Letter to Christians

By L. E. Ketcherside

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     Dear Brethren: This is Sept.23. I am at Gerald, Mo., where I plan to spend two weeks with the 8 faithful disciples who are struggling for their existence under the efficient leadership of Seaman Beck, who is a photographer at Owensville. I have my two army cots set up in a side room of the place of meeting, but one of them is unoccupied, due to the fact that I have not located a buddy to work with me here as yet. However, Seaman and I visited every home in the village (162) last afternoon. I am using visual aids for the first time in this work. My plans are to visit several schools in this area here, with slides and filmstrips of nature, wild life and scenes of interest to the children, and urge them to bring their parents out to see the religious slides at the evening service. I will also visit the homes of the aged and shut-ins with a view to talking to folks they may be able to assemble to view the filmstrips with them.

     Adoption of this method of approach does not mean that I am about to abandon the distribution of the written word to individuals and homes. If faith comes by hearing the word of God it is just good horse sense to reason that more faith can only be produced by getting more of the word of God into the hands and hearts of more people. The idea that people will not read tracts and circulars is just pure "hog-wash." I am speaking from 40 years of experience.

     Please consider this clipping from "The Herald of His Coming": "We lost China," said a missionary, "because we failed to give the gospel in literature, and the thirty million adults who had learned to read in a recent 10-year period were given the gospel of communism instead of the gospel of Christ." "It is a fact," said another missionary, "that most

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of the converts I know about in Japan came through gospel literature." "In recent months," declares a missionary leader of South America, "I have been astonished to find 90% of all converts in Latin America are either directly or indirectly the result of literature evangelism.

     Brethren, what impression do the observations of these missionaries laboring in three widely separated nations make upon your minds? Will you wave their findings aside, and contend (as many have done, and are doing) that L. E. has gone off the "deep-end" on the matter of literature circulation? I ask, Can it be possible that my brethren are so blind that they never observed that cults of every kind are making inroads in their very communities with no other means than the printed page? That they are making more disciples, by far, than my brethren are making?

     My brethren seem to try to justify their spiritual lethargy and ultimate demise by sitting down and howling for an evangelist to come to their aid, while at the same time they have the very best lessons from scores of evangelists at their finger tips in the form of written articles. I appeal to the elders and leaders of the many small, struggling, dying congregations to assert yourselves, and at least once or twice per month, clip the wonderful lessons that come to you in print (condense when necessary) and put them into tract form and organize every able bodied member of your group to distribute the tracts throughout your communities. In order to keep the cost of printing down, let two or more congregations cooperate and use the same tracts.

     I warn you in advance, that you will find more preachers that will scoff at this idea than will approve it. But, can you elders and local leaders soothe your consciences in thinking that you do not have the ability or intelligence to direct a flock into SUCCESSFULLY REPRODUCING ITSELF? Have you and your flocks not been preached to that you should preach to others? Why not buy you a good mimeograph or duplicator, select suitable articles that come to you in print, reproduce them and send them forth and thus build up your group by your own initiative and intelligence? It CAN BE DONE! Just exchange your wishbones for back bones and get busy. Rejoice in your own labors and not the labors of another.