The Boy and the Sunday School: A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday School with Teen Age BoysAlexander, John L.
Religion
The Boy and the Sunday School: A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday School with Teen Age Boys
Alexander, John L.
Sunday schools
God works best through incarnation. When he wanted to tell men who he
was, what he was, and how he wanted men to live, he spoke through
prophets, priests, patriarchs, and kings, and the Old Testament writings
came to us this way. However, men did not seem to understand the
message, and for nearly four hundred years he ceased to speak. Then,
"in the fullness of time," he came himself in the person of his own
Son--born in the womb after the fashion of a human baby, passed through
boyhood in the likeness of a boy and on into manhood as a man--to teach
us who he was, what he was, and how he wanted us to live; and Jesus is
just God spelling himself out in human history in the language that men
understand. This is incarnation, and as he was compelled to pour himself
out into man to reveal himself to men, so men and women who have seen
him must literally pour themselves out--incarnate themselves--into the
lives of growing boys and girls if these boys and girls of the teen age
are to know him.
Leadership has always been the cry of the world and the Church, and the
history of both is written in biography. The Pharaoh, the Caesar,
Charlemagne, Peter the Great, William the Silent, Henry of Navarre,
Queen Elizabeth, Ferdinand and Isabella, Columbus, the Pilgrim Fathers,
Washington, Lincoln, and the names of the great on the world's scroll
of fame tell the world's story. The Christ, Peter, John, Paul,
Augustine, Savonarola, Huss, Wycliffe, Luther, Zwingli, Knox, Roger,
Williams, Wesley, Finney, Moody, Booth; and "what shall I more say? for
the time would fail me to tell of 'those' of whom the world was not
worthy," and whose splendid achievements fill out the glorious history
of the Church--these, all of these, in their life and effort constitute
the story of the Kingdom.
The story is not yet complete. Still the world writes its progress in
the names of its great ones. And yet, as always, the Church must look
for its progress to its Christ-kissed men and women. While teen age boys
and girls escape us at the rate of one hundred thousand a year, the need
for leadership is among us.
There is no boy problem. There is no girl problem. Boys and girls are
the same yesterday, today and forever. The processes of their developing
life are as the laws of the Medes and Persians, without change, eternal
as the hills. Like the poor, they are always with us. There is neither
boy nor girl problem; it is a problem of the man and a problem of the
woman. Leadership is the key that unlocks the door of the teen age for
the Church.
The need of the Sunday school in the teen age today is leadership. The
organized classes for men and women can solve the problem of the Church
among the teen age boys and girls. The number of teachers an organized
adult class produces is the measure of its ultimate usefulness in the
Kingdom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account