Reading The Bulletins
NEWS FROM HERE AND THERE. After three and a half years with the Valley Station, Kentucky church, Brother James Cooper has moved to Campbellsville, Kentucky where he will assist in establishing the church. The Cooper family makes eight Christian families in Campbellsville. A temporary meeting place has been rented above the Rexall Drug Store. Cooper will be partially supported by the Haldeman Avenue and Taylor Boulevard churches in Louisville. He needs and deserves additional support. Cooper did a fine work with the Valley Station church . . . . Brother Earl Fly, of Medina, Tennessee has moved to Valley Station where he succeeds Cooper as the evangelist . . . . The Westview church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee is supporting their evangelist, Brother Wayne Coats in four mission meetings this year. One was concluded in May in Concord, N. C., where Westview is helping support Brother Jack McAmis. They had a splendid meeting with four adults being baptized. McAmis is doing a good work in Concord. He has spent several years in North Carolina doing "mission" work. The pressing need in Concord is for a suitable building. We commend Westview for their interest in the Cause away from home. More of this kind of work should be done .... The new Graymere church in Columbia, Tennessee has been meeting for over two months. They have a nice building — a remodeled night club! After seven years in Marshall County (Tennessee), Brother E. W. Guthrie has moved to Columbia to labor with the Graymere church. He recently closed a fine meeting there . . . . Your help is solicited in keeping up with all the news of interest. Please feel free to send in your news and suggestions.... Brother Kenneth L. Fielder and his family now live in McAllen, Texas. They were forced to move to a dry climate for Mrs. Fielder's health. Fielder is now a Civilian Instructor for the Air Force and preaches for various churches in the Valley.... Brother J. Leo Patton is now working with the Bastrop, Louisiana church. He moved there from Florida.... Brother Paul Brock has moved from Bradenton, Florida to Dyersburg, Tennessee where he is into a good work with the Market Street church.... Brother Glenn Shuemaker, who has lived and labored for twelve years with the church in Hollywood, Florida is moving to work with the church in Bradenton . . . . Brother Leo B. Plyler has moved from Montgomery to Hanceville, Alabama to work with the church . . . . Once more may I request that you send your bulletin or paper to me. First of all, I like to read them myself and, second, they are needed in connection with this feature. Please send them to me at Box 365 . . . . A Sermon Outline feature has now been started. Much interest has been expressed in this. Send in a sermon outline.
EXPLOSIONS. Professor Edwin Conklin, the great Princeton University biologist: The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the Unabridged Dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing factory.
— The Messenger, Akron, Ohio THESE THINGS SHOCKED ME. A few days ago I attended a wedding in the chapel of the University Christian Church. The appointments and equipment of the chapel to me reflected the general digressive sentiment to be found in Christian churches of today. This was so to a shocking degree.
The front of the chapel, the focal point of interest, was formed as an altar. First, there was an altar at which one could kneel in prayer. Behind it was a large table, upon which lay an open Bible. Immediately behind the Bible was a brazen candlestick to match in structure the brazen cross.
My mind would not repel the striking resemblance between this scene and what one may find in any Catholic church, and the analogy was not a forced one, for several of the items were evidently borrowed from the Catholics. For instance, the organ, the altar, the cross, and the candlesticks were all of Catholic origin. And we wondered what role the open Bible played, or what its symbolism was, in that the Christian church has long since abandoned the open Bible, and no longer pretends to "speak where the Bible speaks or do things in Bible ways."
As I witnessed these tokens of digression, I wept within my heart at its tragic implications. At one time in the not too distant past we stood upon the same ground with these people, but such identity of positions has long since been surrendered by them. It is now known that the Christian churches of the TCU stripe stand for nothing, and it appears they fall for anything.
When the dam holding back digression gives way, it lets in upon the church a flood of Ashdodic practices that accepts anything!
— Waymond Miller, Fort Worth, Texas ANOTHER UNSCRIPTURAL HARP. All mechanical music is unauthorized in worship. Most of us believe that. Yet, another sin is prevalent. Many have harped the old tune: "We can't!" to the injury of the Lord's cause almost as much as those who introduced the piano. They have only four strings on their harp: Ignorance; Lack of Purpose; Lack of System; Covetousness. Let's discard this old harp and be up and doing today!
— The Exhorter, Meridian, Mississippi THAT UNRULY TONGUE. Sometimes a person's reputation and usefulness may be temporarily crippled by the tongue of an enemy. Sometimes this may be done by the careless passing on of information the enemy has whispered. It takes time to untangle such a web of circumstances that a person may find woven about him. The character of the one who started it has to be found out. Finally it all comes out clear; our friend once more stands high in our confidence. How ashamed we feel that our tongues repeated what nearly ruined that friend. Let us remember that the tongue is a "restless evil, it is full of deadly poison"; no man can tame it. We have a hard time controlling it. No wonder our Creator put it in a box hemmed with a fence of hard bones and shut with the strongest muscles of the body! Read James 3:1-2. "For by thy words thou shalt be justified; and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." (Matt. 12:37.)
— Gordon J. Pennock THERE ARE EYES WATCHING YOU! Worldly-minded people derive a fiendish satisfaction from the failures of Christians. Professing to be nothing themselves, they are delighted when those who are at least making an effort to be something fall by the wayside. They point the finger of hypocritical scorn at some weak, sensuous church member and say with unholy glee: "There's Christianity for you!" And all the while they give no attention to the thousands of pure, devoted, consecrated Christians who are making a valiant effort to walk in the footsteps of the Master. But the unfairness of the scornful should make us determined to walk so close to the Master that the mouth of the adversary will be stopped!
— Bond Stocks THE THIEF OF TIME. "I'll be there soon." "You'd better ask someone else: I've never done that before." "I've made other plans." "We plan to get the children started to Bible classes soon." "I'm not going to stick my neck out; Let somebody else do it." "I know it's a bad habit and I'm going to quit soon." "There is a family in our block who have quit coming to church and I've been intending for several weeks to say something to them about it." "0, I am so sorry. I intended to come to see you all the time you were in the hospital, but just kept putting it off." Have you ever heard any of these? Have you ever been guilty of such remarks yourself? How many in the judgment will say, "Lord, I INTENDED!!!" But there will be no consolation in good intentions if they were never carried out. "Now is the acceptable time." "Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." DO IT NOW!!!
— Hickory Heights Hi-Lites