CHAPTER XI — Work in New Fields (The United States)
CHAPTER XI --- Work in New Fields (The United States) WORK IN NEW FIELDS
(The United States)
By Ruell Lemmons
Wnat would you consider God’s chief interest? Taking into consideration the fact that He is Creator and Controller of the entire universe with its ten times ten thousand wonders, and its myriad mysteries that human limitations have forbidden man to explore—what would you think could concern God more than any other one thing? By faith we can answer this question. God’s chief interest is the salvation of souls.
It has been resolved in the Court of Heaven to offer release to the doomed prisoners ot death through an organization called the church. That “growing stone,” cut out of the mountain without hand, has gathered force in its travel down the valley of time until now its power and influence can no more be denied than can its existence. A community may dismiss an earthquake with but little more than a shrug, but not the church. The church is a thing of divine formation, designed especially for its impact against the strongholds of the devil. No power on the earth, or under it, has ever been able to stem the tide of the spreading gospel, so long as the church has considered itself to be “the pillar and ground of the trurh.” The Roman empire spent its strength against the church with less effect than the waves of the sea beating against a rock. The. church goes on; while all that is left of Rome is a few broken columns sunken along the muddy banks of the Tiber. The organized opposition of succeeding centuries has been brought to bear in vain. The church moves on. Language barriers have not hindered it. The shores of oceans have not stopped it. Local or national persecution has not humbled it. Only a membership unwilling to tell the good news to others can hinder it.
God has one method of enlarging the borders of the kingdom. Jesus said, “Except a man be born anew he cannot see the kingdom of God.” The new birth is effected by teaching. Untaught people are not born again. The teaching program of the church is, therefore, of utmost importance.
We are discussing today, “Work in New Fields” with special attention in this lecture to the United States. In an effort to make the lesson practical, we shall attempt to narrow the discussion as much as possible. The general heading, “Work in New Fields,” will forbid our discussing what I consider to be the world’s ripest mission field—the section immediately about us. This field is undoubtedly the ripest field for we have had a hundred years of pre-advertising already done on it. In it are tens of thousands to whom the church has already been indirectly, and favorably, presented. The field presents none of the major barriers usually associated with mission work. There are no custom problems, no language problems, no supervision problems. One of the outstanding problems of the church today is that of reaching our own next door neighbors with the gospel. Yet the word “NEW” in the subject will compel us to pass on to other fields. By “New Fields” we usually mean those regions where preaching after the New Testament pattern is either relatively new, or else entirely unknown. My knowledge of specific “New Fields” is entirely too limited to allow me to give attention to any particular locality. I would certainly slight many worthy local fields. I shall attempt to make, therefore, some general observations on what we—for want of a better term—call “Mission Work” in the United States. The convictions herein stated have largely been formed from experiences I have had during the past three years as evangelist for the Central Church in Cleburne, Texas, under whose direction, in that time, has come the work of twenty-three evangelists in “new fields,” twelve of whom are now at work supported wholly or in part by this congregation. In addition to the work of these men, the occasions in which the specific problems of individual fields have been presented to the Cleburne eldership will run literally into the hundreds. To my mind, there is before us, in the United States, a golden opportunity just beginning to bloom. Denomination- alism has proven itself unworthy of spiritual consideration. The great sin of denominationalism is that it gives to the church no higher position than the governments and organizations of earth. No system of religion can compel the respect, and adherence, of the people that offers no more than can be had on the standard of common decency. Faith in denominational institutions as such is already dead.
Today we have about us some nine mission men who have been recently faced with the possibility of being projected into eternity unceremoniously. With war raging about them and the prospect of instant death ever constant, men have been re-examining the tenets of their faith, to see whether they were safe springboards for the soul for its flight into eternity. Many have learned to doubt whether faith alone is sufficient. Many have learned to question whether some human being had the power to forgive sins. Many have been made to ask themselves the question, “What if He was really the Christ?”
Men have gone to their Bibles as never before to get the truth. They are no longer interested in searching for confirmation of their faith; they are looking for something to believe with a faith that’s fit to die by. And while this was taking place all over the world, mothers and fathers and relatives here at home were also asking themselves questions about GI Joe’s faith. They were asking themselves whether the things they taught him to believe were the things God would have him believe as he entered eternity. They, too, were searching their Bibles. This time the search differed from the usual search. Fhis time it was not for the verses already marked, but for new truth—whatever that truth might be. This country-wide return to the Bible as a lamp for human feet has already resulted in a definite swing, throughout the entire religious world, back away from modernism and toward the fundamentals of the Bible. We have t.he greatest opportunity that we have ever had to teach the people of the United States that our plea has always been that men take ihe whole Bible and nothing but the Bible as a rule book in religious matters.
Denominational machinery is breaking down, and people are crying for freedom from the entangling influences of church machines and ecclesiastic politics. We have an opportunity we have never had to teach people ihe simplicity of New Testament worship and of the New Testament church. In taking advantage of this opportunity, the church must be brought forcibly and favorably to the attention of the community in which it exists. The church must incorporate itself fully into the life of the community. The members of the church must themselves become indispensable elements in their neighborhoods. They must be loved by the masses. They must prove themselves to be the “neighbors” of mankind. The more I have to do with work in new fields, the more I am convinced that churches are not built by people who do not live there. We make the mistake of sending a preacher into a new community and expect him to do in two or three years what several hundred of us put together have not done in many years down here in Texas—we expect him to create a self-supporting congregation. Usually, the preacher is considered transient by the community for the entire length of his stay there. It seems to me that the people who build churches are the people who move into new fields and fix the townspeople’s shoes and sell them groceries. If I were to point out what I considered the key to successful work in a new field that would be it. Transient people seldom produce lasting work; though naturally there are exceptions.
It is a good thing for a family to plant its roots in a community and stay there a long time. The very fact that it becomes an integral part of the. community is a stabilising influence. That sort of family can gain the confidence of a people, and can build a church. When church families move into new fields, as tamilies, and determine to stay there for years, the church will grow. The evangelist, or preacher, furnishes a much needed spark to such work, but it is the famfly which the community accepts as part of itself that can build the church. This conclusion leads me to another, which I realize is not shared by the majority: It is better to begin in a small place and spread to the larger cities. In beginning in large cities the worker must depend largely on the law of averages to provide an audience and converts. In a small community a Christian family soon becomes known by all for its work’s cake. Within a few months friendships and acquaintances are formed that last through the years. Those connections provide opportunity for teaching that cannot be provided elsewhere. The Reformation Movement gave men the opportunity to lay hold on the religious lives of their fellows. The divided religious world was the result. The Restoration Movement gave men the opportunity to RIGHTLY lav hold on the religious lives of their neighbors. The New Testament Church is the result. This “laying hold” is more easily ac-complished in small communities. The church cannot assume the habit of a sect and live to itself alone. The gospel is not narrow, and we have no monopoly on it. Away with the idea that the church represents a narrow position. Ours is the broadest position under heaven. The Church of Christ is the only institution on earth today that is as broad as the entire Bible. One doing work in new fields ought to strive especially hard to be free from any partial or sectarian view of the Bible or the church. Some hobbies are little ones, and some are big enough to be called denominations.
Work in new fields is often hampered by hobbies. Perhaps this condition exists because brethren have not the advantage of mutual edification and correction. Most of us would be warned some way if the brethren didn’t keep us straight. Men in new fields are especially susceptible to hobbies because of the lack of brotherly correction. Christians in new fields ought to be too busy converting people to Christ to wrangle among themselves.
God spent four thousand years riveting the attention of the world on the church. We ought to spend our time riveting attention on Christ the Savior. If we do men will be saved. If we fix the attention of a community on the differences of brethren, the church dies—and it ought to. It is much harder to revive a dead church than to start a new one.
Many of the problems connected with mission work in the United States will perhaps never be settled to the satisfaction of all. Ways and means of multiplying thoughts and ideas and of scattering them to best advantage will always be a problem. Our literature could be increased in attractiveness to advantage. Well printed tracts are read. Shabby ones are cast aside. In some localities radio preaching is effective. In others it is not. Some communities are almost one-station communities. In these places one either listens to the local station or none at all. In such localities radio preaching could be expected to be most effective.
Much thought could well be given to increasing the use-fulness and the stability of the convert. So far as I know no perfect formula for so-much-reason mixed with so-much- persuasion has ever been found. Much work in new fields is all but wasted because conversions (if one could call them that) are more on the basis of conversion to the preacher than conversion to Christ. When the preacher is gone his work vanishes. In recent years we have made giant strides in the solution of the problems of congregational cooperation in mission work. We stand as one man against the creation of a board or society for the promulgation of mission work. Yet, there is a most definite need for some more coordinated plan of congregational cooperation. This problem is being only partially solved by a few congregations taking the “sponsorship” (whatever that is) of a particular piece of work and inviting others to participate. This plan does not solve the problem because it does not touch the vast majority of congregations, and leaves a very few churches to carry practically the entire load of mission work. The problems that relate to long-distance supervision of work in new fields are many. We have found that really little or no supervision exists in reality. It exists only in name. One great step forward will be made when elders of supervising churches begin to make “missionary journeys” regularly to the localities in which their work is being done. Such an elder, assuming that he is a qualified man, could “set in order the things that are lacking” with far greater ease, being on the field than by mail.
It is exceedingly hard for too many men to visit a single place in a new field without some one of them meddling in the affairs of the congregation to a hurtful degree. Yet our work in new fields could be safeguarded from hobbies and apostasies by frequent visits of brethren. It might be a good work if men with outstanding judgment and common sense, coupled with a soundness of faith and complete circumspection, could be made familiar enough with the problems of new fields and employed by the interested churches to visit the fields in much the same manner as Paul seems to have used both Timothy and Titus among the churches he left behind.
Time forbids our entering a discussion of other questions just as pressing, but let it be said here that, in my opinion, the great fight before us in the next generation in extending the borders of the kingdom into new fields is the fight against Catholicism. The Catholic Church, having lost its hold upon Europe, is turning its attention to the Western Hemisphere. From the border of Mexico to the tip of Argentina the Catholic church now controls. The same can be said of that densely populated section of the United States to our North and East—that section that immediately surrounds our Government Headquarters. In the past few days the announcement has been made of the appointment of four new Cardinals who are citizens of the United States. The selection of a representative of the President at the Vatican was not an insignificant incident. The Catholic Church has publicly announced its intention of spending countless millions of dollars—immediately—in the propagation of its doctrines in America. With the inevitable development of tremendous unexploited resources in Central and South America under Catholic influence, and the almost superhuman effort of that body to take North America for itself—if it should succeed —religious liberty would soon be gone for all of us. I can clearly see in the next few years the removal of the seat of Catholic power from Rome to the United States. I sincerely believe that our coming battle at home as well as in new fields is not against the impoverished doctrines of denomi- nationalism, but against the falseness of the Roman Catholic Church.
Jesus, standing at the door of the New Testament age, said 10 his disciples, “Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest? Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields that they are white already unto harvest. He that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal.”
Christ is dead in the hearts of men. He needs to be reborn and crowned Lord and King. Mankind is in need of the comfort that only the Sc.iiptures can bring. Had Jesus neglected the Father’s business, we would all have died in sin. If we neglect it, countless millions may yet die in sin, as though Jesus had never come to earth. Our Emancipation Proclamation was written in blood two thousand years ago. Today it is our responsibility as ambassadors of God to an nounce the fact to the slaves of Satan who perish in shackles because they have never heard the gospel of their salvation. As a glorious army, inarching in the strength of our God, let us break the pitchers of our own slothfulness that the light of the glorious gospel may shine in a land that is still shrouded in night! Let us raise a shout that can be heard around the world that life and immoitafity have been brought to light by the gospel! Then, and then alone, can we expect the hosts of evil to flee in consternation. Then men who all their lives have been subject to bondage shall look heavenward, and their lips move with a prayer of thanks giving for a new found freedom.