The Church and the Missionary Volunteer Work by Arthur Grosvenor Daniells

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 17, 1910

The Church and the Missionary Volunteer Work

By Arthur Grosvenor Daniells

SABBATH, February 26, has been appointed by the General Conference Committee as “Missionary Volunteer day.” This appointment has been made in the interests of the young people of our denomination. We have a large number of children, youth, and young people in our ranks. They are steadily increasing in numbers and advancing in years. Their salvation is a matter of supreme interest to us. Their value to the cause of God may be very great if their hearts are converted and their activities rightly directed. And it is during their young days—the formative period of life—that they can most easily be led to the Saviour and trained for efficient service in his cause.

The Young People's Missionary Volunteer Department of the General Conference was created for the purpose of rendering helpful service in saving, educating, and training our young people for the Lord's work. But it should be very clearly understood that this department can not take the place of the home or the church along this line. A responsibility rests upon parents which can not be delegated to other persons or organizations. Their influence in the home at just the right time over the children is greater than can be exercised by any one else. Next to the home stands the local church in responsibility and influence. The elder can do much to lead the young people in his church to devote their lives to the Lord's work, and the brethren and sisters can teach them how to begin to work while they are young.

The Missionary Volunteer Department is a servant of the home, the church, and the young people. Its mission is to render help. It endeavors to awaken the conscience, to save from a life of sin, and to train for effective service. To accomplish this the department sends out helpful suggestions for the home and the church, prepares and issues literature adapted to the young, arranges reading courses, holds before our young people the importance of securing a Christian education, conducts institutes, plans for young people's services at camp-meetings, encourages the young to give their money to home and foreign missionary enterprises and finally to volunteer for service in either the home or the foreign field.

This, and much more, the Missionary Volunteer Department is doing in its efforts to help parents and churches to work effectively for our young people. This department has been organized only two and a half years. It could hardly be expected to do more than to get under good headway during the short time, but it has already done great things for our children and youth. A great awakening has taken place, a new era for our young people has begun, and great possibilities are in sight.

Now this Missionary Volunteer Department should have the most prompt and earnest support of those whom it lives to serve. The work to be done is so important and imperative that there should be no delay or failure to carry into effect every good suggestion and plan agreed upon. But here is where many fail. They do not take hold of the plans of work promptly and vigorously. In some cases the officers of the department are obliged to wait, and even to plead with those upon whom rests the responsibility of carrying out the plans of work in order to get the work done. It is to be hoped that the coming Missionary Volunteer day will arouse our people from ocean to ocean to a greater realization of the importance of this work, and to greater earnestness in carrying it forward.

A. G. DANIELLS.