“The Church in the Northwest”—L. D. Webb

“The Church in the Northwest”—L. D. Webb “THE CHURCH IN THE NORTHWEST”
Lecture by L. D. Webb, February 21, 1950, at Abilene
Christian College (3:15 p. m.)

Thank you, Brother Adams. Friends, it is a sincere pleasure for Mrs. Webb and me to attend the Abilene Christian College Lectureship. It has been some nine years since we have had the pleasure of attending one of these lectureship programs. We have always been thrilled when we have had the opportunity to return and associate with our Christian brethren and to hear the wonderful sermons and lectures that stir our hearts.

It’s a joy for me to talk with you on the subject, “The Work of the Church in the Northwest.” The Northwest includes a large area: Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Montana, and Wyoming. Also I should include Canada and Alaska. There is a passage of scripture in the New Testament that somewhat describes and depicts to our minds the condition of the church in the Northwest today. At the opening of this address I would like to quote that passage. Luke says in Acts 9:31, “The church throughout all Judea, and Galilee, and Samaria had peace being edified and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit was multiplied.” Of course, I would be too overoptimistic if I tried to lead you to believe that the church ig growing as rapidly there as it was in New Testament times; however, during the last “ten years the church has enjoyed a steady growth. I went to the Northwest to preach the gospel eleven years ago. My first work was with the church in Pocatello, Idaho. I was the only fulltime supported evangelist in Idaho at that time. Otis Gatewood was the only evangelist supported in Utah. There were a very few “full-time” evangelists throughout the whole Northwest country. The church has made considerable progress during the past eleven years, both in a physical and in a spiritual sense. I am not going to talk with you about the outside problems the church is confronted
with in the Northwest because they are very similar to those the church is confronted with here in the South. I want to confine my remarks this afternoon to three phases of development within the church. First, the unity of the church.

I. Unity Among Churches
Eleven years ago when I went into the Northwest there was a lack of unity among the churches. There were many churches that did not accept a man who had attended a Christian college or who believed in supporting an orphan home. Many of these were influenced by Daniel Sommer and his paper. These divisions have gradually decreased until now the churches throughout the Northwest are working together in unity and in harmony. The past four years the Central Church of Christ in Portland has been conducting some special fellowship meetings the last part of December. We have seen the interest grow every year in these meetings. This past year 28 congregations and 30 gospel preachers from three states and Canada were present. The cooperation and the fellowship that we are enjoying together in these meetings are certainly evident that the church is becoming more unified.

Another example of this unity is the Puget Sound En-campment sponsored by the Northwest church in Seattle, Washington. They have had some of the Texas brethren who specialize in the organizational work of the church to attend these encampments. Brother Otto Foster and Brother J. P. Sewell have delivered a series of lectures on the work and organization of the church. Congregations from many parts of the Northwest have attended these lectures and have cooperated together to make such meetings possible. The lectureship that is conducted each year in Caldwell, Idaho, is attended by many leaders, elders, deacons, and gospel preachers from over the Northwest. I remember the first lectureship conducted in Caldwell some eleven years ago; only about six or seven preachers attended. This past year 25 preachers attended that lectureship.

Another evidence of the unity of the church in the Northwest was the great Vanport flood that we had in Portland on May 30, 1948. Many of you read or heard about it. I am sure that you know of the great disaster that occurred there. Eighteen thousand people were left homeless within 40 minutes. A number of people were drowned and possessions were destroyed. We saw evidence of unity, brotherly love, and Christian fellowship in the cooperation! given by the churches during the flood. When the elders of the Central church in Portland decided that they would take the oversight of administering aid to the flood-stricken people, the congregations in the Northwest rallied to our support. The response was so great and so prompt that we are still amazed at what was accomplished. Some churches telegrammed money to us, others sent food and clothing. Quantities of food and clothing came in by truck and by train from California, Texas, and other places. We turned the Sunday school rooms into a relief headquarters in order to assist the great number of people who came daily for help. Of course, brethren all over the nation cooperated with us in this work, but had it not been for the splendid unity and cooperation of the congregations in our immediate vicinity, we would have been without food and supplies because of the great immediate demand. The Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and the Army itself could not begin to supply the need, because they were unprepared for such a great disaster. Through the assistance of you good brethren down here in the South and from all over the country, some $15,000 were distributed to needy families for medical supplies and for other necessities that were demanding and pressing at the time. More than a train load of clothing was given to these people. For the members of the church that lost their homes or lost their possessions in the flood, we were able to make a down payment on a home. A number of people own their homes today as a result of the church helping them get the start during that great flood. As a result of the church’s helping those flood-stricken people, we have seen a number of souls obey the gospel of Christ. Some of the strongest and most active members of the church in Portland today were contacted during the flood. Many have left Portland and this past holiday season we received cards expressing appreciation for what the churches of Christ had done for them during that disaster.

Recently I received a letter from Brother Boyd Field in Juneau, Alaska. Several congregations in Alaska have asked him to secure the services of a gospel preacher to conduct gospel meetings for them. We have six congregations in the territory. Brother Field wrote and asked if I would be interested in coming since the Central church is sponsoring the work in Fairbanks, Alaska. He states that there is peace and harmony in the church throughout the territory.

I like to mention the good things about the church because I know that it encourages people. Of course, we have our weaknesses, our shortcomings, and we are diligently striving to overcome them; however, we need to rejoice and thank God for the unity of the church in the Northwest, because it is a great blessing to the cause of Christ.

II. The Leadership of the Church
Ah, there is a great need for leadership in the Northwest, because the churches are so small and few in number. It just thrilled my heart last evening when my wife and I came through El Paso, Texas, and started down Highway 80 toward Abilene, because in every little town we came through we saw a church of Christ. We saw the church signs on the highway and we saw the buildings on the highways; they are no longer on the back streets in small buildings like they were ten, years ago. You can travel through the Northwest and you may be surprised because you won’t see a church of Christ building in every little town; you will do well if you can find one in the larger cities. Some of our friends from Texas come out to Oregon, and they are disappointed because the churches out there are so few and so far between. We need to realize that the Northwest is still a great mission field. We have hardly scratched the surface. We only have five small congregations in Portland, and we need fifty-five congregations to have one congregation for every 10,000 people in the city. Had it not been for the relief work of the Van- port flood and the benevolent work that the church did in adopting a number of children which has brought publicity to the congregation, it is doubtful if the church of Christ would be known in the city of Portland. As a result of the active'work of the congregation many of the business men, lawyers, judges, and prominent citizens of the city know about the good work and often speak to me of it. The charitable and benevolent work that the congregation has been doing has gained place in the headlines of our papers, and on prominent radio news broadcasts. These things have been accomplished because of the efficient eldership the Central congregation in Portland enjoys. However, leadership is lacking in many churches throughout the Northwest.

Many times congregations here in the South will send an evangelist out into the Northwest to establish a congregation. He preaches a few sermons, baptizes a few people, and maybe the congregation will even go so far as to make a down payment on a building. Then the sponsors withdraw their support and send it elsewhere, thus leaving a little struggling group of Christians without an evangelist, without eldership and deacons. Oh, that makes the situation difficult. These brethren struggle along the best they can. Well, that’s the picture as it has been in the past, but I’m happy to report that in many instances now the churches are developing leadership and some of the congregations have a very efficient and working eldership. Also the moving into the Northwest of faithful brethren who love the Lord and lost souls has alleviated the condition of leadership considerably. We have had a number of men who were well qualified elders here in the South to give up their businesses, move into the Northwest, go into business, and there work as elders of the church. It is a great thing when men and women love God and love the church enough that they are willing to do a thing like that. We have also had some fine evangelists to come into the Northwest recently. Brother C. M. Cuthbertson who left his work in Amarillo, Texas, has moved to Salem, Oregon, and is doing a splendid work. The church building is filled at every service and people are obeying the gospel. Then we have Brother Omer Bixler at Mosesi Lake, Washington, doing a splendid work there in this growing mission field. Moses Lake is part of the one million acre irrigation project in the Columbia River Basin now being developed. The arid land will be watered from the Grand Coulee Dam and this will result in hundreds of families moving there. His work is progressing and growing and worthy of our prayers and support. Brethren Clinton Storm of Eugene, Oregon, Arlie Moore at Cottage Grove, C. B. Henry at Bend, Oregon, and a number of other evangelists have come recently to the Northwest to assist us in the Lord’s work, but we need more faithful evangelists, elders, and deacons. Of course, it is the responsibility of the church to develop this eldership and to train men for the leadership. Sometimes brethren are disappointed when they move into our section of the country, because they were elders down there, and they expect to come right into the congregation and be elders in the Northwest. The preaching that we have had in the Northwest during the last few years by faithful gospel preachers has pointed out the Bible qualifications for elders and deacons. The church has been greatly aided along this line by Otto Foster and others who have come to preach and lecture for us. As a result of this preaching and teaching the churches in the Northwest are no longer accepting just any man or hobbiest for the eldership. Brother Channing mentioned that England had become a dumping ground for all kinds of radicals and hobby riders as far as their literature is concerned. Well, the Northwest in the past has not only been the dumping ground for hob- biests’ literature but for the men themselves. We have had men come and teach that there is no judgment, all kind of hobby riders, and men with other erroneous theories. to promote. The churches are now becoming aware of these things, and they are demanding of the leadership a high standard. They also are demanding that they set the right sort of example. Brother Earl Smith, one of the elders at the church in Portland, moved to Oregon a few years ago. He came right in and took an interest in the work. The brethren saw that he seemingly was a well-qualified man for the eldership. They got together and decided that they needed more elders and asked him if he would serve. When it was announced to the congregation, a large per cent of the congregation objected to Brother Smith being an elder, even though he had served as an elder down here, simply because Brother Smith used tobacco. The members of the church in the Northwest demand that the eldership set the right sort of an example for children and for all Christians, so they obpected to his appointment. Brother Smith said, “I have used tobacco all of my life. I don’t know whether I can quit it or not. Just give me a few weeks and I’ll do all I can to quit.” He went to the Lord in prayer and through the help of God he was able to put it aside, and today he is one of the most active leaders of the church anywhere in the Northwest serving faithfully as an elder of the church.

Yes, in the Northwest Christians demand leaders to be examples. They demand it of preachers, too. We are interested in having more faithful and loyal gospel preachers come into the Northwest, but when you come we want you to live what you preach. We want you to live the Christian life and set the right sort of an example. I think you will find most of the congregations in the Northwest demanding that you do. We also need leadership that has the determination to stick with the work. Stable leadership! Sometimes we get men to come in to the Northwest that do not stay very long. They come there for a year or two and maybe the support falls off a little bit or the work doesn’t grow as fast as they had expected, or they do not baptize a great number of people immediately, so they become discouraged and back to the South they come. What we need is men who will come with a determination to stay! Men who come to work and to build the church regardless of what it takes, even if their support does drop off. We need men who are willing to go to work with their own hands that the church might progress if outside support should fail. Now an example of this is Boyd Field in Juneau, Alaska. He and his wife went there six years ago to help start the congregation. An evangelistic campaign closed with only four souls baptized, but the Fields stayed to work with that very small congregation. They went along just splendidly for a while, but finally the churches back here in the States that were supporting them let their support drop off. Boyd Field didn’t pack up his grip and come on back to the States. He just rolled up his sleeves, went out there to a sawmill and got a job and went to work. And as a result of staying with that congregation today they have a beautiful $15,000 building, about 35 members, and the other day Brother Field wrote that eight or ten outsiders are present at every service. Not only that, their church building is so nice the public schools have been using the basement in which to conduct a kindergarten. It’s a fine building, a substantial building, and the work is progressing and growing as a result of Brother and Sister Field’s stability. Other examples are Robert Boyd and Raymond Skelton in Fairbanks, Alaska. Their support has dropped off, yet they are staying right there with the church. The cause of Christ in that vicinity is growing also.

III. Columbia Bible School
We know it’s the duty of the church to develop and promote its leadership, and we also know that it is the duty of the parents to train up their children in the way that they should go (Ephesians 6:1-4). The schools in the Northwest are much more worldly than the schools here in the South, because there are more Christians in this part of the country. Now it is the duty of Christian parents to see that their children have an education, but that education should not lead them away from the faith nor destroy their love for God and the Bible. Paul to Christian parents in Ephesians 6:4, said, “Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." Columbia Bible School was started in Portland, Oregon, in 1947 in order to assist the home in its education of young people. We saw much worldliness and infidelity being taught in the public schools and in their textbooks. Young people who attend the public schools, especially high school are required to dance. Dancing is one of the courses in the curriculum, and all young people must take a gym class of dancing. We have lost many of our young people to the world for they have become indifferent as a result of the worldliness and extravagance learned in the Portland schools. A group of Christian parents got together and said, “If we can’t have in the city schools the type of school that we believe our children should have, we will establish our own. We are going to give our children the right sort of training regardless of the cost. We don’t want to see them lose their faith and drift off into modernism and infidelity.’’ The other day while I was preaching in a meeting out on the West Coast, a young man who used to be a member of the church of Christ and also had preached some, came into the services and handed me a letter. He had been taking some philosophy and education at one of the colleges. The letter says, “I do not affiliate myself with any known organized group and I stand solely as a child of God through and on the teachings of the only one who taught truth, living truth and of himself was truth because he was God in man, Jesus of Nazareth.’’ He believed that Jesus Christ was the only one that taught truth. It further says, “I charge that some of the teachings of the apostle Paul and that some of his commandments are at variance with the teachings of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament.’’ Much of the education today destroys the faith in some of our young preachers. This young man denies that Paul and Christ taught harmoniously in the great plan of salvation, but contends that they contradict each other. (See John 16:13; Galatians 1:1-12; 1 Corinthians 11:23 for the truth about harmony between Paul and Christ). The purpose and idea in back of our minds in starting Columbia Bible School was to help our children maintain their faith in God, in Jesus Christ, and in the Scriptures as the inspired word of God.

Columbia Bible School offers a high standard of education. All of our teachers are certified. We teach from the state adopted textbooks but we teach those things revealed in the textbook from the light of Christianity and do not teach infidelity and evolution that are sometimes found in such textbooks. We have at the present time the first eight grades. It is our plan to continue this instruction on through high school and into college work. After spending eight years bringing up young people in a Christian school, we do not need to turn them over to infidels after they get into high school and college. We need to continue their instruction that they might be firm, strong, and active workers wherever they go.

Now some have criticized the work of Christian education by saying that young people need to be exposed to temptation and sin and that teaching children the Bible from the first grade up has a tendency to prejudice their minds and hearts. My friends, such arguments are foolish, and they are just a fallacy. If we wanted our children to be exposed to sin and temptation, we could take them down to some cocktail lounge or beer joint and by just leaving them in there they would get plenty of temptation and exposure to sin. The Bible teaches that Christian parents are to nurture their children. They are to guide, shield, and protect their children until they can grow up and become strong enough to develop muscles where they can resist Satan, sin, temptation, and the extravagance of the world.

Columbia Eible School, some have said, is just a parochial school. Columbia Bible School is not a parochial school. Columbia Bible School is under the direction of & Board of Trustees made up of Christian business men in the Portland area. Columbia Bible School compared 'to a parochial school teaches true historical facts and not a blind history; it does not teach tradition, it does, not teach loyalty to some religious power in some other country. It does teach our children good citizenship, it builds strong character, and it teaches a separation between church and state.

Columbia Bible School is supported by tuition paid by the children and by individual contributions of Christian people who believe in and are interested in Christian education. Yes, we hope through the work of Columbia Bible School to do a similar work to what Abilene Christian College has done in Texas. We hope to do what some of our religious colleges have done in Tennessee. These schools have been a great aid to the home in developing and preserving the faith of our children and that’s exactly what we propose to do in the Northwest.

IV. Church Buildings
I want to say just a few words about buildings. It was mentioned a moment ago that the churches are building many new buildings. The lack of adequate facilities has been one of the great handicaps of the church throughout the Northwest. The cause of Christ is greatly hindered when there is the lack of facilities to teach the word of God. We see throughout the country many new buildings going up. There have been new buildings recently built in Fairbanks and Juneau, Alaska; in Salem, Oregon City, and Newberg, Oregon; as well as many other cities. We rejoice and thank God for the growth of the church throughout the Northwest.

Columbia Bible School plans a new building, in which we hope to add our high school and college work. Recently Columbia Bible School came into possession of a large tract of land in the city of Portland. It seemed like it was just a gift of God. We realize that under our present setup we did not have adequate ground nor room to develop. We began to look around for a place to have a campus and to build some buildings. We found a beautiful tract of land. Our blocks in length and one block wide out on North-east 90th and Glison Streets in Portland. When we began to look into the ownership of the land we found that the Portland General Electric Company back some 40 years ago had fallen heir to the property, but they didn’t know they owned it. The county had been using it some and because of this use no taxes were paid on it whatsoever. We contacted the Portland General Electric Company and Multnomah County and told them that we wanted to use this ground for educational purposes. They said, “If you can use it we’ll be glad to cooperate with you.” Because of the influence of the church in the city through flood relief, through the adoption of children and other things whereby the church was known in a favorable light, the county and the Portland General Electric Company gave us a deed. A clear title to this tract of land that would cost us approximately $20,000 has been received by the school. We hope soon to build on this land a fine fire-proof modern school building. Friends, we request your prayers in the work of Columbia Bible School and in the great work of the Lord’s church throughout the Northwest. I am just thankful to God that I’m living in this age. I thank God for the stir the gospel is making throughout the world, not only in the Northwest, but in. Italy, in Germany, in Japan, in the Philippine Islands, in Africa, and elsewhere. My plea is that we all consecrate ourselves unto God; let us live and serve God and his Christ; let us dedicate our souls to the cause of New Testament Christianity, because the world is open and ready to receive the gospel of Christ if we’ll go with the teachings of the Lord. Thank you.