The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-01-09
That People Do Not
Go to Church.
VARIOUS ANSWE RS
10 a Very Vital Theme
Dr. Lewis Evening Sermon.

| Rev. Alexander Lewis of Pilgrim
church preached a particularly inter-
esting sermon to a good-sized congre-
Sation last evening. His topic was:
How to reach non-churchgoers."
Wednesday evening the pastor asked
members of his church to send him an
swers TO the question which was last
evenings subject, saying that he would
preach a sermon on those answers
Twenty-Five people replied and the
solutions of the question were full of
Doth sense and nonsense The an
sWers proved that no end of interest
was taken in the subject, and that
some people have ideas of their own
regarding the way to conduct the
church of today.
Rev. Lewis took for his text,
Luke, xiv:23: go out into the high
ways and hedges and compel them to
come i'm
How to reach on-churchgoers. the
speaker said, was an interesting topic
and that there were three classes of
churchgoers-those who attend regu-
larly those who never attend and those
VINO occasionally attend, and he asked
the question, How many have we in
Worcester of the latter kind? or, more
properly speaking, how many have we
IN the neighborhood of Pilgrim
Church,
He said if a canvass of the neigh
borhood was made and the question
asked. Do you attend church? the an
swer would invariably be, "Oh yes"
But II you question little more, one
would find that perhaps the head of
the family goes to church at Christmas
and Easter
Such people do not count as church
goers, said DR.. Lewis He said that
he found upon the records of Pilgrim
Church the names of Al persons who
belong to families that have been mem
bers of Pilgrim for years who do not
attend divine services regularly, and
that he personally knew of 100 per
sons who never enter the doors Of any
sanctuary He thought that 1900 non
church goers who resided within a ra-
dius of a half mile of Pilgrim Church
who remained away from Sunday SER
wees the year round, was q cNnserVa-
tive estimate.
In reply to his request for sugges-
tons and answers, he received three
letters that suggested praise services.
-Four people tersely said: Canvass
the neighborhood." Five gave personal
efort as their choice. Four suggested
advertising" and the balance was
divided as follows: Work through the
cnlloren, NO evening collection"
revival in the church, Preach
Christ" "Preach on live issues"
Prayer" Less of the world in the
church" Young mems Sunday eve
ming club" ''Socials and suppers,"
Church open every day." "a cordial
welcome to strangers'-- and have
services commence at $50 o'clock.
Following are some of the answers
which are well worth perusing:
Political TRADES from the pulpit
ana llSht opera from the choir will fill
a church every time, but I wouldn't
give a cent for the whole crowd.
THE only way for us to get hold Of
more people is to go after EN-. l know
this Us trites but it's all there is to il,
Let each live member select not a
whole block, but only one person. Let
him talk with that person, not to con-
vert him but to bring him to church
simply. OF course, there is no objec-
ton to repeating this very simple thing
an infinite number of times. Only,
under no condition think of more than
one person at once"