MEN WITH A MISSION

People across the brotherhood wonder how I can be so hopeful for the future of Churches of Christ. When I speak of our becoming freer, more loving and responsible and united, and more concerned for suffering humanity, they suppose that my idealistic philosophy has blinded me to the actual condition of our people. But the “actual condition” of our folk is what is usually misread, for I have abundant evidence out of my own experience that we have begun to turn the corner in the direction of a dynamic Christian witness to the world. There is a substantial minority influence, if indeed it is not “the great silent majority,” that is making a great difference in the nature of the change now taking place.

One who supposes that we are doomed to the obscurantism of the past should have been with me in a visit I had recently with the board of Mission magazine, which held its annual meeting in Dallas. One of its new members, Prof. Norman Parks, was visiting in our home from Tennessee, so he invited me to go along and take a look inside of an organization that I had already learned to respect. They were meeting to discuss things that were none of my business, so I excused myself from those sessions. But I was able to socialize with them somewhat, and Arthur Miley of LaJolla, Ca., president of the board, asked me to give a report to the group on my travel experiences around the brotherhood. Inasmuch as they are planning to appoint a full-time editor, whom they believe should circulate among the various wings of discipledom as well as the church at large, Miley, who reads of my travels in Restoration Review, thought my ideas might be helpful to the group.

There are 36 members of the board. Two are women. Three are Negroes. The majority is business people and college professors, but there are also lawyers, physicians, authors, students, ministers, housewives. They are all Church of Christ members. The board not only sets the policy and directs the course of that vibrant publication known as Mission, but it also underwrites its budget. For these first five years of the journal’s history the underwriting has been no particular problem, but their plans for the future, which calls for a well-paid full-time editor, which will free Dr. Roy Bowen Ward to attend to his duties as chairman of religion at Miami University, calls for a budget of considerable substance for a religious publication among our people. But these Mission folk are something else! If they need an extra $30,000 for next year, they pass the word around by telephone, and by the time you can say Mission five times they have enough members pledging at least $1,000 a year to make possible their undertaking. When it comes time to make up their budget for the next. year, they call the roll and have each member declare his intentions then and there before all the others. Once the needs are explained and agreed to, they appear to have no difficulty in raising the money needed.

Our church leaders might ride coattail on this kind of wisdom. If all the members of a congregation were periodically briefed on the financial needs, and asked to share in the plans and procedures, the giving might increase substantially. And why not allow each member to declare his financial intentions in a meeting called for that purpose? Our congregations could well afford to arrange planning sessions, with every member sharing in the discussions, rather than simply have decisions handed down by the elders, with an attending note that reads, “Here’s the bill for what we’ve decided to do. Pay it.”

These Mission people are not so affluent but what this kind of an effort is a sacrifice. They believe in the future of our people to the extent that they are willing to do without something else in order to make Mission possible. It seemed unreal to me, one who knows something of the difficulty of interesting our people in responsible Christian journalism, to see this impressive group of people, assembled from several states and numerous congregations, pooling their resources for the publication of a respectable Church of Christ journal. And people wonder why I have hope for tomorrow’

From what you may have heard about Mission from unduly alarmed folk way out in the right field bleachers, if indeed they are in the park at all, you may suppose that the board directs the publication must be a conglomerate of wild-eyed radicals. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I saw little hair and no beards. Certainly no sandals or bare feet. Nor were they especially young. They are people devoted to Jesus and to non-sectarian religion. Intelligent and responsible members of their chosen vocations, they are part of that great fellowship of concerned ones who are dedicated to the task of renewing the church in our time. They are indeed the new look in the Church of Christ.

It is refreshing in these days of phoniness and chicanery to see a group like this that can really be free to make their decisions nonpolitically. They are resolved, for instance, that they will not compromise either the purpose or the character of Mission in order to court the favor of middle-of-the-road brotherhood thinking. They choose to be authentic, even if this means a humbler rating on the subscription spectrum. They are, how-ever, making impressive gains, especially since they choose to direct their efforts especially to Churches of Christ, a people not yet sufficiently conditioned to appreciate high-class Christian journalism.

A board like this also provides a study in contrasts. How different is the situation when the members of the board have vested interests, when either lots of money or lots of prestige is on the line, which is usually the case in a brotherhood publication enterprise. Can they then be so free and non-political? Or take the board of one of our colleges, where the pressures from many sources are so great that any kind of avant garde action is unthinkable. Such a board must even tread water on integration, waiting either for the state to take the lead or for the constituency to accept the idea. This is why a college will throw a good professor to the lions, if it takes that to either preserve its “image” or appease its critics.

In such cases it is not that the board is made up of evil men. As people they are probably as noble and virtuous as the Mission board. It is rather that they find themselves in a “tail wagging the dog” situation, where an institution becomes something more than the sum of persons that compose it. Goals are often ambiguous, programs and policies are unwieldy, traditions become sacrosanct, individuality gives way to “the thing,” and fear and distrust gnaw away at love and freedom. Those within grow suspicious of one another.

No board with spiritual concerns is of course immune to such a destiny. The Mission people are different only because their goals are clear and precise, and their means are wieldy and not confused with the end in view. And they have little or nothing to lose personally, perhaps not even their pride, if it all goes down the drain. There are no vested interests and no high pinnacles of prestige. If need be they can walk off and leave it without anybody being hurt. It is unfortunate that so many of our projects tie .us down for generations, making innovation and creativity all the more difficult. This includes a congregation’s vast real estate holding.”Yes, that is a good idea, but we have to pay for this property, you know” is a common affliction in our ranks. If we had erected multi-purpose buildings, so that they could easily be sold to business if need be, our people would have suffered much less anxiety. So maybe Mission and other groups like it, people who “do not despise the day of small things,” which is a good biblical injunction, are teaching us this important lesson: Start no project that becomes an end in itself, and keep it small and humble enough that you can walk off and leave it rather than compromise the very convictions that gave it birth.

If you are not reading Mission, a handsome publication of 32 pages each month, then you are missing out on one of the exciting things going on among us these days. A number of the board members themselves publish their ideas in its pages, but it also serves as an open forum for good thinkers from all across the brotherhood.

You may subscribe for 5.00 per annum, or three years for 12.00, by writing to Box 2822, Abilene, Texas 79604. — the Editor