooperation, to deliberately take the latter road makes the good the enemy of the best.