Brother Busby On Institutions
The following is taken from the introduction preceding the sermon by Brother Horace W. Busby on, "Why I Left the Presbyterian Church."
"For the past thirty years he has been an outstanding evangelist in the church of Christ in gospel meeting work. He has never held less than twenty-five meetings annually, and during 1948 he held twenty-eight. He has held meetings in many of our larger cities, and in most of the states. Approximately 17,000 souls have obeyed the gospel under his preaching, with many more reclaimed, and a number of congregations started. He has held over one hundred meetings in his home town, Fort Worth, and his converts are numbered among the hundreds here. Many of our leading preachers and educators are among the number who have been led into Christ in the evangelistic work of Bro. Busby."
The part of his sermon given here is taken from pages 49 and 50 of Why I Left, by Campbell and Caskey, and was delivered in 1948. I want the readers to note carefully what he says concerning church parties and institutions. There has been considerable changing since that time and Brethren are now hated for teaching what he taught then.
No Church Institutions
"We have no church institutions. Brethren can build any honest thing, and do any honest work, but we cannot say that it is a church affair. Sometimes our young people talk about a "church party." We do not have anything like that, because if it is a "church party" you can read about it in the New Testament. You can have a party, just so you do not do wrong, if you let the gospel principles guide you in the party, but call "yours." Do not say that Glenwood church has a party for young people. The Devil would not want a better thing than to hear God's people divide up and call every little thing a church affair, to where you do not know the difference between the church and human institutions.
Paul said. 'Christ is the head of all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.' (Eph. 1:22,28). Our Bible school on Lord's day morning is the church at work. It is not a Sunday School with different organizations that we can go and join, and give our money to and then go home before the church meets for worship. That would make an institution alongside the church just as literally as institutions we have fought through the years that seek to he connected with the church of the New Testament. We cannot have these as church institutions for it is the church that is to preach the gospel, care for the orphan and the widow, to heir the poor and needy, and to keep itself unspotted from the world."