Letter to Christians

By L. E. Carl Ketcherside

[Page 9]

     Dear brethren: Our community Bible studies in a school house at Libertyville, and in the city hall at Farmington, are attracting both interest and opposition. These meetings are not sponsored by any religious group. Catholics, Protestants, Jews and atheists are invited to attend and participate. Meetings are under direction of a chairman selected from the audience. Every question of a scriptural nature will be filed and considered in the order received. Your community is wide open for this type of work in which you may teach those you would never reach by any other method.

     Some brethren seem to think I oppose evangelists working away from home and being supported by individuals or congregations. That is not true. Any faithful man devoting his full time to the work of an evangelist should be supported according to his needs. I do not agree that you must travel widely to be an evangelist. The field is at your door. The man by your side in your secular job may be your best prospect. Just because you cannot travel is no excuse for not doing evangelistic work. I immersed four of five men I worked with in a lead mill. I have read of others who enjoyed even greater results from such labors. The cost of such work is little.

     One of the community studies we are conducting is a few blocks from my home and one block from our meetinghouse. Is that evangelistic work? I am teaching some who never darkened the door of the church building in the seven years we have met in it. Do you really want to preach the gospel? You do not have to spend four of the best years of your life in a Bible college. Who wrote many of the doctrinal works you would study in such a college? Many were written by men who never entered a college, and some by men who had less than a grade school education.

     What is the sensible thing to do if limited by time and finance? Work with your hands while building a private library of the productions of those men who studied by the glow of a firebrand at night, or while resting on the beam of a plow by day. Are you not as brilliant as they? Can you not, by standing upon their shoulders, see at least as far as they did into divine truth?

     After the noon meal on Saturday those men retired to the nearest stream to cleanse their bodies from the sweat and grime of the week, then with tieless, open collars began the long walk through the forest to a log schoolhouse or brush arbor where they unburdened their souls of the lessons they had learned. As the Lord's Day sun lowered in the west on the following day, they commended the audience to God, and began the long trek back to family, plow and Bible study.

[Page 10]

     Many of these men have left their works for the proud and haughty Bible colleges to exploit. The lessons of these pioneer restorationists can be secured by any disciple. What a contrast between their humility and service and the attitude of many college bred products today who make themselves fat by feasting upon the rich and wholesome spiritual food provided by the brain and brawn of these worthy servants of God.

     Brother, do you want to preach the gospel? Are your funds limited? Do you have obligations which prevent extensive travel? Is support for full time service lacking? After working all night I have walked 16 miles round trip, preached three times during the day and evening wearing patched clothes, received not a single penny from the offering, then returned home to work the next day. You can preach if you want to preach!