The Minister and the Boy: A Handbook for Churchmen Engaged in Boys' WorkHoben, Allan
Religion
The Minister and the Boy: A Handbook for Churchmen Engaged in Boys' Work
Hoben, Allan
Boys; Church work with children
For such reasons it is important that the implications of discipleship
be made very plain to the boy, and this in terms of specific conduct in
the home, at school, on the playground, at work, and in all the usual
social relations. Without this, there may be fatal inconsistencies in
the boy's conduct, not because he is essentially vicious, but because he
has been unable to interpret high-sounding sermons and biblical ideals
in terms of commonplace duty. If the evangelical message encourages,
condones, or permits this divorce, it becomes an instrument of
incalculable harm. Boys must be held to a high and reasonable standard
of personal duty and group endeavor.
From this point of view the weakest feature of the church boys' club is
its tendency to overlook specific work for others. The serious-minded
leader will not be altogether satisfied in merely holding boys together
for a "good time," wholesome as that may be. The service ideal must be
incorporated in the activities of the club. The nascent altruism of the
boy should receive impetus and direction and the members should engage
in united and intelligent social service. Give the boy a worthy job;
give him a hard job; give him a job that calls for team work; and give
him help and appreciation in the doing of it.
It is sometimes difficult to devise and execute a program of this kind
because of the limited opportunities of the particular town in which the
club exists and the narrow ideals of the church with which the club is
affiliated. Yet it is always preferable to enlist the boys in some
altruistic enterprise which lies close enough at hand to give it the
full weight of reality. Only so can we satisfy the concrete
value-judgment of the young matriculant in the great school of applied
religion.
This, however, should not be to the exclusion of those vast idealistic
movements for human good embodied in world-wide missionary propaganda of
a medical, educational, and evangelistic type. Only, taking the boy as
he is, it is not best to begin with these, because of their lack of
reality to him and because of his inability to participate except by
proxy. It is well that he should extend himself to some faraway need by
contributing of his means, but these gifts will get their proper
significance and his philanthropic life will preserve its integrity by
performing the particular service which to his own immediate knowledge
needs to be done.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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