The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-03-28

bOI lll0.
The secret of the Young Mems
Club is the secret of the Y. P. G. u,
the giving of each something to do,
and that, too, in place where he
will do it. We may theorize as much
as we will about young men and say
that they ought to work in the old
lines, but that does not alter the fact
that they will not always do it, and
that in the new way they will work.
So a work must be found that is
not being done by any other organ
ization and one which specially ap-
peals to young men. just what that
shall be depends upon the circum
stances. But as a rule the most sue
cessful place is the Sunday evening
service. For years this service has
been sort of tail on the end of an
otherwise successful day. Many
churches, especially liberal ones,
gave up the evening service entirely.
What wonderful change has been
wrought in this respect in the last
few years through the agency of the
Young Mems Club Now many of
our churches are filled to overAowing
Sunday evenings to listen to serv-
ice filed with value and attractive
power. l never appreciated the diff
ference as thoroughly as I did the
other day when the trustees of our
church were discussing the plan that
the Young Mems Club had proposed,
of having one Sunday evening service
for young men only. The older ones
and the ladies were feeling aggrieved
that they were to be debarred from
attending. At last one of the trust
ees spoke up and said: swell, this is
different from what it used to be
when we could not be compelled to
come out in the evening; now we do
not want to be kept away" 1t may
seem to some that the pastor could
have made this change by himself.
And yet did he not try it? Have not
some of the noblest efforts of the pull
pit fallen upon empty pews in the
good old days!
Well, what has been done7 Freely
speaking, the evening service has
been given over to the oung men to
manage. 1t is their service and they
take the responsibility as we'll as the
glory of it. They do the ushering as
an organization, having their head
usher who trains the others in their
work. They take the collection and
it belongs to them, and so they are
interested in keeping it up to high
point. Our club has arranged with
the Trustees to keep the collection,
and have agreed to pay the Church
Treasurer $2.00 Sunday towards the
choir. If the collection should fall
short of the amount the Club treas
ury has to make it up. But so far
that has never occurred with us. In
fact they have far exceeded that and
will average twice that amount. The
Club also pays for any special attrac
tion, music or speaking; pays for any
extra advertising, furnishes invita-
ton cards to all of the services, which
have printed upon them the Profess
sion of Faith, etc. These invitation
cards are put in envelopes each Satur-
day and are given out to the guests
of our leading hotels.
: The club has three committees, one
to take charge of the special music,
etc, another to do the ushering and
a third to provide program for
the regular monthly meetings. The
monthly meetings are most helpful
in every way. The first hour of the
evening is spent in reports of officers
and committees, and in discussing
the evening service, the welfare of
young men in our city and the pros
perity of the church in general.
must say that l never have attended
more valuable and inspiring meet
ings than these. The best part of it
being that many of those who are
helpful in these meetings are among
those who few months ago were
only half interested in the work. l
invite them to freely discuss the
character of the sermons which have
been delivered and ask them for sug-
gestions in regard to future work.
In this way | come in close contact
with the young men and get valuable
help. Some of the special features
we have had SO far are as follows;
Rabbi Hect, of Milwaukee, who
crowded the house and gave very
helpful sermon; male quartettes,
either playing, piccolo, violin, service