The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 08, August, 1889 — John Shaqi
The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 08, August, 1889Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 08, August, 1889
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
_Fifth._--Every woman who thinks there are worthy young men trying to
prepare themselves for ministerial or missionary work whose struggle
with poverty ought to be relieved.
_Sixth._--Every woman who would welcome for her own children, if she
were living in some Godless community, the Sunday-school missionary and
the books, papers, lesson helps, prayers and Christian songs which make
the Sunday-school a place of blessed influences.
If there be in any Christian church a woman who will respond to none of
these calls for service to the extent of a moderate annual membership
fee, say twenty-five cents, she has missed the true import of the Gospel
and has never entered into its most blessed privileges. Let us assume
that there is no such, but that rightly approached, every woman worthy a
place in the church will be willing to enroll herself into at least the
passive membership of the local society.
II.--The management of this new membership, presumably uninformed,
indifferent, possibly prejudiced, will require familiar acquaintance
with our six benevolences, sympathy with them all, much practical
wisdom, good courage, and the spirit of I Corinthians, 13th chapter.
The _President_ must do more than preside at the meetings. She must plan
every detail; must know beforehand what hymns, what Scripture lesson,
who shall lead in singing and in prayer, what reports, what letters,
what original papers, what selections, what business. Everything must be
carefully planned and written down, yet there must be withal a certain
amount of elasticity of management, so that the timid question may be
answered, the objection removed, the enthusiasm expressed. The President
will welcome strangers and greet the diffident and neglected. She will
not be _surprised_ at seeing anybody at the meeting. It was reasonably
to be expected.
The _Secretary_ will do more than keep the minutes of the meetings. She
will not forget the proper public announcement of the meetings and will
add special invitations to such as may not feel themselves included in
the general. She will send for such printed helps as are needed for use.
She will fill out distinctly and promptly such blanks as are needed for
Conference, State or other Reports, and her quarterly and annual
reports will be helpful from their information and their inspiration.
The _Treasurer_ will do more than passively receive what is brought to
her hands. She will see that no one is overlooked when a canvass is made
for any object; that pledges are redeemed; that the way is made easy for
the poor to give without embarrassment and the rich without ostentation.
She will see that all moneys are forwarded as designated and that _they
go through the State Treasury_.
But the highest qualification any local officer can possess, is the
ability to transfer members from the passive to the active list. Some
practical hints toward this result maybe gathered from the following
suggestions:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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