Church Amusements by St. Louis Christian Advocate

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 6, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 42.

Church Amusements.

By St. Louis Christian Advocate

It is a serious and very pernicious mistake for the church, on the line of worldly amusements, to afford entertainment for either young or old. It perverts the church from her aim, and misrepresents her character and design. Her purpose is to seek and to save the lost, and to that purpose she must devote her energies. The work is not finished when they are gathered into the fold, but it is to nurture them in holiness and perfect them for Heaven. Entertainments and worldly diversions have neither part nor place in this heavenly work, but divide and hinder. It is a great mistake to think that young people cannot be kept in the church without these attachments. Young people are held to Christ by the same ligaments which bind older ones. Time and experience will strengthen the ties, but, in every essential feature, they are the same. It is true that if young people are gotten into the church by every hook and crook of social, worldly, personal influence, without taste of godly sorrow, no experience of the bitterness of repentance, no vital union with Christ—then all manner of device, stratagem, and legerdemain are necessary to hold them. But if thoroughly turned to God, striving against sin, and seeking Heaven, they lose relish for these things, and the church that nurtures these beginnings of piety, faithfully, tenderly, will find their young people drawn to them, and knit by sinews of steel.

Let the church turn away from the barren fields of the world, and feed her little ones on the rich herbage which grows on the hills of Zion. Let her manifest her faith in God in this way, and her young people will find their purest joys and greatest delight in her seasons of praise and prayer, worship and devotion. It is the world coming into the church which raises this clamor. It is the lack of faith which allows her to yield to this demand. It is the church forsaking the divine channel and means, and flowing out into the worldly channels, and using worldly means. The names are on the church rolls, but where are their hearts? How desolate Christ, when his church holds the name, and the world holds the heart?—St. Louis Christian Advocate.