THE VALUE OF A CHURCH PAPER by Christian Intelligencer

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 8, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 48.

THE VALUE OF A CHURCH PAPER.

By Christian Intelligencer

It is astonishing that some pastors, and the people generally, are so little interested in the circulation of a worthy denominational paper. Pastors stand sadly in their own light when they fail to encourage the members of their churches to take a good denominational paper. It is simply impossible for church people to be in the largest degree useful to their churches, to their denomination, and to the cause of Christ at large, if they do not take a religious paper. There is no investment of money which will bring larger returns for the church, for the denomination, and for Christianity than what is expended in procuring good religious papers. Four cents a week for the year will secure the weekly visits of a great, strong, wholesome, and altogether superior religious paper.

The general circulation of such a paper in a church is worth as much to a pastor as is an assistant in pastoral work. Church members cannot intelligently give to or work for denominational societies and other objects of benevolence except they be familiar with the scope and manner of their operations, and such familiarity can come only from the weekly visits of a religious newspaper.

In all our churches there are many young members who were brought up outside of our denomination; there is also a considerable proportion of such who are more advanced in years. How can they know what our contemporary enterprises are, and how can they come into touch, either with the living present or with the hopeful future, except they take a weekly denominational paper? Men of wealth could not do better with hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars than to aid the pastor in introducing a worthy denominational paper into churches and missions. A pastor in this city a few weeks ago paid for twenty copies of such a paper, to be sent to as many families connected with a mission of his church. Could he have made a better investment of the amount?