Church Missionary Meetings

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 12, 1912

Church Missionary Meetings

For a visiting worker to arrange and hold an interesting missionary service with a church is comparatively easy, but to carry on that work in a church of any size week after week and month after month is a different proposition; and it is from this latter viewpoint only that I write.

I was fortunate enough to be brought up in a missionary church. I was a member of that church for ten years, having been converted in it at the age of fourteen years. I do not believe that a person was ever a member of that little company of believers six months without coming to realize that to carry the gospel to the whole world was a part of his work; and if he had no definite knowledge of mission lands and their needs, he soon absorbed a few facts, or got them in some other way; for the leaders of the church always worked on the plan that “information is the key to intelligent interest.”

This church held missionary meetings weekly,—sometimes on week-days, sometimes on Sabbath afternoons, and sometimes the meeting would be held for months on Friday nights,—all depending on local circumstances,—but it was almost invariably held. The attendance would vary from five to sixty, for the missionary enthusiasm of many of the members, even of this missionary church, ran parallel with the weather; but as the officers were missionary in spirit, nothing completely stopped the work.

Some time ago I was thinking over the friends I knew among that little body of believers, and wondered how many of them had been directly engaged in the Lord’s work. Jotting down the names, I found that during the ten years mentioned, this church sent into the gospel work one conference president, one union conference missionary secretary, two conference secretaries, one principal of an academy, one principal of an intermediate school, one assistant principal, one conference Sabbath-school secretary, one conference missionary secretary, two tract society secretaries, eight ministers, two stenographers (one in General Conference employ), four graduate nurses, one sanitarium manager, six Bible workers, ten church-school teachers, and eight canvassers.

There are others who have gone into the work, but the names I do not recall. I would not say, of course, that all this was the result of the church missionary meetings held; but I do know from my own experience that in these little meetings where old and young met together, talked together, prayed together, and planned together in a very definite and effective way, was the beginning, in many instances, of lifelong consecration to the Master’s service, and a working knowledge of how to put this consecration to practical use.

What little experience I have had with church missionary meetings has taught me that while it is not always true that the church that does not hold them is dead, it is true that such a church is missing a wonderful source of inspiration; and it is invariably true that the church that holds such meetings regularly is alive; for if there was no life, there would be no incentive to hold such a meeting.

Who Should Be in Charge?

It must be evident that no one could be better fitted, or is apt to be at least, to take charge of the missionary meetings of the church, and to plan for their successful conduct, than the officer who is chosen to have the oversight of the local missionary work, the missionary secretary. The missionary meetings are the only occasions when the missionary secretary can get at the church as an organized body for work, and lay before it definite plans for service which local conditions make practicable. These meetings may become the clearing-house for ideas and thoughts on missionary opportunities in the locality, which may be gathered up and classified and turned to practical account by the missionary secretary in the enlistment of every member in active, definite service.

The Fourth Sabbath Service

Owing to widely scattered membership, it is not practicable for some churches to come together for more than one meeting during the week, and that on the Sabbath; and to meet this condition and still provide a meeting of the church where all its membership can be reached with missionary plans, this fourth Sabbath service has been set apart by General Conference recommendation for the consideration of the home missionary work. A collection should be taken to help carry forward this line of work in the church, and the missionary secretary could well have charge of this program also. Suggestive programs are published each month in the REVIEW; and this ought to be a live, energetic meeting in every company of believers.

Weekly Missionary Meetings

“It should be borne in mind that the object of the missionary meeting is specific. There are other services for general religious instruction, for general and special Bible study and prayer; but the missionary meeting should sound the bugle-call to service, high, clear, and unmistakable; it should voice from beginning to end the marching orders of the church. It should send people out with a stronger hold upon God, a more abiding faith in the accomplishment of his work and purpose in the earth, and a deeper consciousness of their personal obligation to do their part. To accomplish this, the meeting must be in the truest sense devotional and educational

in its nature; and prayerful forethought and preparation are necessary. . . .” “Time should be given for exchange of experiences, consideration of plans for local work, for increasing missionary offerings, and for whatever pertains to keeping the members in action. In small societies there is usually time for this and for study in every meeting; but in large companies it might be best to devote one meeting in each month entirely to the local work.”—Missionary Idea, pages 65-67.

In making our missionary meetings more educational, we suggest that those charged with the responsibility of conducting them give consideration to three things,—definite aims; development of the individuals with whom we deal; and attention to the laws of development.

1. Definite aims. There can be no systematic development unless we follow some intelligent plan. We need something to direct and unify our efforts. It would seem perfectly self-evident that every missionary meeting should have a definite aim; but in actual practise this is by no means the case. Many meetings accomplish nothing because they aim at nothing. They have subjects, but no objects.

In choosing aims, the church must decide what will be practicable under the prevailing local conditions. There are certain results which we have no right to expect from haphazard methods. We should be displeased with our teachers if we found that the children were being given exhortations at irregular intervals, instead of being trained by carefully planned tasks. But because the Spirit of God sometimes works mysteriously, we seem to think that in religious matters the laws of cause and effect may be disregarded, and that we may look for results of the best quality from poorest efforts. Some results ought to follow, of course, from every effort; but systematic development will ordinarily come only from methods that are educational.

The aims we can hope to realize will depend upon the time at our disposal, on the number and frequency of our meetings, on the state of development reached by our people, on the work we can persuade them to undertake, and on the material we find available as subject-matter. In general, we must aim at developing individual insight, sympathy, and activity. We wish to stimulate missionary prayer, and giving, and service, and we shall do well to take up one of these things at a time, and continue it until we get results. We need to develop a self-sustaining interest in our churches.

2. Development of the individuals with whom we deal. Merely having definite aims is not enough; we must note how far our efforts are effectual in reaching these aims with the people, and modify our efforts accordingly.

Our churches are made up of different classes. It is well to confine efforts to one class at a time. For instance, at one meeting aim especially to assist by suggesting ways how farmers can do effective missionary work; at another service, how to help young people; another time, what mothers can do. Then we must devise some means of studying the effects of our work. Let us ask questions as to the results, or get some one to do it for us. Sometimes at the close of a meeting it is astonishing to find how little impression an apparently

interesting and instructive meeting has made on the minds of those present.

3. Attention to the laws of development. One of these laws is that development is in proportion to active response. Not what is done for people, but what they do themselves really helps them. Some meetings incite people themselves to help, other meetings seem to aim at making it unnecessary for them to do anything. Those who do the work will get the profit. It is impossible that development should result in inactivity. Our meetings must set, as their principal aim, the incitement to individual activity of every church-member.

Another law of development is that the amount of the response depends on the kind of stimulus. A meeting that suggests nothing definite is not apt to secure any response. Many persons who merely endure hearing a man talk, would be delighted to be given something to do. It would pay many of us to spend more of our time in thinking of the kinds of service that individuals are best fitted to render, and of the motives that will be strongest in securing this work.

Our church-members may have part in God’s closing work. If the missionary work is already organized in your church, give careful consideration to the possibilities of the weekly missionary meeting, which used to be held in so many of our churches, even if conditions for holding it were not just ideal. If you belong to the little Gideon’s band of churches who now hold such meetings, earnestly endeavor to make them more effective and an increased factor in spreading the gospel message.

There are wonderful and unlimited possibilities in individual missionary work. “The work of God in this earth can never be finished until the men and women comprising our church-membership rally to the work, and unite their efforts with those of ministers and church officers.”—Vol. IX, page 177. The church missionary meeting is one of the most effective agencies in the world for the stimulation and development of this personal activity. “Attempt great things for God; expect great things from God,” and you will not be disappointed.