Churches of Christ -- Sermons; Sermons, American -- 20th century
I would have welcomed counsel and advice from those supporting me when I
was working in Richmond. There were about twenty different churches
supporting me—too many for me to confer with each of them to get advice
on questions that arose; and consequently in most instances I relied
only on my own judgment, which meant that the work was being directed by
the judgment of one young preacher rather than by the combined judgment
of some experienced group of elders. And nothing would have given me
greater encouragement than for a committee of elders of some church that
was supporting me to have spent a few days in Richmond studying the
situation and advising me on the problems which arose. There were times
when I wondered if the results being accomplished justified the money
being spent.
Of course, the money was well spent. For growing out of that work which
I entered twelve years ago there are now two self-supporting
congregations. One of them has a building completely paid for and
supports a full-time preacher. The other has a part-time preacher.
Coming from one of these congregations, a young man graduated from David
Lipscomb last spring and has gone back to Virginia to preach the gospel
in his native state. Another young man from one of these congregations
is now at Lipscomb preparing himself to preach the riches of Christ. On
the side, some work and encouragement were given at Norfolk, Virginia,
where there is now a growing and prosperous congregation. These
developments have come about in only twelve years. But I couldn’t see it
then. Oftentimes I became discouraged. If some one congregation had been
supplying all the necessary support and supervising the work, it would
have been very helpful to me.
But after all, friends, when you contribute only five or ten dollars per
month to a place, you are not likely to have a vital interest in the
work. To give you a concrete example, an elder and treasurer of a church
in Middle Tennessee which sent ten dollars each month to Richmond, year
after year, spent several days in Richmond on a social visit and didn’t
even come around to see what was being done. Well, they only had $10 per
month invested there and so they were not particularly interested. But
if they’d been spending $200 a month, paying the full salary of the man
on the job, then an elder who spent the week end in town would have
looked into the situation! Where a man’s treasure is, there will his
heart be also!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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