PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 November 1938, Page 3

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

GENERAL ASSEMBLY AT DUNEDIN YOUTH WORK CONSIDERED (By Telegraph—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, November 8. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church continued its sessions today. Consideration of the report of the youth committee was continued and the" following recommendations were adopted:— That it be a direction of the assembly to ministers and sessions that wherever possible youth workers’ dedication services be held at the beginning of each year’s work with a view to giving workers a sense of vocation and also to bringing the youth work of a parish before the congregation. That it be a direction of the assembly to ministers and sessions that no young people should be admitted to full communion unless they have previously attended a course of instruction in the meaning and responsibility of Church membership and that the service of confirmation of baptismal vows or admission to full communion be held either at a weeknight preparatory service or at a Sunday service.

That presbyteries should make a careful survey of Sunday schools within their bounds . and that selected schools should conduct experiments in method and organisation, specially in work among intermediates and pre-Bible-class age groups. That the attention of ministers, Sun-day-school teachers and Bible-class leaders be called to the possibilities of visual education in Sunday-school and Bible-class work, the scope of which is being investigated by the youth committee.

That Mrs W. Mackay, Dr J. D. Salmand and the Revs James Robertson, A. C. Watson, L. F. Gunn and Messrs A. J. McEldowney and E. J. Ward be representatives of the General Assembly on the New Zealand Council of Religious Education. That the committee and general headquarters be located in Dunedin for the next three years.