NEGLECT OF WORSHIP

Taranaki Daily News, 23 September 1940, Page 8

NEGLECT OF WORSHIP

. address at hawera Christian worship and comradeship were the subjects of addresses with which Canon ,H- Watson (Marton) concluded the St. Mary's, Hawera, Church of England mission on Thursday night. "Very few people join regularly to-day in Christian worship," Canon Watson continued. "The majority can see no point in it. It would be better, they think, to get «n with the job of making this a better world. But can we succeed in making this a better world if we neglect the worship of God? , "There is a very real connection between worship and work, and a recent writer has gone so far as to say that tne root cause of the present evil and distress in the world is found in the divorce between work and "worship . , The canon pointed out that comradeship was one of the most notabto features of thte early church. Warfare supplied the best illustration of comradeship. Then soldiers were bound together by a comnK>n devotion to their King and country. The bond was also strengthened by the fact that they were faced hy the same dangers and opposed by to® same enemy. Inspired by this spirit of comradeship, soldiers would gladiy share scanty rations, risk danger for one another, and become capable of tne highest acts of love and self-sacrihce. . So should it be in the army of the Living God, the Christian Church. A loyal devotion to their captam, Jesus Christ, and to His cause, which was the establishment of His Kingdom of peace in this war-stricken world, should tuna Christians together. .. This was the work of the laity as weu as of clergy. In fact, the ^ opportunity to-day was essentially the lay "ihe mosf successful method was thaf which is known as the cell method^ small groups of Christian friends .working together to bring others _ mto ffie Christian fellowship and to jom wfih them in the worid-wide crusade of ffie Church. It was the method that tne Church idopted in the early days. but unfortunately it had been almost entire ly abandoned.