Christian Endeavor: Comeback Trail?

Echoes of a once-great movement sounded forth from 3,500 delegates to the sixteenth world convention of Christian Endeavor, held last month in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario.

Children and teen-agers joined their adult sponsors in early morning Bible studies, lively songfests, and inspirational services. In the evenings, they welcomed thousands of local people. The youths behaved relatively well, the only dissident note being an impromptu youth-led worship service that included criticism of older leaders.

The evangelically oriented convention program was essentially a greatly expanded version of the Sunday evening youth meeting, a church tradition that began with the founding of CE nearly ninety years ago. The conventions are a rich part of Christian Endeavor heritage; in earlier days such meetings were spectacular events, frequently attracting more than 50,000.

Christian Endeavor reached its peak about 1935. In recent years, however, there have been signs of a comeback. CE leaders see special opportunities among churches no longer getting adequate youth materials from their denominations.Despite CE’s basic orthodoxy, many evangelical denominations have shunned it in favor of their own youth organizations. Such evangelicals hold the movement theologically suspect because it is so often found in congregations of liberal, old-line denominations.

Much responsibility for reviving the movement rests with a genial, 45-year-old Pennsylvanian who recently became general secretary of the International Society of Christian Endeavor, the North American arm. (The global organizational unit is known as the World’s Christian Endeavor Union, and this year’s convention was a joint meeting.) The new administrator is the Reverend Charles W. Barner, who served for twenty-five years as a pastor in the small Evangelical Congregational Church and won a reputation as an effective youth leader. Barner says he twill seek to upgrade CE program materials and to infuse much more young blood into the movement’s leadership.

Christian Endeavor in North America has been encouraged by the success of many of its sister societies abroad. The German, National Union has been particularly strong. More than two dozen countries sent delegates to this year’s world convention in Canada.

Christian Endeavor’s fidelity to Scripture was again underscored. Leaders of the world unit adopted a resolution asserting that “the inspired objective and purpose of the movement remains unchanged. Whilst changing times and new problems call for new methods and appropriate measures to meet them, we believe that the real need of youth for a purposeful life can still be met as they come to know and serve the living Christ.”

Christian Endeavor began in 1881 over a batch of burned cookies. The Reverend Francis Edward Clark, minister of the Williston Congregational Church in Portland, Maine, drew up the original pledge, still used as the basis of membership. It read simply: Trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for strength, I promise Him that I will strive to do whatever He would have me do.”

Clark penned the sentence in the manse one day and left it in the kitchen. His wife, unenthused on first reading it, gradually saw a potential. While she meditated the cookies burned, but a great movement was born. The Clarks organized the first CE society in their own church on February 2, 1881. The idea caught on remarkably, and within six years there were 7,000 societies around the world with a total membership approaching 500,000. Clark headed the movement until his death in 1927.

As the movement grew, a number of denominations began their own youth organizations, and this development ultimately put the damper on CE. Ecumenical leaders in the late forties sought to make the movement part of the National Council of Churches, but CE leaders felt the price would be the yielding of evangelical distinctives. The NCC went ahead with its own youth arm, only to see it die.

For its own survival in the lean years, Christian Endeavor owes much to the sacrificial efforts of Dr. Daniel A. Poling and Miss Phyllis I. Rike. Poling succeeded Clark as head of the movement and was active in it until his death in 1968 at the age of 83. Miss Rike has served in the CE headquarters office, now located in Columbus, Ohio, since 1941; she serves as executive secretary of the world unit and edits CE’s monthly periodical.

No one knows how many CE societies there are in the world today, or how many members. In North America, CE tends to be stronger in rural areas, but with some notable exceptions. Many black inner-city churches carry on active CE programs, and some evangelicals see here a potential instrument for much more effective ministries in ghetto areas. (Each church sets its own program.)

Dr. Clyde Meadows, 69, currently the world president of CE, sees the movement’s comeback among all age groups. The youths themselves seem to be showing the most interest. Adults, he says, are also responding in greater numbers.

Dr. F. Rupert Gibson, a Presbyterian clergyman from Northern Ireland who is vice-president of the world unit, feels CE must make some changes if it is to grow. “The kind of meeting or organizations which appealed to young people fifty or even twenty-five years ago no longer attract them,” he says. “We have to look around for a modern concept to put across the old fundamentals.”

Gibson also wants more young people in CE leadership (only one of the top executives elected at the convention is under 50).

Leighton Ford, speaker for the closing service of the convention, reminded delegates that “We can’t tie Christianity to seventeenth-century English, eighteenth century hymns, nineteenth-century architecture, or even twentieth-century crusades.”

DAVID E. KUCHARSKY

Reformed Families Unite

An association of 55 million members of 127 denominations in seventy nations was formally established in Nairobi, Kenya, last month. The new union, ten years in the making, was named the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (Presbyterian and Congregational). The merger brings together the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the International Congregational Council.

Ten North American denominations, including 8 million U.S. Protestants, are involved. The news section of CHRISTIANITY TODAY will carry a full report in the September 25 issue.

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