A glance through the “Ecclesial News” in the previous issues for this year will explain why that comment appeared in “Around the Ecclesias” (April, page 80), drawing attention to the importance of our Sunday school activities and the satisfaction gained by those of our community engaged in that essential work.
It may be that others, who are not involved with those duties, will find that matters of major importance to our ecclesias take place right on our doorstep, but in many comings and goings they are often overlooked.
We read in those brief factual reports of Prize-giving evenings, social events, and picnics being well attended and enjoyed; of plans for new and expansion of present accommodation for scholars’ needs; and, with particular interest, of the surprising results that follow the canvassing by some of our schools around their localities, whereby numbers of children from non-Christadelphian homes are enrolled in their classes.
These reports—and the results of examinations—are evidence of an efficient organization that has been built up for the running of our Sunday schools, with the recognition that it is the responsibility of each ecclesia to ensure that best efforts are made for the sound instruction and guidance of the children in their midst.
But reports alone, however well and ably presented, can never give the full picture of what happens in Our schools, because there is something alive and vital that will only be discovered by actual experience and contact, in seeing the bright and lovable young people grow responsive, and reveal the wonderful possibilities of development in a life of preparation for their inclusion in the kingdom of God.
The devoted teacher will often have the satisfaction of lasting, close-knit friendships with scholars and become their counsellor and guide in the Way of Life. Such scholars, in their later years, account today for the majority of new members in the ecclesias, where they in their turn will guard and pass on the Truth they learned from qualified teachers devoted to their task.
It is a prospect that calls for the ecclesia to make it a prior purpose to attract their young people into a warm association with the brethren and sisters, and find that their children are real joy-bringers, with their simple unaffected expressions of confidence and esteem to their elders, a heart-warming experience that prompts the return of solicitous care and interest.
The importance and value of our schools is here seen in that, while providing tuition for the child, the ecclesia is ensuring a payback of new vitality and life, with the further advantage of having in their ranks a group of influential teachers to help in other activities with their training, experience and knowledge for the good of all.
But there is the need, while reviewing the importance and benefits, to realize that the teachers also bear a grave responsibility that calls for our support and encouragement, especially from the parents of their scholars. They have to combat and counteract the pressure most young people are today subject to from a powerful world. It ends sometimes in sad disappointment and loss when the young mind is swayed over to the preference and following of its own way in the world rather than that of Christ’s.
This serious and disturbing problem of every school staff led an experienced teacher—and mother—to speak of her fears about the modern trends our young people are showing, and asks—most searchingly—”Do we love our children?” Her replies are a shocked, “Of course we do . . . don’t we give them the best of everything? . . . spending on them right and left . . which brought the critical comment that “there is the crux of the problem; we are having a life of luxury and our thinking is obviously becoming distorted . . . our wealth is the ‘treasure within our lives’—a pearl of great price, and we are overlooking it, allowing our children to be more interested in the material things of life and forgetting the greater need for spiritual security…
How important? How satisfying? Just see the answers in our teenagers who have freedom from fear and the promise of Eternal Life because they always had mental security with love and guidance.
Fellowship with the Maker and Brethren