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The Publishing Ministry
time for maintaining the spiritual interest. When this interest is kept
alive in the publishing house, it will exert a powerful influence in the
church; and when it is kept alive in the church, it will exert a powerful
influence in the publishing house. God’s blessing will rest on the work
when it is so conducted that souls are won to Christ.
All the workers in the publishing house who profess the name of
Christ should be workers in the church. It is essential to their own
spiritual life that they improve every means of grace. They will obtain
strength, not by standing as spectators, but by becoming workers.
Everyone should be enlisted in some line of regular, systematic labor
in connection with the church. All should realize that as Christians this
is their duty. By their baptismal vow they stand pledged to do all in
their power to build up the church of Christ. Show them that love and
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loyalty to their Redeemer, loyalty to the standard of true manhood and
womanhood, loyalty to the institution with which they are connected,
demands this. They cannot be faithful servants of Christ, they cannot
be men and women of real integrity, they cannot be acceptable workers
in God’s institutions, while neglecting these duties.
The managers of the institution in its various departments should
have a special care that the youth form right habits in these lines. When
the meetings of the church are neglected or duties connected with its
work are left undone, let the cause be ascertained. By kind, tactful
effort endeavor to arouse the careless and to revive a waning interest.
None should allow their own work to excuse neglect of the Lord’s
sacred service. Much better might they lay aside the work which
concerns themselves than neglect their duty to God.—
Testimonies for
the Church 7:187, 188
.
Investments in Publishing Houses [
Early Adventist institutions
were built with money exchanged for stock certificates. In time the
believers who held stock were either paid off by the corporations or
donated their shares. In most cases earnings on the stock was kept by
the institutions with the shareholder’s consent.
]—The Lord calls upon
His people to arouse and to show their faith by their works. In times
past, when our numbers were few, when those who were able felt it
their duty to take stock in our publishing house, their prayers and their
alms, the fruit of persevering, self-denying effort, came before God as
a sweet savor. Our brethren and sisters who have received the precious
bread of life brought to them in our publications should be even more