p. 13 | Home Missionary Meetings by Edith M. Graham

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 9, 1915

Home Missionary Meetings

By Edith M. Graham

EDITH M. GRAHAM

The children who are connected with churches and who attend church schools, have privileges of which the children of our isolated members are deprived. In our churches children's meetings are held, plans are laid for joint action, and missionary work is encouraged.

Why should not the isolated families have little home missionary meetings? The father or the mother may act as missionary leader, and one of the children as missionary secretary. The programs may be made up from the Church Officers' Gazette, either those for the adults being used and modified, or those for the Senior or the Junior Missionary Volunteers. The parents can go through the programs which are given for the month, and select such as they think best suited to their plans and circumstances. The foreign mission studies given in the Missionary Volunteer section are usually very interesting for the children.

Sabbath afternoon is a suitable time for this missionary meeting, or it may be held on Sabbath morning, after the Sabbath school. The meeting should be opened with singing some well-known hymn, and with prayer, in which the children should be encouraged to take part. They should be taught to ask God's blessing on their missionary gardens, their missionary chickens, their missionary work of any and every sort. A little girl once set out some tomatoes for the Lord; and just as they were beginning to grow, there came a plague of wireworms all over the neighborhood. A man living next door told her the worms were killing his plants, and would kill hers. She replied, “No, they will not.” He asked why, and she said, “Because I ask Jesus every night to take care of my tomatoes.” The worms did not destroy them, and the child's trust in God was strengthened through her prayers for her missionary tomatoes.

One item in the program should be missionary reports. Parents and children should unite in telling what they have done during the past week to help God's work. The secretary should keep a record of what is reported, and send a summary at the close of the quarter to the conference office. This will help the children to realize that their work is important, and the letters from the conference secretary in reply will please them.

As far as possible, it is well to let the children take part in giving the study. Sometimes they may recite a short poem on the subject. This will be a training for the children that they may find useful later on.

These little meetings are especially beneficial when the father is not in the truth, as they help the children to realize that they belong to something important. Experiences in foreign lands, taken from the REVIEW, Youth's Instructor, and Little Friend, may be used to vary the programs, and impress upon the children the rapid growth of the message. Missionary stories should be brought in for the benefit of the very little ones.

The mother will need to devote some time and thought to these meetings, but hard work is better than a sore heart. She can use the older children to good advantage in helping her to look up articles and stories to be read, and in arranging the program.

Many families have testified to the value of these home missionary meetings, and persons now in the work look back to them with pleasure.

Takoma Park, D. C.