Reading The Bulletins
News From Here And There:
Robert H. Bell has moved from San Diego, California to Midland, Texas where he will work with one of the churches. Bell has been in California for several years and did much good work . . . . Robert Bunting has now moved to Orangesburg, South Carolina to work with the small group of Christians there. For three years he labored in Beaufort, South Carolina where he helped establish the church . . . . On September 1, William Wallace will move to Owensboro, Kentucky to labor with the Central church. At that time he will complete thirty three months of labor with the Thayer Street church in Akron, Ohio. The Thayer Street church has plans to build a new building ... Ed Grantham has resigned as evangelist for the College church in Paris, Texas and will move as soon as he can locate. He may be contacted at 1030 -24th S.E. at Polk Street in Paris. The College church is a fairly new congregation and Grantham has done a fine work there . . . . Brother B. C. Webb has moved from Antioch to Greenwood, Mississippi where he is laboring with the church. He writes: "The work is going along very nicely here. We aren't bothered by the issues at all. It is my conviction that Mississippi will eventually stand fast on the truth..... Brother S. A. Ribble, of the Broadway church in Lubbock backed out on a public debate with Brother Grover Stevens, of the new Caprock church in Lubbock. Ribble had agreed to discuss "What Is Wrong With the Caprock Church" and had asked to do so. He picked the date, set the length of speeches, and chose the subject. No doubt Ribble was under tremendous pressure and took the "back door" out! On the set night Stevens used the time to discuss the reasons behind the beginning of the Caprock church and to point out her stand for truth. A large audience assembled to hear him. The Caprock church has more than doubled in membership since its beginning a few months ago.
'Thanks to Bordeaux for time off for the Hillsboro, Ohio meeting. The church there is small (18 members), and overshadowed by digression. Our efforts resulted in one baptism and two to identify with the congregation. It was nice to be associated with faithful members there who treated me with no better hospitality to be found anywhere.
While at Hillsboro, I had a wonderful visit in the home of Brother Glenn Workman, who recently left the Christian Church and preaches in the county. A man of no little experience, 59 years old, he gave me the following reasons as to why he left the Digressives. The Christian Church is distinguished with: (1) A diminishing authority of elders over the congregations. This is brought about by a "board of deacons and elders" jointly running affairs of the church. Since deacons are in majority, they exercise control of the churches. (2) Rise of Ladies' Aids. He found them harder to remove, once established, than a piano. (3) Rise of entertainments and recreations palmed off as work of the church. He saw that if people had to be entertained to get, they had to be entertained to keep. (4) Rise of institutional problems within the church; such as encampments, colleges, homes, missionary societies, etc. Colleges, for instance, trains and sends out preachers in return for more funds from the churches. (5) Fruits of instrumental music always causes a warfare within. Feuds come over the size, type, cost of instrument, who shall play it, whether it is played at the Lord's Supper, prayer, etc. Change of arguments to defend its practice led him to study to see its condemnation. (6) Leaving God's way of raising money for every conceivable scheme, even to hiring professional outside money raising institutions to do the work for them. He lamented that the Gospel Advocate is becoming like the Christian Standard! "Non-hobbyist" brethren ought to take notice.
— Bordeaux Beacon, Harold Savely, editor, Nashville, Tennessee
Welcome Trend
Your editor is glad to note that one school among "our Christian schools" is presenting its chorus in school auditoriums instead of church buildings these days. Recent notices in Jacksonville and Orlando church bulletins informed us that the Florida Christian College chorus would sing in high school auditoriums.
We think this is a welcome trend toward keeping the school separate from the churches. The schools are private enterprises, human institutions, which are designed to sell educational services to young people in a religious environment. They are no part of the church and do not belong to the church; therefore, have no right to draw support from the treasury of the church. It is a step toward denominationalism when such does happen.
— J. E. Nowlin, The West Ender, Atlanta, Georgia
The Church In Georgia
There are 159 counties in the state of Georgia. In 108 of these counties there is not a single church of the Lord. In the counties where the church has been established, there are 9,459 members and 121 congregations. According to these figures there are 50 percent fewer Christians in the entire state of Georgia than are found in the one city of Nashville, Tennessee.
The church here in Waycross has a membership of 80-85. This is the only church in Ware County which is the largest in the state. The nearest congregation is Alma, 28 miles away. The following counties — Clinch, Charlton, Brantly, Pierce, Bacon and Atkinson — all bordering on Ware County, have no churches.
— The Informer, Waycross, Georgia
A Christian Business Man's Prayer
Teach me that sixty minutes make an hour, sixteen ounces make a pound, and one hundred cents a dollar. Help me to so live that I can lie down at night with a clear conscience without a gun under my pillow, and undaunted by the faces of those whom I have brought pain. Grant that I may earn my meal ticket on the square, and in earning it I may do unto others as I would have others do unto me. Deafen me to the jingle of tainted money, and to the rustle of unholy skirts. Blind me to the faults of the other fellow, but reveal to me my own. So guide me that each night when I look across the dinner table to my wife, who has been a blessing to me, I shall have nothing to conceal. Keep me young enough to laugh with little children, and sympathetic enough to be considerate of old age. And when comes the day of darkening shades, the smell of flowers, the tread of softened footsteps, and the crunching wheels in the yard, make the ceremony short and the epitaph simple — "Here lies a man." — From The Apostolic Voice.
Young People Dating Non-Christians
THE CHRISTIAN YOUNG PERSON is headed for trouble, deep trouble, who dates a young person not a member of the church, especially when the non-member will not attend services but picks up the Christian after church services. All over the brotherhood, in many congregations that goes on. It is a shame and a tragedy. It reflects upon the faith and conviction of the Christian young person. It shows a pronounced weakness. It reveals that the non-Christian has no respect for the religion of the Christian, and no respect for the conviction of the Christian. A policy of weakness and compromise like that will never convert the non-Christian companion. A Christian young person, having full convictions and respect for the New Testament religion as opposed to worldly denominationalism, will insist on the non-Christian respecting those convictions, and say, "no attending service the night we date, no date." Weaklings who think more of popularity and dating than of loyalty and obedience to Christ will not care for these remarks. Others will stop, think and act. It distresses me to see young people whom I love sell Christ and his church down the river, play into the hands of Satan, and lay the groundwork for later in life making the mistake of marrying out of the church, with all of the compromise and misery that it brings to such families. — Jack Meyer.