I recently came across this message that was presented at the 1906 Western Congress by Major John Fynn. I am startled by how much of this continues to remain relevant to the challenges of youth work in today's culture.
Enjoy!
How to Reach the Children and Young People
Major J.T. Fynn
Western Congress Addresses, 1906
This is an age of progress and scientific thought, and most people nowadays profess not to believe in anything without being able to give a reason for it. But we have a nobler and higher stand point – Faith – and can rise superior to such considerations, but, as we are constantly asked what grounds we have for our faith, it is well to be able to give an answer to such questions.
The subject before us is, How to Reach the Children and Young People?
This is a matter that everyone present is interested in, and most of us have faith in glorious possibilities for the children and young people, and I think we can give many reasons for our faith. As you hold writing paper up to the light, you can see there, letters stamped during its manufacture. These are called “water marks,” and are made while the paper is in liquid state. Metallic and glass articles also have trade marks wrought into their very substance.
So every age has its trade mark stamped upon it while the days are passing by, but the deepest and most striking trade mark of our age is the recognition of the Importance of Childhood.
1. Never before has the world heard of so many enterprises for children, educational and otherwise. There are many people living who can remember when there were not half a dozen children’s books that had any extended circulation. Today a collection of the popular children’s books would make the largest library in the world.
At the great expositions the most striking characteristics of modern sculpture and paintings are subjects of childhood in various characters: Childhood in prayer, in play, or asleep. The hearts of the artists seemed to have been turned by the spirit of the age to the children.
All this recognition of the rights and importance of childhood is but the starlight that shines upon us from above the manger of the Godchild. It was Bethlehem that taught wise men that a child’s face was a grander study that the stars.
Remember the words of Jesus: “Whosoever receiveth this child receiveth me, and whosever receiveth me receiveth Him that sent me.”
2. Leaving Bible times for more recent ages, we see that the recognition of children is the unerring thermometer of the progress of Christianity. It is a matter of history that following in the wake of the Reformation and the great awakening of the Wesleys, came the moving impulses from which sprang the modern Sunday school.
The good farmer not only observes the nature of his seeds, but also his soils, and adapts the one to the other. The good physician not only studies books and medicines, but symptoms and temperaments.
The Salvation Army officer is sower, physician and warrior and needs to be equally practical in his work.
3. Everybody quotes the proverb, “Prevention is better than cure.” We are learning the chameleon’s philosophy to “destroy crocodiles in the egg.” We are recognizing the fact that it is easier to form childhood aright than to reform manhood. So in our work we must not be satisfied by breaking off the branches of the great tree of evil, but strike at the tap root by working more for the children. The surface of an ordinary diamond may be polished in forty-eight hours, while seven to ten weeks are required for a surface that has a knot or “fault” in its crystallization.
Forty-eight hours will ordinarily accomplish more in the saving of a man when he is a child than seven weeks when the bigotries and vices of manhood have become fixed in his heart and life.
4. Not without designs has Christ commanded, “Feed my lambs,” meaning to inculcate upon his followers the duty of caring for the children at the earliest possible period. Nor can parents nor all well-wishers to humanity be too earnest and careful to fulfill the commands of Christ in the matter. Influence is as quiet and imperceptible on the child mind as the snow flakes on the meadow. One cannot tell the hour when the human mind is not in the condition of receiving impressions from exterior, moral and spiritual forces. In innumerable instances, the most secret and unnoted influences have been in operation for months and even years to break down the strongest barriers of the human heart and work out its moral ruin, while yet fond parents and friends have been unaware of the working of such unseen agents of evil. The error is this: Most people seem to be asleep to the fact, as the Bible declares, “While men slept, the enemy came and sowed tares and went his way.” If this, the, is the error, how shall it be corrected, and what is the antidote?
Some one has said, “A child is a man in small letter,” yet the best copy of Adam before he fell. His soul is yet a white paper unscribbled with the observations of the world, wherewith at length it becomes a blurred book. The young mind can be impressed with sincerity, truth, honest, benevolence and their kindred virtues, and thus the welfare of the young can be assured for time and eternity. What a responsibility! To mold a creature, the frailest and feeblest that heaven has made, into the intelligent and fearless follower, interpreter and adorer and almost representative of Deity!
5. The earliest impressions are the deepest. Those things which are instilled into the hearts of children endure forever. The mind is the heart’s mouth. Thrust truth into the child’s mind. If it is the Bread of Life to the child it will not stay in his mind, it will sink deeper; it will go to the heart, and the heart will grow by what it feeds on. The heart will crave more and more. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness.” Why? Because they will eventually cease from hungering? No! That would be no blessing. But because they shall be filled again and again. Truth is the Bread of Life. Let us teach it.
The maker of a garment with the material spread before him on the table recognizes that the whole future of the garment depends on the way it is cut. No trimming, stitching of fancy workmanship after will make up for a bad cut.
6. The presidents, governors, senators, citizens, preachers, officers and soldiers of the future are today in our homes and within our reach. They are our future.
A story is told of an abbot who wanted to buy a field near his monastery. The owner would not sell it, but at last consented to lease it for the growth of one crop. The abbot planted it with acorns. With oaks growing on it he was sure of it as long as he and his fraternity might want it. The devil outwits good people in a similar style. He gets the first planting of the children’s hearts, and he has them for life. God’s message to Moses was, “These things that I command thee this day shall be in they heart and thou shalt teach them diligently to they children.”
7. Why was it that Christianity went westward instead of eastward from its cradle in Palestine? Some one has said, “The East was old, its habits and characteristics fixed. The West was new, its nations, child-nations whose characters were yet to be formed.”
I have endeavored to show at length some reasons why we should be intensely interested for the child’s own sake, and having passed the experimental stages in Army warfare in this branch of the Army’s operations, we have plenty of evidences around us that the returns are profitable for the labor expanded. For growing up around us are hundreds of promising young people who will help to solve many of our present problems for future extensions; also hundreds of officers in our ranks today come to us by way of our young people’s work.
8. Let the fact of the child’s worth to God, to itself, to the world and to the Army, burn its way into our very being, and “How to reach them” and win them for God will be solved. Quickened hearts and minds will toil and plan and sacrifice and devise methods and measures, and put into practice the existing proposals that our regulations provide for. This is the key to the situation when we have a full conception of their value.
9. The present system in all its branches from the cradle roll to the corps cadet brigade and young people’s legion simply wants putting into active operation in dead earnest by all concerned, and 1906 will be the best year of our career.
10. There are difficulties; we should be very foolish to overlook them – difficulties that are stupendous. Every hour of an officer’s life seems to be filled with duties and obligations. Some of these difficulties are:
Prejudices against our work.
Lack of proper help in the corps for local officers.
Need of proper halls for this work, and many others.
But has this not always been so? Difficulties have beset our paths al through our Army history, but what has made the Army what it is today is the fact that we have endeavored to overcome them, and the results have been in proportion to our having succeeded.
11. We should not for one moment underestimate the noble work that has been done, but this is only a proof that it is possible to deal with this problem successfully. We are a God-sent people, and this fact alone will inspire us.
During last year in New York City and suburbs, no less than thirty-six new churches of the Baptist body were successfully opened as a direct result of their Sunday school work, which had its beginning in a small room or vacant store. Then after securing the children, they planned for a church building, and succeeded in getting the same, and made up their membership from the parents and relatives of the children in the Sunday school. We can learn a lesson from this.
As a matter of fact, many of the churches are supported from the fact of their Sunday school work thus building up a congregation. Revivals are beautiful and much to be desired, but most of the church bodies are built up out of Sunday school results. Let us have the revival, let us save the drunkard by all means, but let us save the young people and children as well. To save them we must love them, and love them in sincerity. No one detects insincerity so quickly as the young. We cannot accomplish much in this work without love.
12. The kind of children out of which to make juniors.
a. The young people belonging to our officers and soldiers.
We have a right to expect this.
b. The children of unsaved adherents.
c. This includes the spiritually uncared for children. We have a large field. It is estimated that 75% of the young people in the United States never go to Sunday school or church, and only 5% are saved. Thus we have about fifteen millions to work amongst.
The work to be done.
Nothing short of conversion will do. It must be a new birth. That must be our ultimate aim. Love will invent ways and means. Their affections must be won. Their feelings must be roused. Their understanding must be improved. Their memory must be assisted. Their soul must be saved. They must be taught that goodness, happiness and usefulness cannot be disassociated with the cross, the fight and the victory. They must be taught faith and confidence in the Godhead. They must be taught faith and confidence in the Army and its leaders. They must be taught faith and confidence in the Army’s principles, government, aims and purposes and the Army spirit cultivated among them.
13. This will involve hard work, sacrifice, expense, tact, wisdom, firmness, consistency, perseverance and adaptation, and I would emphasize each of these. We must be practical, each one of us, if we are to build up a coming Army.
14. The General’s words are vastly important in view of these facts,
“The importance of the junior work is in my estimation so great and so nearly allied to goodness, happiness and godliness of the next generation that were I not burdened with so many toils and anxieties, I would gladly devote the rest of my days to the promotion and welfare of the young people.”15. The various branches of work, each important in its own place, should be intelligently understood by our people.
We must take the trouble to make our people acquainted with our aims. There is a great deal of ignorance among our people in this direction. Many of our F.O.’s do not sufficiently and intelligently understand the Army’s plans. We take too much for granted on this line.
Let it be understood that our plan is a Cradle Roll for the youngest and Junior Meetings for the children.
Company meetings where Biblical instruction is given to the young of all ages.
The Band of Love for the purpose of influencing the young to kindness to one another and to animals, thus teaching them to live for others’ happiness as well as for their own.
The Corps Cadet Brigade, with all it means to the Army’s future so far as officers are concerned, and herein is a paying proposition. We ought through this branch to have hundreds of young people in training all over the country, who in due time will come to our help in this great battle.
The Y.P.L. [Young People’s Legion], with its unlimited scope for dealing with both saved and unsaved youth and helping them morally, physically, mentally and spiritually.
There must be a greater recognition of the officers, staff and field, of their official as well as their moral responsibility.
16. If the young people’s work is simply to be a side issue, and not counted in, and its official importance not recognized from every point of view, both in the grading and appointment of officers, then it can never hope to advance.
17. How to deal effectually with the youths and maidens is a problem, and we have a great deal to learn on this line.
It is a general lament everywhere that so many drift away from us. It is a sad reflection upon many of our Sunday schools of today, and a great concern to all who are interested.
The converted youth is, of course, easy to legislate for, but it is the unconverted who need help and who cause us anxiety. This is a period of unrest and curiosity, a time of awakening from childhood to manhood and young womanhood. If we would win these we must be prepared to look after their interest. We must cater for the physical and social side of their lives as well as the spiritual.
Recreation is needed, and I think we need to have no fear if the recreation is wisely and carefully regulated. We should endeavor to provide healthy literature, simple games and amusements, music, lectures, etc.
Here is an unlimited field, and, as previously stated, will involve wisdom, tact, expense and hard work, but if we get a proper view of this our interest and love will help us to devise ways and means, and we shall be prepared to adapt ourselves to the great needs.
The Y.P.L. will give us some scope in this direction and should be taken up in a dead earnest.
18. One of the chief defects and hindrances of our past policy has been the lack of continuity. One officer commences a good work and another neglects it and drops it entirely. Up and down. Up and down. Sometimes, meetings, then for weeks or months none, and this in some of our best corps.
We should have a more strict oversight of the staff, provincial and divisional, and the matter dealt with firmly. Experience has taught us in all branches of our work that if matters are left optional, they are never done. We may carry the judgment of our people and swing their sentiment, for almost every officer is of the opinion that the Y.P. work is important and should be done. The time has come when we say, “It must be done,” and the regulations must be carried out in view of the importance of this work.
19. The hands of the P.Y.P.S. should be strengthened in every possible way, and the F.O.’s should understand that his report on inspections, good or otherwise, will receive strict attention when appointments are considered.
Also Sec.4 of Chapter 2, Orders and Regulations for the Junior War, should be seriously looked into regarding the Divisional Officer’s responsibility.
It will be impossible for either of these officers to go to a corps and do the Y.P. work for the F.O., as the officer on the spot is the best calculated to organize and establish this. At the same time the staff can and should assist by proper oversight, supervision and encouragement.
Local officers. The key to the situation lies here. Where we have the best and most substantial Y.P. work is where we have local officers who have the work at heart.
We have some splendid people who are devoting themselves to the salvation of the young, and I would suggest that every effort be made to secure suitable people who shall carry this work forward under the instruction and supervision of the F.O.
The very best people in the corps should be put on this work, and not those who are fit for no other position.
20. In conclusion, we must keep hammering away at this. Keep it to the front. Teach it to our people.
In the phylacteries of the Jews, in which they carried the most precious passages of their scriptures, there was kept a record of the Passover, the Old Testament picture of Redemption, the Law in the two great Commands of Love, and beside them, only this command to diligently teach the children.
The purpose was, the world to be reached; the method, the truth from god through a human heart into the hearts of childhood.
Christ had a multitude of 5 000 hungry men to feed. How was this accomplished? A lad brought to his side five loaves and two fishes. Christ blessed them, “and all did eat and were filled.” There are multitudes around us hungering for heavenly bread. The young people will help us like the lad of old. Let us bring them to the side of Christ and He will use them.
A lifeboat returning from a wreck and stranded outside the breakers had thrown its ropes ashore, but all the men and women on the beach had failed to stir it from its place. The children, unasked, came and put their little hands on the rope beside the large rough hands of their parents, and they pulled long and strong together and the boat came off and was saved.
In our work for God in rescuing men from death, we need little hands on the rope with ours, the prayers and sympathies and words of youth and childhood, and then we shall have success.
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