Are There Too Many Church Societies?
At a meeting of the Presbyterian Union of San Francisco, last week, Rev. R. W. Reynolds, speaking to the question "Is Church Work Overorganized?" said:— “I am not in favor of the number of societies with which most modern churches are burdened. It is a mistake to have in operation two and three societies whose object is the same. It makes a division of interest and energy, where concentrated effort might result in great good. Too many societies weaken the life of a church, and that is not all—they interfere with the home life of the members. Now take the Christian Endeavor, for example. It has done great and good work in some churches, but in many others its meetings are just one more place for the young people to come together. It is a question whether the Christian Endeavor does not have a tendency to divorce the young people from the church proper.” The principal difficulty with a multiplicity of organizations is that those who have the burden of any particular one are apt to think that one the church, or its work the most important work of the church, and that the church is a kind of back number. They too often deem church duty done when the work of that society is done. There is plenty of legitimate work for such a society as the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor, but there is danger of its assuming too many responsibilities, and of its “divorcing the young people from the church proper.” Some auxiliary organizations within the church are all right as subordinate helps to the church, but not as substitutes, in any sense.