OUR CHANGING WORLD

 

This is the first time in our 36 years of publication that an issue has been piled up in mail bags for several days ready to be taken to the post office. We got it ready well ahead of time. When Ouida unloads it on the dock at the post office on 1 October, I will be in the Philippines, the Lord willing. By the time it reaches your house I should be in India. After three weeks there I will fly by Singapore Airlines to Singapore for a brief visit with friends, and then on to Auckland, New Zealand on Air New Zealand, arriving there 27 October, if the Lord grants safe travel. I leave Auckland at 9:40 p.m. on 6 November on United Airlines and arrive in Los Angeles at 4:07 p.m. the same day, five hours before I leave New Zealand! That is because, of course, I gain a day. Then on to Dallas by American Airlines. En route to Philippines and India I fly Northwest Airlines, Philippine Air, and Indian Air. Danny New, a missionary with Wycliffe Translators, and Walt Prevost of Cebu Seminary will be my hosts in the Philippines. Ralph Harter, missionary in Kanpur, and Leah Mosheer, director of a Christian school in Kulpahar, will be my hosts in India. They will all conspire to keep me busy teaching. In New Zealand I will serve as a resource person for the Campbell Bicentennial celebration at the World Convention of Churches of Christ and enjoy fellowship with heirs of our Movement from many nations of the world. I will arrive home in time to vote on Election Day and help Ouida mail our November issue, late this time, unless she has already mailed it. She will prepare it for the printer on our computer from stuff I send her abroad. The reason I can do all this is because I start each day by running two miles, and because I'm married to Ouida!

Duane Dunning in The Reformer, edited by Buff Scott., Jr. makes a helpful observation about Biblical interpretation. He notes that one way to distinguish what is more important in Scripture than other things is to consider the circumstance under which something is said, such as Christ's words spoken while he was on the Cross or his intercessory prayer as he faced the Cross. He observed that very important truths are also determined by whether they are related to salvation and by the emphasis given to them by the writers. Subs to The Reformer, 1003 Pilot Ave., Cherokee, Iowa 51012, are only $3.00 per annum.

The Boston Church of Christ program has come to Dallas, with a new congregation starting in one of the hotels. While the mainline Church of Christ has been less than enthusiastic about this work, it stands almost alone among our people as an effective evangelistic program. While others of us may talk about evangelism, they practice it, arid they know and utilize the principles of church growth. And they are not interested in building buildings, being content to gather in homes and rented halls. Their growth has been phenomenal. A member of one of their churches, who is an enthusiastic reader of this paper, told me recently by phone that he has outreach meetings in his home almost daily, and that he has found the Boston program to be a great relief from the arrogance and sectarianism of the Church of Christ he had known before. He assured me that most of the bad things said about the Boston work were false, at least from his perspective from their congregation in Indianapolis. I say more power to them!

When President Bok of Harvard gave his Commencement address this year, he presented some facts that he considers alarming. He said, "Less than 2 percent of the students plan to teach in public schools, and virtually none (less than one percent) are interested in the ministry for which the College was founded." The percentage of students interested in public service has also radically dropped in recent years, he noted. The reason? Money and prestige.