Indiana Trip

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     Recently I journeyed to Sullivan, Indian a, where I spoke four times by invitation of a little group of consecrated brethren meeting on North Court Street. I was privileged to meet at least ten preachers, and members of some eighteen congregations, representing various segments of the disciple brotherhood. I discussed in their hearing mutual ministry, individual responsibility, fellowship and the unity of all believers. The interest and attention were all that could be desired. There are three divergent groups in Sullivan among the brethren who do not use instrumental music, and all favored us with their presence, and were kind and forbearing toward our presentation. During our brief series, Bro. Norman Wilkey immersed his eldest son, Carl, into the ever blessed name.

     When I boarded the train to go to Sullivan, there was but one vacant seat. I introduced myself to my seat companion, only to learn he was a Lutheran missionary to India, home for a year of study at Concordia Seminary, before returning to his distant post. For three hours we discussed the problem of reaching the peoples of the Far East with the message of God's Son. My friend readily agreed that one of the greatest barriers was that of sectarian division in all of its confusing aspects. He conceded to my contention that most of us regard the Christian faith as a product of the western world, to be imported to the East. We forget that Jesus and the apostles were all from the Middle East, and the message was exported to us Those who go out as missionaries now, seek not to reproduce the new covenant ekklesia of God, but to plant a replica of the congregation in their own home towns. Such a westernized version of the church of God may not he adapted to the people of an alien country, for it stresses theological disputes which are American in their origin, and not a part of the primitive church at all.

     Upon boarding the train to return to Saint Louis, there was again but one vacant seat, and this time I found myself seated beside a Negro clergymen from Virginia, the newly elected bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church He was en route to inspect and hold conferences in his newly assigned territory, and being thrown together for three hours, I sought to redeem the time by discussion of problems kindred to all who are concerned about the Christian faith. We explored the problems of school and church integration of the races, of the recent uprisings in Africa and their effects upon missionary endeavors in that land, of the divided state of Christendom, and can-

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vassed our various approaches to the attempt to solve the question of disunity. I suggested to the Negro bishop, who was a man of considerable learning, that we have probably weakened Christianity by our careless use of such terms as the word "church." We speak of the Methodist Church, The Baptist Church, The Lutheran Church, etc. The word "church" was employed by the Holy Spirit to designate the called out ones, the covenantal community of God. As such, it could never rightly apply to anything except the one body of which our precious Lord is the head. To call any and every human sect or party a church, serves only to disturb the minds of simple, primitive peoples. There is a difference in "a church" or "the church" and parties created by men on the basis of their philosophies.

     I have been musing over why it happened that on this one brief trip I should twice be thrown into the presence of men interested in the subject of the religion of Jesus Christ, from whom I learned a great many things of value, and with whom I shared some of my own thoughts and ideas. Is it possible that in ways which we do not know, God opens up for us doors of opportunity to make known our witness as to the necessity for restoration of the primitive order, or are these things mere accidents and unrelated incidents? We may not know, but I am thankful to Him whom I love for such contacts as I go through life.