Gathering Funds for Missions by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 24, 1914

Gathering Funds for Missions

By W. A. S.

Just now, as we face another autumn Ingathering season, it may add to the interest in the campaign for missionary funds to know that practically all the missionary societies are calling on their constituencies to go out after money for missions.

While the combined missionary societies in North America are securing about $17,000,000 a year for missions, there is thorough agreement among them all that far more could be done. Within the last two or three years special attention has been devoted in the general missionary councils to the matter of increased and systematic giving for missions. The general appeal, it is felt, is no longer adequate. The call has been made for the lay members in all the churches to take upon their hearts the burden of personal effort to gather the funds needed for the hastening of the evangelization of the world.

This very year numbers of the societies are pushing with all vigor what they call an Every-Member Canvass. People are urged to go out among their friends, aiming to reach every member in the great religious bodies, soliciting a missionary gift. This campaign means a call for the active workers in the great denominations to go out to interview men and women in their places of business, making appeals for missions. In the August number of Missions, the organ of the Northern Baptist Missionary Board, the call is made:—

WANTED AT ONCE.—Five thousand men and five thousand women to canvass immediately for individual gifts for raising what remains of the missionary debts.

. . . Don't faint away if people say, “No.” Smile and go forward, and return the next day and see if they have not changed their minds. Call them up by telephone to inquire if you did not misunderstand what they said.

Organs of the great societies urge successful business men and others to join in planning ways and means for increasing the missionary resources. Without doubt, this movement, which is very general, will bring in many hundreds of thousands of dollars, perhaps millions, to the various missionary societies. Somehow there is a burden upon the hearts of all those who are leading out in missionary endeavor in the great churches to do something very strenuous, and to do it quickly. They have not the light upon the prophecies that we see, though it should be added that many have in their hearts a feeling that the coming of Christ is drawing near, and that the work of the church is to carry the gospel to the world in preparation for his coming. But we Seventh-day Adventists have, as we know, light upon the special message of preparation that is to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Much more may we, then, take upon our hearts a burden to gather in the resources for the missionary advance.

The experience year by year shows that there are multitudes who do not ordinarily make regular gifts for missions who are glad to help when the good cause is set before them. This general movement in behalf of missions has been given wide publicity in the public press, and many are familiar with the idea. This can only be a help in preparing hearts to respond with gifts when the idea is presented.

And our brethren and sisters who have been out year after year with the Harvest Ingathering number of our papers feel that the Lord certainly goes before them. One sister at a Western meeting told of gathering in a good sum, nearly all in small amounts, as she went about telling the simple story of her own interest in God's work in the earth and her desire to gather missionary gifts for it. On one occasion, as she went to a country home, the man of the house saw her coming and halted as he was starting across the fields, waiting for her. Before she stopped, the good man said to her, “I think you have come to ask me for something for God's work, haven't you?” She said she had, and

explained the object of her visit. “I thought so,” he said, “when I saw you coming,” and then and there he gladly made a gift.

Never was there greater need for missionary gifts, and never was there a season when the topic of foreign affairs and the need of this world for the gospel of Christ could be more readily introduced to the minds of the people. It is perfectly apparent that now is the time to push the work of missions in Asia and Africa and all the great mission fields, where heathendom is being stirred up by Christendom for the final conflicts. It is a good time in which to tell the people of our world-wide work to which we are devoting our own resources to the utmost, and in behalf of which we may confidently appeal to others.

W. A. S.