Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 8, 1910

Why Churches Go Backward

THIS is a question causing much concern to many denominations at the present time. Spiritual apathy and indifference exist everywhere. Some churches, instead of recording a yearly increase, are obliged to confess a falling off in membership and church attendance. Speaking of this experience in the United States, the New York Weekly Witness of November 2 says:—

The churches in this country, taken generally, are not making anything like the progress they should be making; but their lack of progress is largely due to the fact that there are so many preachers in the pulpits who have no definite personal experience of the power of the religion which they are trying to preach, and so many others who pride themselves on their disbeliefs, and therefore do not and can not offer a full and free salvation through faith in Christ. They can not convict their hearers of sin, and of their need of the salvation wrought out for them by Christ, because they have never felt the need of regeneration themselves, and have had no experience of the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit.

Doubtless the chief lack in the Christian church to-day is that of a Spirit-filled ministry. In too many instances, school men and theologians are in evidence, rather than Spirit-called men. The gospel ministry is not a trade, which can be learned in a mechanical way; it is not an intellectual attainment, to be achieved by the taking of a college course, or through the conferring of a degree; it is a divine call. The Christian pulpit should be filled only by men whose hearts God has touched, and who can speak out of a full personal experience of the power of his Word in their own lives. Such men will carry conviction to those blessed by their labors.