RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Lay Preaching
increased the area of influence of the mission. In Uganda, the Anglican Church has multiplied lay evangelists, and to that multiplication
to. In the is due the rapid and complete Chris-
Foreign tianization of the country. The China
Mission Inland Mission, worked mainly by lay
Field. missionaries, has made very large use of native lay evangelists, undeterred by the fear which denominational missions have had of making premature use of converts for such responsible work. Within the last few years, however, the London Missionary Society and other societies working in the more civilized provinces of China have begun to make freer use of lay preachers, this becoming easier as the Chinese have taken advantage of modern educational facilities.
In Great Britain the by-products of lay preaching have been exceedingly valuable. In lay preaching men have acquired the art of clear and logical
thinking and the gift of powerful and
11. In lucid expression. Such men naturally Labor become the spokesmen of the commu- Circles; nity to which they belong; they are
Other Re- leaders of the local public life, and are cent Move- elected to town councils, district counments. cils, boards of guardians, and other public bodies, where their lay-preaching experience proves an invaluable advantage. The trade-unionism of England is largely led by lay preachers, who, in the service of the churches, have developed their business capacity and their speaking-power, and have trained themselves to become the forcible mouthpieces and the trusted leaders of their fellow craftsmen. There are at least a score of lay preachers in the British parliament, a dozen of whom belong to the Labor Party, most of them being officials of great trade-unions. It is certain that it is this leadership by religious men, trained in lay preaching, that has saved the British labor movement from the agnostic and materialistic socialism characteristic of the labor movement of the continent of Europe. Lay preaching accounts for the high numerical position taken by the Methodist and the Baptist Churches in the Southern States of America. In the Northern States the lay preacher has never taken the position accorded to him in Great Britain, but the feeling is growing that the creation of bodies of lay preachers in the various churches would enable those churches to maintain their position in villages and country towns, where migration of population has made it difficult to support the pastorate, since with a corps of lay preachers one minister might act as pastor-in-chief of a group of churches within a workable district. During the last ten years the principal non-conformist churches of Great Britain have done much to improve the organization and training of their lay preachers, who are trained in “ correspondence classes,” papers being set monthly in denomina~ tional lay preachers’ magazines, while names of accredited Baptist lay preachers are included in the denominational Year Book. In Great Britain the lay preachers are being increasingly used by their denominations and by the Free Church Councils to carry on outdoor
evangelism during the summer months. It is found that their knowledge of the people among whom they live, and with whom they work in similar conditions, enables them to speak very effectively to casual gatherings of hearers who have dropped out of church attendance, and who often have misconceptions as to what the churches really teach and as to the Bible and the Christian religion. These lay preachers have intimate knowledge of the prejudices that keep people out of churches, and of the many reasons, good or bad, that account for their indifference to religion and their hostility to churches. The lay preacher in the open air is the surest antidote to the agnostic materialist park and street-corner orator. The success of the Brotherhood movement and the Adult Sunday Morning School movement, which have a collective membership of three-quarters of a million, is largely owing to the speaking- and teaching-power of the lay preachers. While it is recognized that the average lay preacher can not be fairly expected to make himself an expert in Biblical and theological scholarship, he has distinct advantages which ordained ministers frankly recognize. When working in collaboration with and under the direction of a minister, the lay preacher enables a pastorate church to establish mission-halls in poor districts and mission-stations in the villages. In the county of Surrey, for example, the Congregational Church at Guildford has established ten village stations supplied by forty lay preachers, while the church in the neighboring county town of Godalming has established six village stations. It is found that the drawing into actual evangelistic service of members of a church has a most beneficial influence on the church-life, for the minister feels that with so many preachers in his congregation he has an appreciative and critical audience and that he must always preach at his best.
Statistics of Lay Preachers. GREAT BRITAIN
12. Beneficial Results to Pastorate Churches.
(1911)
Wesleyan Methodists................... 19,578 Primitive) Methodists... eee eee 16,241 United Methodist Church............... 6,239 Baptists goo s.<'. oc, crests sm evesuensie Gretere lone outers 5,692 Congregationalists siy.cmirs tacit creisine 5,438 Churches’ of Christ ic cierjyereierelocrraeennierers 580 Wesleyan Reform Union................. 520 Calvinistic Methodists);.........+-..+-..-- 344 Disciples of: Christ vonrr-teierate steht etre alers 20
54,662