Deacon Rebukes “Talkie” Colleagues

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 330, 11 January 1937, Page 2

Deacon Rebukes “Talkie” Colleagues

VESTRY SPORTS TALK BEFORE SERVICE CONDEMNED Ministers and deacons who talk football in the vestry were criticsed by Mr. J. B. Gotts, himself deacon in a London church, at the autumn assembly of the Congregational Union of England and Wales at Birmingham. "I have been in vestries,” he said, •‘where deacons engaged in conversations which were hardly a fit prelude to the atmosphere of the sanctuary. I have heard ministers discussing the previous day’s football results with deacons five minutes before going into the church. ”1 have heard deacons refer to business matters right up to their entry into the church, and then I have seen them assume that peculiar veneer of piety which only deacons can assume. “I suggest to ministers that they should discourage all this kind of thing in the vestry immediately before service.” Mr Gotts recalled how in a certain town the Free Churches and the Church of England representatives formed a social council and dealt very successfully with various social evils in the town. When it came to slum clearance, however, there seemed to be something wrong and they got no further. Then it was discovered that three members of this council were them selves owners of slum property. The whole scheme was killed within three years by its own members anC the ridicule of its opponents.