The Ohio Independent Baptist, January 1961

THOSE STATISTICS AGAIN 1 , e.,r ,, c ,,•r< te '" t 1tist h . , .in Be:: l , u• :\ ith rl, l,'-'I 1t n1 i.gl1t heir> l ur "i1u, h It.: ,, l1{n ic t.1n1c cin,c t() n1.1kc cl1 1 0 rtp<tt lut tht\ c1tl1cr "i1<.l ,, lr e t r <. \ <.'r n1c.::r .1.: "- 1.1tu)n.1l c.lerk. l c.) c~ t) kc: 'te. u.. t,l t{) h.1rn1on11c che1r c ) t Bn.)tl1cr i 1n1 l;.1lt tl1d not feel he u ~ht to do tl1.1t. l C\ er .11 n1.1y h~ve • " nc .1, "'ne c. lerk .11 l l1e d1tl- le-.1\ e out .. 111e n1 ne, r<. 111 tl1e t1r t three columns bt't ,n lu 1e ,c tinder tc.1t.1l He !,d 1c be- .,u"e l1e ,...i1d n t cl11nk all cot1ld be cla i– fieJ • . ~ current e ·pen e. bu1l<iing. or mis– .. ion.. 1-he n1oney had attually been given, but 1c :i11..i not een1 co fit our three cate– gor1e ~ .. A "e Look over the reports. " 'e have a feeling that only the mis 1onar,T report is accurate enot1gh to boa t about. It might be too lo" 1t educational and associational g1\-1ng "a not included: but the only way 1t could be too high co any appreciable ex– tent " ·ould be for the pastor's salarv or local benevolence to be counted as missions, '\\ hich ,ve doubt. It is wonderful to see our missionary giving go over the half million mark. and all the more when v. 1 e consider that only 94 churches reoortei. If all 12; chv rches " 'ould see the importance o f letting their missionary light shine, it might ha\·e been close to 600,000. .... Ho"·ever. our financial testimony is not "-'Orth much if a glance tells the reader chat it 1s nor accurate. Why shou ld it not be) If some churches have untrained clerks and treasurers. " rho do che best they can, but do not know how co make out reports , " "hy cannot their pastors help chem? We have ofren had to render such helo before the annual church meeting and also at re– port time. and checked for errors and for padding. Happy che pastor who does not have to do that! Yet we doubt chat the cause of our trouble is mainly in poor local book-keep– ing. It stems from the failure of both clerks and pastors to understand what we really want. We ask for monies received rather than spent to stabi lize ot 1 r building fund reDOrts and enable churches to report their giving to that fund each year anrl not Just when they build. Yet what shall we do "·ich monies received from the sa le of property or from fire insurance or a bank loan? Last year we opi ned ( though some may disagree ) that we should report sales' money, and we suppose that insurance money would fall into the same category; but that we should not report borrowed monev. Our reason was that such money "Tould be reported again as the loan was paid off. Some must have forgotten that rule. Then church treasurers usually in– clude balances on hand at the beginning of the year, and it would be easy for the clerk to include them in the associational report. In the case of the building fund that might be considerable. For our pur– poses such balances should be subtracted, for they were reported the year before. The confession of the clerk that he did not know how to rePort certain offerings reveals another need Some churches do not consider gifts to schools or associations as missions. What we need is an educational column and another for our associat ions. ()ur ' 1 tc>t.\l" t()lun1n nli!4ht, ell l1c d1~r>c11s– c\l ,,1tl1 If tl1c. (ottnltl <>f Ten, ou ld ltgrcc llO \l)nlC \tmr.,lc rule~ ,llld r>r1nt them ll( the tt)l) l)t the retJOrt. ,, c l1rc u rc c>ur st._\– t1~t1cs ,, <.>uld become more l1ccuratc and n'lc)rC cht1rthcs ,v(>u Id be encouraged to send thcn1 1n Tl1e l1cac.l1ng l1ou ld appear tn bc>l<l letter "D N 'T l~ILL OU1 1 UN– TIL YOU HAVE READ THE RULES! .. Hitherto the Lord Hos Led By Ralph T. N ord/1,nd H itherto the Lord has led Church a nd people through the years, Blessed the breaking of the bread, ancti fied our joys and tears. God's own guiding hand we see, His the praise for victory; Lord of hosts, lead o n again; We would follow in Thy train! Ebenezer here we raise, Mo nument to battles won; God has helped us through our days, Owned our service for His Son. H ere have souls been saved from si n, Here God's peace has entered in; Lord of hos ts, save souls again As we follow in Thy train! H i therto the Lord has led, Error's forces flee apace; till we preach the Blood Christ shed, t ill we herald matchless grace. T urn we now to battles new, Face the future strong and true; Lord of hos ts lead on again; We would follow in Thy train! ( Can be sung to "Safely Through Another Week. ) PREACHING ONE'S WAY THROUGH SCHOOL "Pastor, is there some way to shorten my t raining for the ministry? I chink I can get most of my h igh school work in two years, and then I wane two years at Bible school. What about Moody?" It was his ser– mon on home missionary work that had led me to offer m yself for servi ce, and so I namrally went co him. I should have known what he would say, si nce he was a well educated man and a retired Presbyterian m 1ss1onary from Brazil. He told me chat if I wou ld go to the academy at H uron College, I could very l ikely finish hig h school in three years, but tha t I ID\' sc also plan co take four vears of college and three of seminary education ..Bu e, pastor ,'' I cried, "chat will take ten vears, and the world may go to hell be– fore that. I must get out there and save sou ls!" "The years will go by quickly," he said. "Before you know it you will be through, and you will be able to do much more for the Lo rd in the years you ha,re left than you would without a good education." Well , the first pare of his advice was good, and I went to Huron College with $600 in my pocket, money I had gotten from a field of barley. If I spent $300 a year, I might get through my two years of high school. The only trouble was that with utmost carefulness I still spent $400, J nunry, 1961 anll ~ot a taste of lcarni ng chat mac.le m<.: \.V'"tnt a f u 11 high school cou rsc and at l<."'ast one year of college. Then after fin– l!'i l11 ng high school 1n three yc.,ars, I drcam– <.'{l of two years 1n coll ege l)cfore goi ng to Moody. and after my first yea r at ioux Falls allege Dr. Earle V Pierce gave me a scho la rship and I would have to take ad– vantage of 1c an<l take four years there. Bc– s1<les, now I no lo nger d reamed of goi ng to Moody, but to a regular semi nary instead which meant three more years at best. ' The question was how I was goi ng to make it. Was I to do it by working as a carpenter at 5 a day each summer, or shou ld I preach? Our Baptis t state secre– tary, Dr. S. P . Shaw, wanted to send me to Wag ner in the sum.mer of 1921 co re– open a closed church . H e guaranteed me $75 a month and a free room in the old parsonage. "After all," he said , "the only way to learn co preach is to preach.' ' It meant, so far I could figure, that I would only save enough to buy a much needed sui t and pay my first month's room a nd board bill the next September, but God had called me to preach, so preach I must. WAS IT WORTH IT? N o, it never pays in dollars and cents to preach one's way through school, when there are better paying secular jobs; but I am sure I learned more that summer about the ministry than I ever have in three months time since. Dr. Shaw gave me a copy of Pendleton 's Baptist Manua l and a novel called Clementine. It was supposed to make me a good Baptist and guard me from the wiles of the Campbellices. Why didn't he give me a book o n how to make pastoral calls, and then a book of sermon outlines? I soon wished he had . I learned to call on old ladies ( and younger ones) by walking around the block to screw up courage co ring the door bell. No fooli ng, I did that more than once! I learned how co select and expound texts by reading my N ew Testament until I found a text that impressed me with possibilities, and then by trying to write a sermon on it. If I failed , I would start reading where I left off , until I fou nd one that thrilled me so much I could preach oo it. One week I read until la te Saturday night before I could find even my Sunday morning cext. I wro te an introduction and trusted to in– spiration to finish the rest . Tha t Sunday evening I used the outline I failed on so badly in Sioux Falls ( as to ld last month ) . It was a lonely, difficult summer, but I won a young boy to Christ and had the pri,Tilege of calling in an ordained minister to baptize a Catholic woman who was con– verted reading her Bible. My only recrea– tion was walking in my calling, which sometimes took me four, five, seven and ten miles out in the country. What a won– derful time to en joy the beauties of nacure, commune with God, memorize Bible verses, and even to think up poetry. Some preach– ers would be better servants of God if they walked more and took more time to think! There is no need of telling of my other experiences in preaching myself through school. Whether it was out in the bad– lands of South Dakota rwo other summers, or a whole school year in my future wife's · home church, o r two years as a young mar– ried preacher in Wisconsin, or eighteen months in Chicago, the value of it was the