Chapter 35—Assimilating New Members
Ministers who stir up an interest, but leave the work in the
rough, may need to be laid aside—Ministers should teach that all
who accept the truth should bring forth fruit to the glory of God. They
should teach that self-sacrifice must be practiced every day; that many
things which have been cherished must be yielded; and that many
duties, disagreeable though they may appear, must be performed.
Business interests, social endearments, ease, honor, reputation,—in
short, everything, must be held in subjection to the superior and ever-
paramount claims of Christ. Ministers who are not men of vital piety,
who stir up an interest among the people, but leave the work in the
rough, leave an exceedingly difficult field for others to enter and finish
the work they failed to complete. These men will be proved; and if
they do not do their work more faithfully, they will, after a still further
test, be laid aside as cumberers of the ground, unfaithful watchmen.—
Testimonies for the Church 4:317
.
Give new members something to do—Those who are most ac-
tively employed in doing with interested fidelity their work to win
souls to Jesus Christ are the best developed in spirituality and devotion.
Their very active working formed the means of their spirituality. There
is danger of religion losing in depth that which it gains in breadth. This
need not be, if, in the place of long sermons, there is wise education
given to those newly come to the faith. Teach them by giving them
something to do, in some line of spiritual work, that their first love will
not die but increase in fervour. Let them feel that they are not to be
carried and to lean for support on the church; but they are to have root
in themselves. They can be in many lines, according to their several
abilities, useful in helping the church to come nearer to God, and work-
ing in various ways to act upon the elements outside the church which
will be a means of acting beneficially upon the church.—
Evangelism,
356, 357
.
213