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Show Laymen Not Doing Their Full Duty in the Work of the Church By LEON C. PALMER, Secretary Brotherhood of St Andrew. THE laymen of the church today constitute our greatest undeveloped undevel-oped resources. They are not working as they should. It takea 111 Episcopalians a whole year to bring one person into the church if latest statistics are correct. Ninety per cent- of the church work is done as a rule by 10 per cent of the members. Our real problem is employing the unemployed, getting idle Christians and nominal nom-inal members to accept personal responsibility for definite Christian service. Thousands of Christians today have a merely negative religion, a futile piety. They are good, but good for nothing. They are nonentities nonenti-ties so far as definite service to the church is concerned. We join in singing the great martial hymns, "Onward, Christian Soldiers," "Ye Soldiers of the Cross," etc., but too often it is not a church army going forth to battle but like a hospital with a large number of patients and a few overworked nurses. Many rectors are kept so busy nursing the sick Christians that they have no time left for going out into the highways high-ways and hedges to constrain others to come in. Our churchmen are inclined to say, "Let George do it," George being be-ing the rector. We have looked upon our clergy as men whom we have employed and pay to do our religious work for us, just as we employ a stenographer or file clerk, a policeman or janitor. The church is not growing as it should. This applies to practically all Christian bodies. Latest statistics show that nearly one-third of the parishes and congregations of the four largest Protestant bodies reported not a single conversion during the last year. Lay Evangelism is today the greatest need of the church as a solution for this situation. |