Looking Back: The Value of an Elder’s Visit

September 1933

The Value of an Elder’s Visit

By the Rev Dr John Lendrum, Elgin

What is the most distinctive feature of our Scottish Church? It is not our Kirk Sessions and Presbyteries, nor the simple form of our worship, nor the metrical psalms we sing. What most strikes the English or foreign visitor, and draws his admiration and envy, is the very large amount of voluntary service rendered by our laymen and women.

We have, of course, our paid officials – ministers, organists, beadles; but these are few compared with the vast number of unpaid helpers – elders, deacons, managers, clerks and treasurers, teachers, collectors, members of choirs and work-parties. No other Church in the world has such an army of voluntary workers; and we ministers might well acknowledge more frequently of their labours, and admit more frankly that without their help we simply could not carry on.

All this service is given freely and without thought of reward. It is given sometimes at no small sacrifice of time or strength. It is a labour of love. And the spirit in which the work is done is almost more important than the work itself. For it is the loving, unselfish, friendly, kindly spirit in which it is done that makes it effective and attractive.

The first Christians in the Roman Empire were suspected and hated, yet within three hundred years of the death of Christ, Christianity had spread all over the Empire, and the Emperor himself became a Christian.

How did this amazing change come about?

Was it that the people heard the Good News preached at the street corners and found it so good that forthwith they believed in Christ and became Christians? Rather was it that they met men and women who were Christians and found them so good – so happy and buoyant and free from fear, so unselfish and friendly and kind, so much the same to everybody, rich or poor, free or slave – that they kept in touch with them and presently came to share their faith. They listened, it may be, to the preaching, but to most of them, especially to such as were not religious, it must have seemed remote and vague and all in the air, a matter of words, or even of words in a foreign language. But when they were thrown into contact with Christian men and women and found them so radiantly happy and so richly human, that was something real and good which they could at once understand and appreciate. They were drawn to Christians and that which was Christian within them, and then thereby to Christ.

Our faith is that God was incarnate in Jesus Christ. But, if the world is to become Christian, it would seem as if there had to be yet another incarnation – as if Christ had to be incarnated in men. It is not enough that the Truth be expressed in words, which at the best are general and abstract. It must be expressed in facts – in the actings of actual men and women. Yet again the Word must become flesh. For then only is it understood by the common man.

In Scotland today, we are told, there are a million souls who are outside the Church. How are they ever to be won back? Not by preaching. Many of them have no intellectual life; many have no interest in religion. Many of them have never been in a church, and even could they be induced to enter one, they would find little meaning in the service or the sermon. But if they were to mix with Christian men and women and find them ever cheerful, steadily kind and obliging, free from greed and from snobbishness, then they would be impressed and attracted, and might in time be won over. The light which Christ carries is too high for them, for their eyes are upon th earth and they never look upwards. But let that same light shine out in men and women on their own level, then they would see it, and from love in man might rise to love in God.

What tells and attracts, in the first instance at least, is not Christianity as set forth in the words by ministers, but Christianity as set forth in the lives and deeds of laymen. And here it is that elders have a greater chance than ministers have. They take round their cards at Communion time. But if they are busy or tired, they find it a burden, say to themselves they are being asked to serve as message-boys, or even yield to the temptation of sending the cards by post. Or, again, they are shy and greatly afraid of intruding, so that they hand in the cards at the door, and do not offer to go in. But if they post the cards or merely deliver them at the door, they make the mistake of throwing away a great opportunity.

Let them go into the houses, see and talk to the people and show themselves friendly, and they will not merely find themselves made welcome but do a real service to Christ and His Church. The humanity of elders will accomplish more tan the divinity of ministers. A friendly visit may seem a little thing, but it is really a big thing - a thing of power and influence. Every visit counts. Every visit helps to forge or strengthen a link between the people and Christ.

By such friendliness we interpret Christ and commend Him.

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