We were having lunch together in the works canteen when the conversation turned to religion.
“My son’s done a degree in electronics,” he said. “But he has decided against being an engineer. He got mixed up with a bunch of evangelical Christians at university, and thanks to them he’s decided to be a missionary. So now he’s doing his two years’ full-time course at Bible College before going overseas.”
After we had said goodbye I was left feeling very sad. They go out to preach an unhappy mixture of Bible truth and Papal error. Yet they spend two whole years of their lives training, so that they may preach effectively.
The Christadelphian approach is different. We give our missionaries no formal training at all; it would not accord with our traditional opposition to the use of professional teachers. Instead, we rely upon missionaries to train themselves in their spare time; after all they are going to preach in their spare time, so it is fitting that they should train that way, too.
This works well enough if—and only if — they live the life of enthusiastic Christadelphians for a few years before going overseas. Several years of regular reading The Bible Companion, reinforced by personal study and consistent attendance at ecclesial study classes will give any young brother or sister the equivalent of a college education in Bible Truth.
Yet knowing the Truth inside out is not enough. It goes without saying that they need to live the Truth, too. And they must also know how to preach it. There is only one way to learn this: by practice.
Local work
In ordinary ecclesial life there are great opportunities for learning the gentle art of preaching. Let’s consider two of them.
The first is in door-to-door canvassing. In an hour of knocking doors there is often more scope for talking about the Truth than in a month of ordinary living.
Some ecclesias have a regular weekly session of canvassing by their more active members. Their object varies from place to place. Some canvass to attract visitors to their meetings; others to ‘sell’ free subscriptions to Glad Tidings, or booklets, or correspondence courses; others again with a view to starting home Bible classes.
What’s that you said ? Your ecclesia doesn’t do this, worse luck. Don’t be downhearted. Surely you can find one other member of the ecclesia to join you in a regular weekly canvass. When you have found him, make a start, just the two of you.
Then after a week or two, let your recording brother know what is going on. (But take great care to tell him in a humble spirit, and avoid at all costs the air of, “Look how we’re putting the rest of you to shame!”). Ask him if you can have the ecclesia’s blessing and prayers on your work. Make it plain that you are not pressing others to join you, although any who wish to will naturally be welcomed.
Another fine way of learning on the job is by helping to run a home Bible reading group for interested friends. If you are young and inexperienced, don’t try to run one on your own, or solely with the help of others of your own age. Persuade an older brother to join you in the work, and take care to play second fiddle to him. That way you’ll learn both Bible facts and, in all probability, the virtues of patience and humility.
The ALS will give you a booklet by Brother Cyril Tennant, with advice on how to run these groups. They also supply printed and duplicated material for use by home study groups.
If you are a brother and live near London’s Hyde Park or Birmingham’s Bull Ring, be sure to make use of these open-air universities. Standing on a soap-box facing an excited crowd of hecklers, you will gain experience faster than anywhere else in the world.
Don’t be terrified by the prospect. Ask God for help and you’ll get it. And don’t forget that you will find yourself in similar situations (or worse) many a time in the mission field. You’ll find it easier to take the plunge in your home country, facing your fellow countrymen. It is bound to be harder if you postpone your first open-air barrage until you are out at Bungo Wungo.
Campaigning
Work in the mission field is more intense than at home. The public are generally better acquainted with the Bible and more receptive to our message. There is more work to be done, and fewer hands to do it. In some ways mission work is like one long vocational campaign.
If you have never spent a week on a campaign you may feel rather lost when you step off the plane into the hustle and bustle of the mission field. If you have spent a week on a campaign, you should know what a splendid training ground a well-run campaign can be. And in that case you will not need telling that regular attendance at campaigns at the very least one a year — is a must for every would-be missionary.
Campaigns are not what they used to be, of course. (Neither is anything else, in this fast changing world). Old-timers still remember when a normal day on a Scottish campaign went something like this:
9:00-10:00 a.m. Morning Bible study and prayers.
10:00 a.m.-noon. Billing, sandwich boarding (all the rage in those days) and canvassing. Canvassers would very probably find themselves invited in for a prolonged and vigorous doctrinal argument.
12 :30-1 :30 p.m. Lunch. Pocket Bibles lie open on the table. All eyes are on a veteran campaigner who is busy arranging three plates, two tumblers, a water jug and a salt pot to represent the marching order of Israel in the wilderness. It’s a jolly session of Bible talk, interrupted more by happy laughter than the sound of munching; the meal is spartan by modern standards, with food still rationed, but the spiritual fare is first-class.
2:00-5:00 p.m. A repeat of 9:00-noon.
5:00-6:00 p.m. Tea and talk.
7:00-10:30 p.m. Evening lecture, followed by supper. There are 34 strangers, five of whom stay to supper. Three of these seem to be heading straight for baptism. (Subsequently one slips back, but six months later the other two are baptized.)
Nowadays far fewer strangers attend. That’s their loss. There is not nearly so much spontaneous, happy Bible talk. That’s our loss. There are fewer lectures and more Bible exhibitions, more use of alternative forms of preaching. That’s our gain.
But the essential elements of a campaign have not changed much. There is still a great deal of serious Bible study and prayer, still a delightful warmth of fellowship, an atmosphere in which the seeds of lifelong friendship are often sown.
Above all, a campaign is still a place of intense dedication to the preaching of the gospel. Even now, on a campaign it is easy to forget the hectic world whirling by. Newspapers, radio, and T.V. are usually forgotten for a few days, while the job in hand takes all one’s prayerful energies.
And what better preparation for the mission field could you have than that?
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One