Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1915-11-11

CnrlStlanSen pastor OF the DANISH
Lutheran church of Audubon.
In a private letter of May twenty
fourth, 1915, DR.. G. H. Gerberding
wrote to one of his friends saying,
"Oh, how / wish that the Lord would
open the way for you to spend 1917
in the greatest Lutheran city in the
world! and of the largest number of
unchurched Lutherans in the world!
IL the Church could win Chicago, 1t
would mean the West; and that would
mean the winning of America" In
the same month and about the same
time the Rev. II. Douglas Spaeth in
an article on THE Lutheran Church
and Modern Evangelism" in the
American Lutheran Survey, after a
very able analysis, concludes with
this paragraph:
81 have long left that both for the
quickening of the spiritual life of
our own members and for the evan
gelization of the great mass of the un-
churched about us, methods consider
ably more vigorous and energetic than
any we are in the habit of employ
ing ought to be set into operation.
spirit and genius of our church surely
nothing unevangelical, in arranging
for special missions in our respective
communities, in which atservices con-
tinued during the week, and perhaps
for weeks at a time, the fundament-
al doctrines of Gods plan of saliva
ton shall be set forth with simplicity
and power. Such missions are actual
lu hnl
son in some of our larger cities with
the cooperation of all the churches
of our faith in the immediate vicin-
ity. They should be held wherever
at all practicable, and at frequent in
tervals.. They should be made as at
tractive as can be to the general pub
lie, they should encourage inquirers,
who seek further instruction. Their
existence and purpose should be made
known in every possible way to the
general public, by personal invitation
and public advertisement. A way
should be found to secure our strong
est, most attractive preachers, to con-
duct them, and the day may yet come
and for one would welcome 1t, when
our Church will train and call men
for this specific work, who shall be
evangelists pure and simple, rather
than pastors, fishers of men rather
than shepherds of gathered fiocks,
just as it now does, train and call
men for the work of inner missions
and for italize among men in our COL
leges and universities. In the same
sense in which st. Paul proclaimed
and practiced: Il am become all
things to all men if by any manner
l might save some we too ought to
be willing, and eager to become all
things to all men that we may bring
the true Evangel to all. This would
be a consistent attitude as well as a
convincing answer to Modern Evan
gelism."
The General Convocation of the
Episcopal Church appointed a COM
mission to send out a call for Ma
tion-Wide Preaching Mission" There
is no use denying the fact that there
has been some wrong with all three
branches of the Church on earth. The
Roman Catholic Church has done
very little for those parts of the world
in which she has had her greatest
sway except to keep her people in
ignorance. The Reformed division
has so split itself up into splinters of
sectarianism and has so revived IT.
self to death that the catechism has
been lost and the mourner's bench
set back, and the storms, external
and internal, have met and produced
such a cyclone that there is not much
of the saw-dust trail left. And with
all our Boosting of die refine Lehre"
and THE true Lutheran Church" and
Gods true visible Church on earth"
let us be honest enough to ask the
question and answer it: What would
be the condition of this world today,
If there were no other church on
earth than any one self-righteous
Lutheran synod, or all the Lutheran
synods united?" With all our boast
ing of numbers, what would become
of this poor lost world, If We Luther
ans had all the preaching to do, and
did not work harder at 1t In the fut-
ure than we have in the past? What
are we doing to gather up our I'M
churched Lutherans in our large cit
les? What is to become of the whole
world which is increasing faster in
numbers than the whole Christian
church, IL we do not wake up soon
and put to practice what we believe
and teach with an overwhelming pow
er the wonderful Gospel of Christ? 1t
may be humiliating, but 1t is true,
that there is something wrong with
us. We have the truth which the
world needs, but we have not done
our duty to reach the masses. Men
like Gerberding and Spaeth feel the
truth of this.
In view of these facts, let us pro-
coed to consider:
The Proper Evangelistic Methods Of
the Lutheran Church
/ shall lay down the following three
propositions for considerations:
/. The Lutheran Church cannot
work tremendously with professional
evangelism.
III. The Lutheran Church has a
perfect right to make use of the best
of the evangelists.
III. The Lutheran Church has the
best soul-winning method in the
world, il she will only use it.
l. The Lutheran Church cannot
work harmoniously with professional
evangelism. When / was boy we
used to go to Albright - church to
see the big meeting. My memory
takes me back about fifty years, and
I have no better way of explaining
professional evangelism than to give
the impression Of the things l have
seen and the results during the past
half century. The first big meeting
| ever attended made a wonderful
impression on my mind. 1t was win
ter and the sleighing was good and
the older boys and girls hitched up
the horses to a big sled and tied a
cowbell to the harness and l went