Book_: _ ■ £•* ff 
 
 Copyright^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
BY HALFORD E. LUCCOCK 
 
 FARES, PLEASE ! AND OTHER ESSAYS 
 
 12mo. Net, 75 cents 
 
The Mid -Week 
 Service 
 
 By 
 HALFORD E. LUCCOCK 
 
 and 
 
 WARREN F. COOK 
 
 THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 
 NEW YORK CINCINNATI 
 

 Copyright, 1916, by 
 HALFORD E. LUCCOCK 
 
 4». 
 
 JUL 27 1916 
 
 ©CI.A433870 
 7^/ # 
 

 CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 Preface 7 
 
 I. Eyes Front! 9 
 
 II. Some Prayer Meeting Convictions . 12 
 
 III. Some Prayer Meeting Standards.. . 28 
 
 IV. Some Prayer Meeting Experiences . 43 
 
 V. The Meetings 53 
 
 VI. Additional Suggestions 104 
 
PREFACE 
 This little book is not an Inquest. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 EYES FRONT! 
 
 Many an inquest has been held 
 over the prayer meeting. And sweet 
 are the uses of an adversity like an 
 inquest. It teaches much, and it 
 usually interests. The far-famed in- 
 quest over the early death of the 
 lamented Cock Robin never lacked a 
 perpetual charm for our childhood, and 
 seems to have served as a model for 
 many a discussion of the prayer meet- 
 ing. "Who kiUed Cock Robin?" is 
 the question. "The minister with his 
 long talks," says one witness. "The 
 congregation with its cold indiffer- 
 ence," says another. "The age with 
 its worldliness," says a third. If a 
 true bill is to be returned, it looks 
 as though we should have to indict 
 
 9 
 
10 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 a whole people, which Burke tells us 
 we cannot rightly do. So many a 
 treatment of the theme has been 
 simply a variation of the lament, 
 " Where are the snows of yesteryear?" 
 
 To say that the prayer meeting is 
 dead would be a gratuitous piece of 
 generalization to which we do not 
 commit ourselves. It is far better to 
 maintain the "judicial" attitude of the 
 French minister at the English court, 
 who reported to his government: "Some 
 say that the Pretender is dead; some 
 say that he is not. For myself I be- 
 lieve neither story." 
 
 The church is not nearly so much 
 interested in Inquest as she is in 
 Conquest. How to make all her forces 
 into full strength regiments in the 
 march and battle of the Kingdom is 
 her first concern. Her command to 
 each is "Eyes front!" 
 
 Mid toil and tribulation 
 And tumult of her war, 
 
EYES FRONT! 11 
 
 She is asking of her midweek serv- 
 ice as of every regiment to face a 
 changed battle front. 
 
 While no discussion of the prayer 
 meeting which did not keep in mind 
 the changed spiritual and mental con- 
 ditions of the day could possibly be 
 of value, to consider such changes as 
 they affect the prayer meeting is not 
 within the purpose of the present 
 writing. Such necessary work has been 
 excellently done. The present ques- 
 tion is not, How did the prayer meet- 
 ing come into its present situation? 
 but, Where is it going? What may it 
 be led to accomplish? This book 
 hopes to partially answer the ques- 
 tion with some suggestions of applied 
 methods. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 SOME PRAYER MEETING 
 CONVICTIONS 
 
 1. A prayer meeting is one of the 
 
 logical inferences of Christian theology. 
 
 It is not mere utility as a form of 
 
 worship which has given it its place 
 
 through the centuries. The doctrine 
 
 of the Fatherhood of God has been 
 
 equally responsible. As soon as a 
 
 building becomes a home it needs 
 
 something more than a reception room, 
 
 an art gallery, and a conservatory. 
 
 It needs a living room and it needs 
 
 a nursery. The Christian Church, 
 
 called into being by the revelation of 
 
 the Father God, was born in a home, 
 
 and radiated out from a center filled 
 
 with tender domestic associations. The 
 
 church should always bear the hall- 
 12 
 
CONVICTIONS 13 
 
 marks of its birthplace, retaining the 
 gracious hospitality, unruffled peace, 
 and warm-hearted love of a genuine 
 home. It is not enough to supply 
 these through the smaller gathering 
 in the prayer meeting. They must 
 be the unmistakable marks of the 
 church itself, penetrating all like the 
 very atmosphere of an orchard in 
 bloom. Where this is lacking, as the 
 common atmosphere which fills the 
 whole of the Father's House with 
 fragrance, it is almost impossible to 
 cultivate the grace of real Christian 
 fellowship in any particular depart- 
 ment. But where it is present there 
 is still need for some gathering in 
 which the great doctrine of the com- 
 munion of saints, which so easily dis- 
 solves into airy nothing, gets a local 
 habitation and a name. What form 
 it may take depends upon as many 
 and varied conditions as does the 
 form in which the fellowship of a 
 
14 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 family finds expression and growth. 
 That depends on the family, its mem- 
 bers, temperament, its needs, occupa- 
 tion. But if a home is really a home, 
 standing for more than board and 
 lodging and comfort, there must be 
 some means of the culture of fellow-v^ 
 ship, sympathy, and mutual self -giving. 
 So if the church is a home, made so 
 by every truth of the New Testament, 
 it must protide some natural and 
 familiar means of family council, so ^ 
 that the homely New Testament duty 
 and grace of "doing good and com- 
 municating" and "greeting the friends 
 by name" may not perish from the 
 earth. A mid-week gathering will pro- 
 vide a strategic opportunity of / 
 strengthening the grip on the lives ^ 
 of men of what Dean Bosworth has 
 called the four great bonds which tie 
 them together — a common work, a 
 common deliverance, a common ex- 
 perience, and a common hope. 
 
CONVICTIONS 15 
 
 2. Having said this, let us hasten 
 to add that the midweek service has 
 suffered grievously from mistaken loy- 
 alties. "Loyalty is the soul of re- 
 ligion/ ' says Josiah Royce, and in 
 a very suggestive and thoughtful book, 
 The Philosophy of Loyalty, has claimed 
 it as the soul of nearly everything else. 
 His exaltation of a noble tenacity 
 of spirit and will is a word always 
 in season, yet loyalty of itself is never 
 an unmixed good. Without the in- 
 forming spirit of a mobile and open- 
 minded intelligence it becomes the 
 world's unrivaled obstacle to progress. 
 Rufus Choate once said that John 
 Quincy Adams was a "bull dog with 
 confused ideas.' ' Now, a bull dog 
 with an unyielding grip has its uses 
 in the world, but a bull dog with con- 
 fused ideas is a dangerous thing to 
 let run loose. Oxford has been pa- 
 thetically called the "home of lost 
 causes and mistaken loyalties." The 
 
16 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 church has surely been a home of 
 mistaken loyalties. 
 
 There has been the mistaken loy- 
 alty to a vocabulary. Through a deep 
 and even holy desire to preserve the 
 truths which have found, necessarily, 
 only partial expression in certain 
 words, many have fastened their loy- 
 alty to the words themselves — forever 
 mistaking, like the Prince in Tenny- 
 son's "Princess," "the shadow for the 
 substance." 
 
 There has been the mistaken loyalty 
 to a method. Not fully comprehend- 
 ing the infinite variety of an unchang- 
 ing God who yet fulfills himself in 
 many ways, his servants have fre- 
 quently endeavored to transform that 
 glorious city with three ever-open gates 
 on a side into a castle surrounded by 
 a moat, with only one entrance over 
 a narrow drawbridge. 
 
 The mistaken loyalty to a form has 
 greatly subtracted from the possibil- 
 
CONVICTIONS 17 
 
 ities of the midweek service. "I can 
 take care of my enemies, but save 
 me from my friends/ J was the prayer 
 of one discouraged, but discerning man. 
 So, from the friends of the prayer 
 meeting to whom fond memory con- 
 tinually brings the light of other days, 
 loyal to the traditional form of meeting, 
 its exposition and more or less hack- 
 neyed and irrelevant testimonies, the 
 prayer meeting has suffered as much, 
 at least, as from its enemies. More 
 often than we care to think of we 
 have allowed the truths of Him, whose 
 mercies like his sunrises are new every 
 morning, to become mildewed and 
 musty, under the blight of an un- 
 varying form for their consideration. 
 There has grown up a mode of pro- 
 cedure in the service which is more 
 like a solemn ritual than anything 
 else. When the leader finishes and 
 announces that the meeting is open, 
 the real truth of the matter is often 
 
18 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 that it is closed as tight as a drum, 
 and he might as well say "Earth to 
 earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," 
 for the meeting is already laid away, 
 as far as lifelike response is concerned. 
 Dr. Richard C. Cabot says, "No one 
 ought to be satisfied to test his work 
 by any easier standards than these: 
 First, am I seeing all the actual facts, 
 the ever new and unique facts as 
 they come before me? second, am I 
 tracing out as far as I can the full 
 bearing, the true lesson of this move- 
 ment or situation?" Might not a 
 parallel test, equally hard and thor- 
 oughgoing, be well for those interested 
 in conserving prayer meeting values? 
 "Believing in the unique usefulness of 
 the fellowship meeting, are we giving 
 to it enough thought and consecrated 
 ingenuity to provide it with varied 
 and fresh forms? Are we making it 
 so flexible as to appeal not merely 
 to 'prayer meeting folks/ but to 
 
CONVICTIONS 19 
 
 widely different temperaments? Are 
 we making it natural and easy for 
 people to readily participate without 
 constraint and without the least trace 
 of cant? Are we making it touch 
 life closely and definitely enough to 
 be a real inspiration to service?" 
 
 3. Most churches do not need a 
 continual meeting of the type so pre- 
 dominant in the New Testament — the 
 "charismatic" meeting, a gathering for 
 the exercises of spiritual gifts. The 
 earliest Christian worship was a meet- 
 ing for edification not only for be- 
 lievers but also for unbelievers. Every 
 Christian had "received the Holy 
 Ghost" and a "gift" as the "man- 
 ifestation of the Spirit within him" 
 (1 Cor. 12. 7ff.). From the lists in 
 Rom. 12. 6 and 1 Cor. 12. 8 we learn 
 that these gifts were of a manifold 
 nature; but there was a distinction 
 drawn (1 Pet. 4. 10) between the gifts 
 of speaking and the gifts of ministry, 
 
20 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 and those who had received the gifts 
 of speaking took part in public wor- 
 ship. Saint Paul describes the service 
 in 1 Cor. 14. 26, mentioning as different 
 parts a "psalm, a teaching, a tongue, 
 a revelation, an interpretation." These 
 parts are not rigid divisions and are 
 not exhaustive, for prayer was an in- 
 tegral part of the service (1 Cor. 11. 4). 
 This type of meeting for the employ- 
 ment of diverse gifts of speaking has 
 naturally served as a model for the 
 modern prayer meeting of the Prot- 
 estant Church and there will always 
 be a place for the exercise of such 
 genuine and unmistakable gifts of the 
 Holy Spirit. But it is open to serious 
 question whether such a meeting can 
 be used as a model in a church year 
 after year to the largest edification of 
 all concerned. Gifts which might be 
 classed as gifts of prophecy, teaching, 
 and revelation — from whatever variety 
 of causes — are not common. And 
 
CONVICTIONS 21 
 
 where they do not abound, as is so 
 often the case, to let the meeting de- 
 pend so largely upon their manifestation 
 is to limit very needlessly the range and 
 possibilities of the service. There are 
 clear evidences that in the early church 
 the type of meeting easily tended to 
 become one not altogether making for 
 edification. He would be lacking in 
 experience who would fail to know 
 the genuine power in the unction of 
 sincere testimony, revelation, and ex- 
 hortation of the laity. But he would 
 also be lacking in experience who would 
 assert the continual need of the average 
 church for a meeting whose main reli- 
 ance is upon these "spiritual gifts." 
 
 4. The prayer meeting is not prop- 
 erly a matter for the conscience. It 
 is not functioning rightly when it 
 rests its claim on duty. "Put the 
 prayer meeting on your conscience, 
 brethren," echoes from many pulpits. 
 The frequent result of putting the 
 
22 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 prayer meeting on the conscience is 
 that it irritates the conscience more 
 or less, but does not bring the 
 owner to the meeting. The anonymous 
 vivacious author of the Confessions of 
 a Clergyman has convincingly de- 
 scribed a case of the prayer meeting 
 being "put on the conscience": "A 
 midweek service. Bells slowly tolling. 
 Here and there women starting out, 
 singly or by twos and threes, their 
 faces expressive of a sweet, patient, 
 sacrificial dutifulness. For every seven 
 women a man — generally a meekish- 
 looking man, or if not that, one pos- 
 sessed of a Lincoln-like firmness. 
 
 "In forty homes, meanwhile, a trou- 
 bled air, as if the bells recalled priv- 
 ileges neglected. Then a distant sound 
 of treble voices singing, with possibly 
 a baritone above them. At this, a 
 quite perceptible change in the stay- 
 at-homes. Now that it is too late 
 to go, they feel less guilty." 
 
CONVICTIONS 23 
 
 5. The midweek service should be a 
 devotional meeting; but the word "de- 
 votion" used in this connection is a 
 word of enlarging meaning. There is 
 much of truth in the suggestive re- 
 mark of Coleridge, "Make any truth 
 too definite and you make it too small." 
 The word "devotional" has often been 
 made much too small by being made 
 to cover too limited a variety of 
 exercises. The words of Isaiah are 
 aptly descriptive of the case — "The 
 bed is shorter than a man can stretch 
 himself in." Whether a meeting is 
 devotional or not depends not so much 
 upon what kind of things are done 
 as upon the effect that is produced. 
 The simple giving of information may 
 have a high devotional value in that 
 it may result in changed purposes or 
 quickened ideas; while a meeting com- 
 posed of prayer and exhortation may 
 be decidedly unspiritual if it results in 
 weariness and lack of interest. "The 
 
24 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 sin against the Holy Ghost in the 
 pulpit," says Sydney Smith, "is dull- 
 ness." If that is true, the prayer- 
 meeting room also has often been a 
 very sinful place. "There is only one 
 impermissible pulpit style," he says, 
 "the uninteresting." Dullness is one 
 of the arch enemies of spirituality to 
 be feared and warred against equally 
 with other forms of vice, commonly 
 rated more deadly. Whatever kind of 
 midweek service results in new views 
 of truth from unconventional angles, 
 new stirrings of interest, or new im- 
 pulses to service, is a strictly devo- 
 tional meeting. And whatever does 
 not so result, no matter how tradi- 
 tionally "devotional" its form and 
 words, is not so. 
 
 6. In what may be called a "family 
 council" type of meeting, the church 
 has great spiritual resources. Nearly 
 all of the midweek services described 
 in later pages are of this general type. 
 
CONVICTIONS 25 
 
 It might be called a "round-table" 
 type of meeting, did not even that 
 suggest too much formality. The ideal, 
 by no means always achieved, but 
 never lost sight of, and frequently 
 approximated in actual experience, has 
 been to create the unconstrained at- 
 mosphere or tone of the home sitting 
 room, when the various members of 
 the family return home from the day's 
 work, and the events of the day are 
 naturally spoken of by all. An effec- 
 tive means of dispelling the constraint 
 and reserve which hangs over so many 
 prayer meetings like a miasma has 
 been to furnish something to be done. 
 The things done are often extremely 
 simple, as in the case later described, 
 where the people were asked to bring 
 from their houses old Bibles and use 
 them in the meetings. The result was 
 an awe-inspiring collection of books 
 around which were gathered the most 
 tender and precious associations of life 
 
26 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 to many present. But a far more im- 
 portant result was that several people, 
 who could never be induced to make 
 a speech in meeting, or "give a testi- 
 mony/ ' as the common phrase runs, 
 showed their Bibles to the company 
 and told to whom they belonged, to 
 a mother or father, and very gradually 
 they were speaking of the deep things 
 of their heart's life, with as much 
 freedom and naturalness as a man 
 showing some photographs to some 
 friend in his parlor. Such a partici- 
 pation is incomparably more beneficial 
 to the one who speaks and all the others 
 than a testimony given from a sense 
 of duty or restlessness at seeing the 
 meeting lag. These things to be done 
 are never to be introduced merely for 
 the sake of novelty, for there is no 
 spiritual value in novelty of itself; and 
 if it is in the least bizarre or extrav- 
 agant, it quickly destroys a spiritual 
 atmosphere. Everything to be intro- 
 
CONVICTIONS 27 
 
 duced into the prayer meeting must 
 pass through this narrow gate — "Will 
 it make some spiritual truth clearer, 
 win it a readier attention, or build 
 up some desired mood or temper of 
 prayer and service in the attendant?" 
 But where this test is conscientiously 
 applied, and where the congregation 
 come to know that the next meeting 
 will be different from the last, that in 
 it they will do something which will 
 lead them on into freedom from self- 
 consciousness, in that place the prayer 
 meeting has been securely established 
 in the affections, the only place it can 
 permanently make its home. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 SOME PRAYER MEETING 
 STANDARDS 
 
 Cardinal Mazarin had only one 
 test or standard in his judgment of 
 men — a simple one of three words — 
 "Is he lucky?" Under the thin veneer 
 of churchmanship, the deeply rooted 
 paganism of his heart clung to the 
 fetish of the superstition of luck. The 
 standard of a considerable part of the 
 modern world can be expressed in a 
 question of three words, equally simple 
 and equally valueless — "Is it Big?" 
 It is the child's first footrule: the loss 
 of a penny is by a natural logic a 
 greater calamity than the loss of a 
 dime. The penny is bigger. Many 
 men, "children of a larger growth," 
 rarely ever ask any more penetrating 
 
 28 
 
STANDARDS 29 
 
 question of things. In The Turmoil, 
 Booth Tarkington has pictured with 
 great power the pitiable blindness of a 
 city bowed at the altar of Bigness, 
 with utter disregard of the effect of 
 size on the lives of the people who 
 make up the city. 
 
 So one is not at all surprised to find 
 that a very frequent test of prayer- 
 meeting success is the same crude 
 footrule size. "The biggest prayer 
 meeting in the city" is a standing line 
 in the advertisement of a church in 
 an Eastern city. "So many testi- 
 monies in so many minutes" is part 
 of many a report, given with a ring, 
 which unmistakably marks it as the 
 very apex of success. And large num- 
 bers of people would regard looking 
 at such manifestly good accomplish- 
 ments with a critical eye as ultra 
 fastidious. Yet one who approaches 
 the subject from the angle of thought- 
 ful experience will readily agree that 
 
30 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 mere numbers, as regards the prayer 
 meeting, are very much like the flow- 
 ers immortalized by W. S. Gilbert, 
 which bloomed "in the spring," but 
 which, after all, had "nothing to do 
 with the case." 
 
 The shrewd politician pays no super- 
 stitious homage to numbers — except as 
 they appear in the ballot box. Tell 
 him that the opposition candidate ad- 
 dressed an enthusiastic meeting of five 
 thousand people, with much flag-wav- 
 ing and music, and the usual response 
 will be a bland and confident smile. 
 But tell him of a meeting in conference 
 of leaders of different organizations in 
 the city, be there only ten or a dozen 
 present, he will at once be interested. 
 The competent historian no longer 
 judges by size. In 1874 Robert Lowe 
 made a speech in the House of Com- 
 mons in which he amused himself with 
 belittling the Greeks and Romans. 
 "The battle of Marathon," he said, 
 
STANDARDS 31 
 
 "was of less account than a modern 
 explosion in a coal mine, which often 
 kills a greater number than the nine- 
 teen hundred and twenty-nine persons 
 who perished withstanding the hosts 
 of Darius." On this John Fiske com- 
 ments very pertinently: "The moral 
 intended was that the newspaper is a 
 better textbook than Herodotus. Now 
 I can imagine that too exclusive at- 
 tention to a newspaper, with the 
 myriad disconnected items of fact and 
 fancy, might so destroy one's sense of 
 perspective as to blind one to the 
 importance of an event upon which 
 hung the whole future of European civ- 
 ilization. The battle of Borodino with 
 seventy thousand killed is trivial com- 
 pared with Marathon. We cannot 
 measure events with a footrule." 1 
 
 The thoughtful Christian well knows 
 it. Who would compare for a moment 
 the importance of the feeding of the 
 
 1 Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America, Vol. i, p. 218. 
 
32 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 five thousand with that little meeting 
 in an upper room in Jerusalem where 
 only twelve persons were present with 
 the Master, or even with the meeting 
 with the woman at a well in Samaria, 
 or with Nicodemus with two present? 
 Let it not be inferred, on the other 
 hand, that smallness of numbers has 
 any magical advantage in a meeting. 
 A large midweek service is a consum- 
 mation devoutly to be wished and 
 earnestly worked for. More than that, 
 a somnolent satisfaction with small 
 numbers is nothing short of the be- 
 trayal of a sacred trust. Nevertheless, 
 the question that really signifies is 
 never, How many were present? but 
 everywhere and always, What did 
 those who were present do as a result 
 of being there? For it is perfectly 
 clear that a large attendance may be 
 due to one of several causes, bearing 
 very little relation to its real value. 
 It may be due largely to habit. In 
 
STANDARDS 33 
 
 some cases it is due to the fact that 
 the midweek service is the chief or 
 only through-the-week activity of the 
 church. Thus a large attendance might 
 not be a sign of unusual efficiency but 
 of its very opposite, meaning that the 
 church was attempting none of the 
 other things it might do and ought 
 to do. In other cases, of course, it 
 is due to its meeting a genuine need 
 and functioning with the utmost effi- 
 ciency in the life of the church. But 
 in every case the size is not the cause 
 of value and can be taken as an indi- 
 cation of it only very roughly. The 
 popular epigram that the "prayer meet- 
 ing is the thermometer of the church" 
 is the kind of misleading half truth 
 that popular epigrams usually are. 
 
 1. The most obvious test of a prayer 
 meeting is a fair one — "Does it pray?" 
 This means more than to ask, "Are 
 there prayers said?" In a little church 
 in the Middle West the following 
 
34 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 petition was offered every week for 
 ten years, with very few exceptions: 
 "Bless each and every member of the 
 church in the lot whereunto Thou hast 
 called him or her, and all the peoples 
 of the earth from the heads of the 
 rivers to the feet thereof." These 
 words always occurred in a prayer, 
 but it would be an unpardonable 
 stretching of language to say that 
 the meeting prayed. Leading a body 
 of people in prayer, using that phrase 
 in its largest sense of leading them 
 through months and years into a real 
 practice of prayer, is the most im- 
 portant as well as one of the most 
 considerable undertakings to which a 
 pastor can address himself. Nothing 
 calls for more resourcefulness and pa- 
 tience and nothing touches the church's 
 power so nearly at the center. It is 
 an enterprise much like the uncovering 
 of a spring. The hard crust of stereo- 
 typed phrases and traditional ideas and 
 
STANDARDS 35 
 
 misconceptions must be first removed, 
 carefully and tactfully, as a rule, but 
 sometimes the crust which forbids the 
 flowing of the stream is so hard and 
 set that it requires a process much 
 like blasting. It is the most rewarding 
 work a man can ever do. Once unlock 
 the spring of a genuine petition and 
 intercession and everything shall live 
 whither the river cometh. 
 
 The French have an extremely sug- 
 gestive phrase, which they use of a 
 public meeting, when they say, "It 
 marched"; the phrase catches splen- 
 didly the swing and movement of an 
 exhilarating public gathering. Is there 
 not room for a phrase descriptive of 
 a prayer meeting, conveying something 
 just as definite and real — "It prayed"? 
 When such a description is a true one, 
 the meeting reaches back across the 
 centuries and clasps hands with the 
 company of folks in Jerusalem of whom 
 we read, "And when they had prayed, 
 
36 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 the place was shaken where they were 
 assembled together; and they were all 
 filled with the Holy Ghost, and spake 
 the word of God with boldness." The 
 sequence is always true of a gathering. 
 When it prays — it marches! 
 
 2. Does it "domesticate" religious 
 truth? When the psychologist writes 
 of consciousness he tells us of ideas 
 and perceptions being divided accord- 
 ing to their "warmth" into two great 
 classes, the "me" and the "not-me." 
 The things which have some personal 
 association with one — his property, 
 friends, reputation, thoughts — all ac- 
 quire a warmth or feeling of pro- 
 prietorship which constitute them a 
 part of his larger self. It is the func- 
 tion of Christian teaching and preach- 
 ing to transfer the substance of 
 Christian faith from the "not-me" to 
 the "me" part of men's minds. In 
 a peculiar sense this is the business 
 of the prayer meeting. By its topics 
 
STANDARDS 37 
 
 and their treatment, by the participa- 
 tion it elicits in as many and varied 
 ways as possible, it should move the 
 truths of Christian faith within the 
 inner circle of what actually "belongs" 
 to a person and enters in as con- 
 stant ingredient in his daily life. Lord 
 Bacon says of familiar essays that 
 they are "most current for that they 
 come to men's business and bosoms." 
 The prayer meeting succeeds when it 
 comes to men's business and bosoms. 
 It fails when it stops short of that 
 and reaches only their ears and eyes. 
 A form of meeting which fails to estab- 
 lish this closeness of intimate feeling 
 and relationship may be unimpeach- 
 ably good in itself and still fail of 
 its largest service. At the celebrated 
 tea party given by the March Hare, 
 the Hatter and the Dormouse, in Alice 
 in Wonderland, the Hatter gazes re- 
 gretfully at his broken watch and 
 reproaches the March Hare angrily, 
 
38 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 "I told you butter wouldn't suit the 
 works." "It was the best butter," the 
 March Hare meekly replied. The fact 
 that it was the very best butter could 
 not help him, if it was not butter at 
 all which the works needed but some- 
 thing entirely different. Many a 
 prayer meeting leader has striven to 
 make his addresses better and better, 
 and has made them of the finest 
 quality, when what was needed was 
 not the best kind of addresses, but 
 something entirely different. 
 
 3. Does it break up the molds of 
 thinking? This is a hard but fair 
 test of a vital prayer meeting. The 
 midweek council or conference gather- 
 ing furnishes a rare opportunity for 
 the breaking up of mental soil and 
 the consequent possibility of new 
 growth. Bishop McConnell says that 
 many Christians are still-born — they 
 never add anything to the range of 
 ideas or practices which were theirs 
 
STANDARDS 39 
 
 at the time of their entrance into the 
 Christian life. Instead of moving 
 ahead on the straight road that grow- 
 eth more and more light even unto 
 the perfect day, they revolve in cir- 
 cles. It is this unprogressive circular 
 character of the prayer meeting which 
 has frequently made it a kind of 
 spiritual merry-go-round. To furnish, 
 even by the simplest means, some new 
 approach to truth — some new angle of 
 vision on duty — is as essential to 
 life as plowing to a corn field. The 
 landscape artist is continually con- 
 cerned to get new glimpses of his 
 subject to help him in his composi- 
 tion. He will frequently look at it 
 from under his elbow, and even 
 upside down. Such new "composi- 
 tions," "puttings together" of life are 
 indispensable to a living church. 
 
 4. "Is it linked up to service?" This 
 is the fourth and greatest standard. 
 The finest automobile constructed, 
 
40 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 without a "clutch" which can be 
 thrown into the machinery and relate 
 the racing motor to the miles of road 
 to be covered, is a poor affair. Has 
 the prayer meeting a "clutch" which 
 can be "thrown in" and turn the 
 machinery of the church? For the 
 "manifestation of the Spirit is given 
 to every man to profit withal." In 
 service, the successful prayer meeting 
 begins and ends. What gave the 
 fellowship gathering of the early church 
 an undimmed glow and zest was the 
 fact that it was a workers' conference 
 and fighters' assembly. As we read 
 over the personal greetings in the 
 last chapter of the Epistle to the 
 Romans we get an idea of the com- 
 pany who made up the meeting in 
 which the letter would be read, and 
 we find ourselves among a group of 
 people who came to the meeting from 
 labor and the battlefield — Priscilla and 
 Aquila, fellow workers in Christ, who 
 
STANDARDS 41 
 
 had risked their necks, and whose 
 very house was a church; "Mary, who 
 bestowed much labor"; Andronicus and 
 Junius, fellow prisoners; "Urbane, our 
 helper in Christ"; "Apelles the tested"; 
 "Tryphena and Tryphosa, who labor 
 in the Lord," and "Persis, who 
 labored much." Is it any wonder 
 that in such a gathering of active 
 workmen there was an atmosphere of 
 reality and alertness, which made it 
 move in spiritual power? With a 
 meeting, which, on the other hand, 
 is on the order of Melchizedek, which 
 has neither spiritual ancestors in the 
 form of Christian service already per- 
 formed, nor descendants in the form 
 of service inspired and subsequently 
 rendered, but which stands as a thing 
 alone and self-sufficient, it is no won- 
 der the meeting lags! The surest 
 hoops of steel with which to grapple 
 friends to the common gathering are 
 the bonds of a common work. Then 
 
42 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 it is, in a true and literal sense, that 
 man is a "creature of large discourse, 
 looking before and after " and finding 
 in each direction the natural tongue- 
 freeing interest of a worker in his 
 work. The meeting which really in- 
 spires definite service, in whatever 
 way, whether by filling the springs 
 of Christian joy and devotion out of 
 which all power for service ultimately 
 comes, or uncovering some new corner 
 of opportunity, is one that the King 
 delighteth to honor. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 SOME PRAYER MEETING 
 EXPERIENCES 
 
 The meetings described in the fol- 
 lowing chapter are outlined with a 
 very modest purpose. They have not 
 solved the "prayer meeting problem/ 9 
 as it is frequently referred to in pain- 
 ful accents. They are no sort of a 
 panacea. They do not displace other 
 types of meeting which have borne 
 genuine and manifold fruit for years 
 and which will, in the good providence 
 of God, continue to do so. There 
 are seasons and places where the 
 largest good can be accomplished by 
 the meeting being given an educa- 
 tional aspect and consisting largely 
 of an address by the minister. So 
 with other kinds of meetings which 
 
 43 
 
44 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 deserve to hold a permanent place in 
 the life of the church. It is simply 
 as variations, with a quite general 
 adaptability, that the meetings in this 
 book are put forth. 
 
 They have at least the virtue of 
 being real records of actual experience. 
 They have all been used under con- 
 ditions such as obtain in the average 
 church and do not depend for success 
 upon any extraordinary responsiveness 
 among the people or extraordinary 
 capability in the leader, for they did 
 not have these conditions when used. 
 As will be readily seen, most of the 
 meetings have the common element of 
 furnishing the attendants something to 
 do as well as opportunity for "re- 
 marks," and the experience has been 
 that the "things to be done" have 
 served to make the things said come 
 with more readiness, naturalness, and 
 pertinence. Something of the element 
 of a "surprise party" has been given 
 
EXPERIENCES 45 
 
 to the service, immensely strengthen- 
 ing the interest in the service on the 
 part of the congregation, by imparting 
 a real variety. Frequently variety in 
 the prayer meeting has been sought 
 for by means so external and super- 
 ficial that the real character of the 
 gathering remains unchanged. It has 
 been like the boarder who complained 
 to his landlady that the meals were 
 too much the same, since she had 
 macaroni for dinner every day. She 
 promised to remedy the fault, and, 
 true to her word, the next day there 
 was a change. Instead of macaroni 
 she had spaghetti! While the writers 
 wish most earnestly to avoid creat- 
 ing the impression that the meetings 
 achieved more than was actually the 
 case, it can truly be said that they 
 did much to exorcise the evil spirits 
 of dumbness, constraint, and reserve. 
 
 1. The greatest result was in the 
 development of people. With some peo- 
 
46 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 pie the degree of response was not 
 what was hoped for and expected. But 
 with a surprising number the informal 
 character of the discussions of themes, 
 which bore directly on the lives at 
 many points, elicited a participation 
 not present before, greater in quan- 
 tity, and marked with a genuineness 
 and frankness which was both novel 
 and gratifying. Folks grew in the 
 grace of expression and the process 
 of that growth added to the riches 
 of the whole company. It is a perti- 
 nent word which Dr. J. H. Jowett 
 writes: "The church is poor because 
 much of her treasure is imprisoned; 
 but she herself carries the liberating 
 key. Our riches are buried in the 
 isolated lives of individual members 
 instead of being pooled for the endow- 
 ment of the whole fraternity. A very 
 large part of the ample ministry of 
 the 'Koinonia' has become atrophied, 
 if, indeed, it was ever well sustained. 
 
EXPERIENCES 47 
 
 'O, for a closer walk with God/ we 
 sigh. O, for a closer walk with man, 
 we may add, as well." 
 
 The wealth of suggestiveness and 
 experience which are to be contributed 
 by many, if once the safety deposit 
 vault of their reserve and silence can 
 be opened, is truly surprising. Fre- 
 quently, it cannot be opened because 
 the distance from not speaking at all 
 to speaking on the greatest and deep- 
 est themes is too large a one to be 
 taken at one step. Many of the 
 themes and programs of the meetings 
 described have served to put grad- 
 uated steps between these extremes. 
 By connection with things which 
 brought no sense of spiritual self-con- 
 sciousness the habit of freedom of 
 speech is established, and once estab- 
 lished it can be used to many ends. 
 One man put his impressions in a very 
 definite way at one time during a 
 meeting. "Why, it seemed as though 
 
48 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 the pastor must have pronounced the 
 benediction at the beginning of the 
 meeting. Everyone was talking just as 
 they usually do when it is over." 
 
 2. The meetings have given freedom 
 from stereotyped speeches and prayers. 
 When the subject is so distinctly and 
 definitely one thing, the many irrele- 
 vancies and stock speeches are by a 
 natural and automatic process crowded 
 out. And when a habit of more gen- 
 eral participation has been established 
 the time limit becomes a necessity and 
 a blessing at once. 
 
 3. Initiative has been developed. 
 Several extremely valuable suggestions 
 for meetings have come from the 
 people themselves as the service has 
 fastened itself in their interest. This 
 has had the double value of providing 
 helpful meetings and of inspiring the 
 people with a new feeling of ownership 
 and responsibility. 
 
 4. An entirely unexpected experience, 
 
EXPERIENCES 49 
 
 but one rich in value, has been in the 
 themes for sermons supplied. The in- 
 terest and problems of the people have 
 been disclosed with unaccustomed in- 
 timacy and fullness. If the ideal 
 sermon should have "heaven for its 
 father and earth for its mother," the 
 prayer meeting has often supplied 
 elements of both, particularly of the 
 earth, in its disclosure of the condi- 
 tions of people's minds and lives. 
 Often a practical question discussed in 
 prayer meeting has stirred the soil 
 and awakened interest, affording a 
 preparation for the preacher's pulpit 
 message, on the same subject, as 
 beneficial as a spring plowing be- 
 fore sowing the seed. The debate on 
 "Resolved, That the world is growing 
 morally and spiritually better," had 
 such a decided effect. Those who had 
 been in the meeting were already 
 awakened with thought. The consid- 
 eration of the question, "What are the 
 
50 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 real possibilities of our church?" was 
 extremely helpful to the pastor, pre- 
 paring to treat the same subject, and 
 furnished an audience composed of 
 many who had already thought seri- 
 ously on the theme and were keenly 
 alert to consider it. 
 
 Two supplementary remarks may 
 perhaps be well added. A strong 
 Prayer Meeting Committee, to help 
 plan and provide for the meetings, 
 has been found not only a help but 
 practically a necessity. It not only 
 assists the pastor but makes for the 
 democracy of cooperation, and is an 
 outward and visible sign that the 
 prayer meeting is not a harmless ex- 
 crescence on the body of the church or 
 a foible of the pastor, but part of the 
 program of the church. It is a sad 
 thing and a "bad-weather" signal when 
 the Finance Committee of the church 
 is the most important one, or perhaps 
 the only one. The church whose gov- 
 
EXPERIENCES 51 
 
 erning board rarely ever acts on any- 
 thing except the treasurer's report is 
 usually acting on a deficit. Member- 
 ship on the Prayer Meeting Committee 
 can be made a post of real respon- 
 sibility, work, and honor. And on 
 its membership there may with great 
 helpfulness be some who have pre- 
 viously had nothing whatever to do 
 with the prayer meeting. Different 
 members of the church, if possible a 
 man and his wife, have frequently 
 been asked to act as host and hostess 
 at the meeting. This was done but 
 occasionally, so that it never became 
 merely a form, and it added to the 
 informal and domestic character of the 
 meeting. The duties were not defined, 
 and different hosts and hostesses acted 
 in different ways, except that all re- 
 ceived the attendants with greeting and 
 made themselves particularly respon- 
 sible for introductions and sociability. 
 Sometimes the meeting itself provided 
 
52 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 some special connection with the hosts, 
 as when the people went from one room 
 to another, when they acted as guides, 
 or when pictures or books were to be 
 passed in the meeting — which they 
 took charge of. 
 
 Frequently the host and hostess 
 furnished flowers, though some were 
 asked explicitly not to do so, so as 
 not to make it an unvarying custom, 
 perhaps burdensome. Some provided 
 special music. Some furnished light 
 refreshments, especially in summer. 
 One couple furnished copies of the 
 Gospel of John, appropriately inscribed 
 with a personal greeting, at a meeting 
 calling for the use of the Gospel. 
 The total cost of the Gospels was a 
 little over a dollar. Some furnished 
 cards containing the greetings of the 
 season — at Easter and Christmas and 
 New Year's, etc. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE MEETINGS 
 
 In considering the following plans 
 it should be kept in mind that prayer 
 and the expression of testimony are 
 not omitted from any of these services. 
 The suggestions and symbolisms used 
 are but a guide and stimulation to 
 them. Rather than prayer and testi- 
 mony being crowded out, it is found 
 that they become more natural, more 
 vital, and certainly more to the point. 
 It should also be noted that it is not 
 the intention to suggest the use of 
 these services one right after the other. 
 This is not a year's program for the 
 midweek service; these meetings are 
 not offered as a substitute for the 
 usual prayer meeting. They are sug- 
 gested, rather, as types of meetings 
 
 53 
 
54 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 to be interspersed with the usual meet- 
 ings to add variety, interest, and 
 naturalness to expressional religion. 
 
 "Twelve o'Clock and All's Well" 
 
 This was the midnight call of the 
 old town crier, and furnished the 
 motto and spirit of the first meeting 
 of the year as the old year turned 
 into the new. A large picture of the 
 "Town Crier" holding his lantern and 
 calling out the hour was lent by one 
 of the members and hung on the 
 front wall of the room, decorated with 
 holly. The little Christmas tree in 
 the room was kept over from the 
 Christmas meeting and on its branches 
 hung several packages of different 
 sizes. The presidents or represent- 
 atives of different organizations in the 
 church were asked to be present and 
 receive gifts for their respective organ- 
 izations. After these were duly opened 
 they were found to contain greetings 
 
THE MEETINGS 55 
 
 from the church to the different or- 
 ganizations, composed of appropriate 
 Scripture, a wish for some definite 
 thing for the organization to accom- 
 plish that year, and a prayer for help 
 to do so. The greeting to the Sunday 
 school, for instance, was in the form 
 of a miniature manuscript roll after 
 the old Jewish pattern on which was 
 written 2 Tim. 2. 3, and 3. 14, 15, and 
 the wish and prayer that it might 
 strengthen its hold on the boys and 
 girls of the intermediate grade. So 
 with five other organizations. The 
 president of the Ladies' Aid Society 
 received a spool of thread and needles 
 and the wish that through all the social 
 work of the organization the spiritual 
 purpose might be preeminent. From 
 this beginning a natural and free con- 
 versation on the tasks of the church 
 ensued. The aim of the meeting was 
 to foster the spirit of unity and con- 
 fidence. 
 
56 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 An Evening with Old Bibles 
 
 Nearly every Christian family has 
 among its possessions an old Bible 
 around which hover very tender asso- 
 ciations. In some cases it has come 
 down through several generations; in 
 others it is the father's or mother's 
 Bible. Frequently such a volume 
 shows the marks of long usage by 
 some loved one. The congregation 
 was asked for this service to bring 
 such Bibles. The number of such 
 Bibles in any congregation will be 
 surprising. Those who brought them 
 told to whom they had belonged, 
 how they had been read, and then 
 read from them — in most cases some 
 marked passage. The progress of the 
 meeting brought out the real connec- 
 tion between Bible-reading and charac- 
 ter, and at the close the leader spoke 
 briefly on the value of having one's 
 own Bible for devotional reading; how 
 
THE MEETINGS 57 
 
 everyone has to make his own Bible 
 by his own use, and the value of 
 marking a Bible and so linking it up 
 to particular times and experiences 
 in life. 
 
 The Communion of Saints 
 
 A good-size map of the United 
 States is placed in the front of the 
 room, where all can see it; then each 
 one is given a small United States 
 flag. After the service is introduced 
 each one is asked, separately, to go 
 to the map, and stick the flag in the 
 place, where they were converted, or 
 first joined the church; they then may 
 tell about that church, or their early 
 experience there. 
 
 Another good meeting may grow out 
 of this one by having greetings sent 
 from this meeting to these old home 
 churches, and when the replies are 
 received, have the answers read in a 
 subsequent meeting. 
 
58 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 A Cooperative Gospel-Reading 
 Meeting 
 
 Under the conviction that the aver- 
 age church member knows far too 
 little of the contents of the Gospels 
 as a whole, a meeting was planned 
 which consisted wholly of reports on 
 Bible-reading. The people were as- 
 signed different chapters in the Gos- 
 pels to read and report on the contents 
 of the chapters. The first evening 
 was given to the Gospel of Matthew 
 and Mark, eleven people being asked 
 to read four chapters each and briefly 
 tell what was in them, thus covering 
 the forty-four chapters of the first 
 two Gospels. Outlines of the two 
 books had been put on the blackboard 
 so that the movement of the Gospels 
 could be readily followed. A succeed- 
 ing evening was devoted to Luke and 
 John. The meetings were entirely the 
 people's meetings and were instrumen- 
 
THE MEETINGS 59 
 
 tal in securing a large amount of 
 careful Bible-reading on the part of 
 the congregation. The epistles of Paul 
 were later treated in the same way. 
 
 My Favorite Portrait of Christ 
 
 This subject afforded an opportunity 
 to study the character of Christ from 
 what was to most people a new point 
 of view. Cbpies of Perry Pictures — 
 prints of the most famous portraits 
 of Christ — were provided at one cent 
 each. They were freely circulated 
 among the audience so that all were 
 able to examine them. After a few 
 remarks by the leader different people 
 told which of the portraits did the 
 most justice to their idea of the Master. 
 The spiritual value of the meeting 
 was in the way it brought out appre- 
 ciations of the character of Jesus, 
 particularly his courage, strength, and 
 manliness, which many portraits of him 
 utterly fail to suggest. The consensus 
 
60 THE MID WEEK SERVICE 
 
 of opinion was strongly in favor of 
 the modern painters rather than the 
 classics, with Hofmann in his "The 
 Boy Jesus in the Temple" and "Christ 
 and the Rich Young Ruler" decidedly 
 the favorite. Holman Hunt, Plock- 
 horst, and Tissot were next in order, 
 with a very general liking for Thor- 
 waldsen's sculptured Christ. The 
 prints were given out to be taken 
 home as remembrances of the meeting. 
 A meeting similar in character was 
 held later in the year on the subject, 
 "My Favorite Madonna." Pictures 
 were used in the same manner. It 
 afforded, among other things, an ex- 
 cellent opportunity to consider the 
 natural causes of the rise of the wor- 
 ship of the Virgin Mary, and in view 
 of these causes, the necessity of keeping 
 our conception of Christ so filled with 
 sympathy and humanity that all that 
 the heart craves of tenderness may be 
 found in him. 
 
THE MEETINGS 61 
 
 Groups in Prayer 
 
 After the people have assembled, 
 and had about ten minutes of intro- 
 ductory service, the meeting is divided 
 into groups under leaders. These lead- 
 ers know before the meeting that they 
 are to lead a group, and what their topic 
 is to be. Each leader takes his group 
 into a separate room, and for twenty 
 minutes they counsel and pray on their 
 topic. Then all return, and the closing 
 fifteen minutes of the service is given 
 to reports of these meetings by the 
 leaders, or by any one of the group, 
 if they desire to speak. It is found 
 that this type of meeting may get 
 many more to take part than the 
 average meeting, and also that there 
 is a definiteness about the prayers, 
 because of the subjects that are as- 
 signed. So many prayers do not get 
 anywhere; but in this service, where 
 blackboards were used in some of the 
 
62 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 rooms, there was a definiteness about 
 the prayers, which was splendid. 
 
 The February Family 
 
 This meeting is held at a proper 
 time in the month of February. In 
 this month occur the birthdays of 
 many of our famous men. We all 
 are familiar with Lincoln and Wash- 
 ington, but there are many others, 
 whose birthdays might be celebrated, 
 were it not for these outstanding 
 characters, such as, for example, Ruskin 
 and Longfellow. A very interesting 
 service can, therefore, be developed 
 by simply assigning to different people 
 the task of bringing in very brief 
 biographies of these prominent charac- 
 ters. It is always best, we have 
 found, to have some anecdotes of these 
 lives brought rather than just the bare 
 facts. There is nothing so stimulating 
 as the study of biography, and espe- 
 cially the study of men who have 
 
THE MEETINGS 63 
 
 risen from meager circumstances to 
 prominent places in the world. The 
 month of February is rich with such 
 characters, and should not be over- 
 looked. 
 
 What Books Have Really 
 Helped You? 
 
 With two or three assigned to lead 
 in the discussion, people were asked to 
 name two or three books, whether 
 fiction or any other, which they had 
 really enjoyed and loved, and which 
 they felt had been permanently help- 
 ful. The aim was not to compile a 
 list of suitable books to be read, 
 which would be quite easy, and per- 
 haps quite useless, but something 
 better — a real experience meeting on 
 books actually read and prized. The 
 pastor's opening remarks were on some 
 books which had been formative in- 
 fluences on great lives, such as the 
 influence of Law's Serious Call on 
 
64 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 Wesley and David Brainard's Journal 
 on the life of Henry Marty n, etc. 
 The list which resulted was printed by 
 the Young People's Society of the 
 
 Church with the title, "The 
 
 Church Five-Foot Shelf of Books," 
 and was distributed to the congrega- 
 tion. A few letters on the subject 
 from representative people in the city 
 were read in the meeting. 
 
 The Real Elements of My Life 
 
 Under this general head were held 
 what were considered by many the 
 most profitable meetings of the year. 
 They were introduced after the "fam- 
 ily-council" idea had become firmly 
 enough established and the informal 
 atmosphere prevalent enough to make 
 such meetings profitable because gen- 
 uinely real. A description of one will 
 suffice for five or six. There is 
 a world of meaning, always well 
 
THE MEETINGS 65 
 
 worth pondering in connection with 
 preaching and the prayer meeting, 
 in the old Greek myth of Anteus: 
 Anteus was the son of Terra, the 
 Earth. He was a mighty giant and 
 wrestler whose strength was invincible 
 as long as he remained in contact 
 with his mother Earth. He regained 
 vigor whenever his feet touched her. 
 The prayer meeting is such a wrestler. 
 When it touches the earth and comes 
 into real contact with people's lives it 
 waxes strong. These meetings "touched 
 the earth' J with new vitality as the 
 result. One evening the subject was, 
 "What are the real elements of your 
 Happiness?" The people were asked 
 to name not the things which all 
 would agree ought to make folks happy, 
 but what really did contribute to their 
 happiness. Of course every life has 
 its own reserves which are for itself 
 alone, and no attempt was made to 
 have intimate secrets disclosed. But 
 
66 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 apart from things sacredly personal, 
 much help is to be had from the dis- 
 cussion of the question from the stand- 
 point of actual experience. It was 
 significant that only one person men- 
 tioned money, and many spoke of 
 things usually considered minor mat- 
 ters. Similar questions taken up at 
 intervals were : 
 
 What do you most fear? 
 
 What is the most difficult thing you 
 ever did? 
 
 What have been the most helpful 
 influences of your life? 
 
 What is the unpardonable sin against 
 you: that is, what do you find it most 
 difficult to forgive? 
 
 What is the most impressive thing 
 you ever witnessed? 
 
 A Reason for the Faith 
 That is in You 
 
 Two meetings were held under 
 this head which had great liveliness, 
 
THE MEETINGS 67 
 
 but which included a very serious 
 purpose. In the first the pastor 
 posed as an unbeliever in Christianity. 
 He stated his assumed position as a 
 nonbeliever and made the strongest 
 possible case against the evidences of 
 Christianity. The audience was in- 
 vited to show him his errors and bring 
 out points in favor of their belief. 
 The discussion easily led the audience 
 to consider anew the reasons for their 
 faith. In the second meeting, held 
 some time later, the minister argued 
 from the standpoint of the man who 
 believed nominally in Christianity and 
 who sympathized with the church, but 
 who would neither attend nor join it. 
 The people were invited to persuade 
 him to join, and were incidentally 
 shown how the church appeared to 
 many on the outside, and the typical 
 attitudes and arguments which the 
 * church had to overcome. 
 
68 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 Story Meetings 
 
 Occasional meetings of a very simple 
 character with the reading of stories 
 as their principal feature have shown 
 devotional value. Of course this, being 
 the chief end of every meeting, must 
 be furnished by the story itself. In 
 some of the meetings discussion and 
 testimony followed the reading. Others 
 closed simply with song. 
 
 L. H. Bugbee's beautiful Christmas 
 story, The Man Who Was Too Busy to 
 Find the Child (The Methodist Book 
 Concern), was read at a meeting two 
 weeks before Christmas. An added 
 effectiveness was secured by having 
 the room darkened and lighted with 
 candles. Another Christmas story 
 which can be used effectively is J. 
 E. Park's The Man Who Missed 
 Christmas (Pilgrim Press). The sub- 
 ject of prayer has never been treated 
 more exquisitely, perhaps, than by 
 
THE MEETINGS 69 
 
 Henry van Dyke in his story, The 
 Source, published in The Blue Flower 
 (Scribners). J. M. Barriers tender 
 description of his mother, Margaret 
 Ogilvy, "How My Mother Got Her 
 Soft Face," lends itself admirably to 
 the purposes of a prayer meeting. 
 
 It would be an unpardonable blun- 
 der to forget, in this connection, the 
 first and greatest Story Book in the 
 world. From it on one evening the 
 book of Ruth was read by four young 
 women, each reading one chapter. 
 
 What I Would Do With a 
 Million Dollars 
 
 In opening this meeting three people 
 were asked to make brief talks on 
 what they would do with a million 
 dollars. It brought out very clearly 
 what a complicated problem the better- 
 ment of the world is; the danger of 
 doing harm with money, even with 
 the best intent; the superiority of pre- 
 
70 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 ventive over rescue work, and the 
 necessity of reaching final causes rather 
 than symptoms of evil. A blackboard 
 was used to catch the suggestions 
 offered. One speaker made an original 
 and illuminating comment when he 
 said that with a million dollars he 
 would doubtless make a fool of him- 
 self. One concrete result was the 
 light gained on what to do with the 
 one dollar which a man had, rather 
 than with the million which he did 
 not have. 
 
 If the World Forgot to Pray 
 
 A fresh approach to the funda- 
 mental theme of the value of prayer 
 was made when this question was 
 the subject: "What would happen if 
 everyone forgot to pray for a year?" 
 The subject, as always, had been an- 
 nounced in advance, and the leader 
 made no introductory remarks beyond 
 asking if there would be any noticeable 
 
THE MEETINGS 71 
 
 difference in the world at the end of 
 a year if no one prayed. Most of 
 those present agreed that there would. 
 They were then asked to suggest in 
 just what forms that difference would 
 be shown. A large number of interest- 
 ing suggestions were made which were 
 noted on a blackboard. Among them, 
 to quote a few examples, were the cer- 
 tain lowering of standards of personal 
 action; weakening of conscience; blunt- 
 ing of sympathies and consequent slack- 
 ening of charitable and social service; 
 lowering of the tone of home life; 
 cherishing of bitter feelings and ha- 
 treds which are frequently dissolved in 
 prayer; increase in sickness, due to 
 melancholy and gloom, increase in the 
 number of suicides, withering of the 
 church, etc. The meeting came to 
 an effective climax, when after these 
 things had been discussed, the pastor 
 pressed home the question whether it 
 was not true that the reason so many 
 
72 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 of these things do happen, as much 
 as they do, is because so many people 
 actually do neglect to pray? The 
 meeting seemed to give prayer a new 
 "place in the sun." 
 
 Debates 
 
 It has been found that some people 
 who will not speak on their own 
 initiative will take part in a friendly 
 and informal debate. The plan for 
 this service has been to have two 
 persons present the points on each 
 side, followed by general discussion 
 and a vote, not upon the manner of 
 presentation, but upon one's belief 
 regarding the question. Profitable sub- 
 jects will readily suggest themselves. 
 The four following have proved help- 
 ful: 
 
 Resolved, That the world is growing 
 morally and spiritually better. 
 
 Resolved, That capital punishment 
 should be abolished. 
 
THE MEETINGS 73 
 
 Resolved, That war has done more 
 evil than intemperance. 
 
 Resolved, That the money spent on 
 foreign missions could be spent with 
 better results in this country. 
 
 These questions are all old, pur- 
 posely chosen for that reason. One 
 aim has been to get questions upon 
 which most people already have opin- 
 ions, and so make the debates less of 
 a scholastic exercise, involving the look- 
 ing up of material in a library, and 
 more in the nature of a conversation. 
 Such questions, with great religious 
 import, are the only ones which can 
 profitably be considered. It need 
 hardly be added that it is necessary 
 to avoid anything that would remotely 
 raise a personal or partisan issue. 
 
 The Inner Circle 
 
 Before this meeting the seats of the 
 room were arranged in three circles, 
 the inner circle being smaller than the 
 
74 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 outer two. The people sat in the two 
 outer circles; the inner one being re- 
 served to use at the latter part of the 
 service. The Scripture and brief talk 
 of about five minutes by the minister 
 were on the Inner Circle among the 
 disciples. The testimonies and prayers 
 held to the thought of fitness for 
 this close relation to Christ. 
 
 Ten minutes before the close of 
 the meeting the minister announced 
 that he was about to open the inner 
 circle, and wanted all who would to 
 enter it with him. The condition of 
 the entrance was as follows: upon 
 coming to the entrance of the circle, 
 each one was to pause, and pray 
 either silently or audibly, and at that 
 time decide, with God's help, to re- 
 nounce something in his life, which he 
 knew to be contrary to God's will, or 
 to take some definite advance step in 
 his relation to him and his service. 
 
 Almost all in the room entered the 
 
THE MEETINGS 75 
 
 circle, and kneeled in the prayer of 
 consecration. This meeting was deeply 
 spiritual, and could not be held often, 
 yet it can be held at regular intervals, 
 and when announced, has brought a 
 large attendance. 
 
 Good Friday 
 
 On Good Friday the main audi- 
 torium of the church was opened in 
 the afternoon and evening for medita- 
 tion and prayer. There was no public 
 program or set exercise at either time. 
 The people had been invited to come 
 to the church and spend some time 
 in quietness and prayer. In the eve- 
 ning there was soft music on the 
 organ from time to time, mostly old 
 and appropriate hymns. A great many 
 people spent from fifteen minutes to 
 half an hour or an hour during the 
 evening in the church, and while the 
 value of such a quiet prayer period 
 cannot be appraised in any way, there 
 
76 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 were many expressions as to its help- 
 fulness. It may be objected that 
 this is a Catholic form of service; but 
 surely it is unwise to allow such a 
 simple following of the example of the 
 Master, who retired so often to a 
 quiet place to pray, to be regarded 
 as the peculiar property of any par- 
 ticular branch of the Christian Church. 
 
 Christian Ideals and Different 
 Occupations 
 
 "Let every one look not on his 
 own things but on the things of 
 another.' ' This was achieved in part 
 by several meetings, at each of which 
 a talk was given by some one on 
 his vocation and its relation to the 
 Christian life. The meetings were 
 in a series under the general head- 
 ing, "Earthly Professions and the 
 Christian Profession." The things dis- 
 cussed were the particular difficulties 
 of the different lines of work and 
 
THE MEETINGS 77 
 
 what were felt to be their peculiar 
 rewards, other than financial; also 
 their peculiar temptations as well as 
 opportunities which they offered for 
 Christian service. Among those who 
 spoke were the following: 
 
 A teacher. 
 A doctor. 
 A lawyer. 
 A merchant. 
 A mechanic. 
 A minister. 
 A housewife. 
 A missionary. 
 
 An Evening With Old Hymnals 
 
 The minister in his calling had dis- 
 covered that there was quite a supply 
 of old hymn books in the music cab- 
 inets of different homes. For this 
 service he asked that these old Hym- 
 nals be brought to the church and 
 used. Many were prompted to speak 
 of something in connection with differ- 
 ent hymns and songs. The leader 
 
78 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 spoke of the strength of many of the 
 old songs on the side of individual 
 experience and also the need to be 
 supplemented on the social side, por- 
 traying the enlarging conception of the 
 kingdom of God. "It Is Well with My 
 Soul/' for instance, was contrasted 
 with a later hymn, "Where Cross the 
 Crowded Ways of Life," as showing 
 the necessity for individual experience 
 to be completed in social aspiration 
 and service. 
 
 Behind the Duplex Envelope 
 
 The prayer meeting the week be- 
 fore the Every-member Canvass was 
 made for church expenses and benev- 
 olences, took the form of a general 
 congregational meeting held in the 
 church auditorium. In its outward 
 form it resembled an entertainment 
 rather than a prayer meeting, but, 
 looking back over the results, there 
 was no one who did not consider it 
 
THE MEETINGS 79 
 
 one of the most beneficial midweek 
 services of the year. The aim was to 
 represent by tableaux just what re- 
 sults were accomplished in filling up 
 both sides of the two pocket collec- 
 tion envelope every Sunday. A large 
 sheet was hung up in front of the plat- 
 form. This sheet had been marked 
 and lettered in exact duplication of 
 one of the church envelopes, with one 
 side for local expenses and the other 
 side for missions and benevolences. 
 Behind this curtain had been placed 
 a partition dividing the platform in 
 two. A member of the finance com- 
 mittee explained that when the cur- 
 tain was drawn aside the work of the 
 church at home and abroad would be 
 portrayed. On the "home" side of 
 the platform, when the curtain was 
 drawn, was an actual Sunday school 
 class in the Junior grade in session, 
 standing for the educational work of 
 the local church. On the other side, 
 
80 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 representing the missionary part of 
 the envelope, were six girls and their 
 teacher in costume, portraying a Sun- 
 day school class in Japan. (Admirable 
 costumes may be rented from the 
 Missionary Education Movement, 156 
 Fifth Avenue, New York, for nearly 
 every foreign land, at fifty cents each.) 
 The next scenes shown were a meet- 
 ing of the Ladies' Aid Society on the 
 "home" side, showing a few ladies 
 sewing for a near-by hospital, while 
 on the foreign side some young men 
 represented a scene in a mission hos- 
 pital in China. 
 
 This was followed by representations 
 of worship at home and abroad. A 
 home pew of worshipers was shown on 
 one side, and a mass movement meet- 
 ing in a village of India on the other. 
 The organ played softly Heber's hymn, 
 "Holy, Holy, Holy." Other scenes 
 helped to make the matter-of-fact and 
 business like envelope seem like a 
 
THE MEETINGS 81 
 
 door which opens on a world teeming 
 with life, when it is conscientiously 
 filled. 
 
 A Study of Paul's Parishes 
 
 Three meetings were given to a 
 consideration of Paul as an itinerant 
 pastor, his parishes, and the problems 
 they offered. The three parishes taken 
 up were those at Corinth, Ephesus, 
 and the churches in Galatia. Thes- 
 salonica also gives a fine opportunity 
 for suggestive study. Bible references 
 on the history of the parish, its com- 
 position and PauPs relation to it, from 
 Acts and the epistles, were given out 
 and read. Various persons had been 
 asked to tell about the problems of 
 the parish, for instance, in dealing 
 with Corinth, the factions, the prob- 
 lem of sin within the church, the 
 fanatics (Judaizers), etc. Then the 
 means Paul used to lift the parish 
 out of these hindrances and handicaps 
 
82 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 were discussed, his counsels (for ex- 
 ample, the 13th chapter of First 
 Corinthians) were read as throwing 
 light on some permanent problems of 
 every church. 
 
 Other meetings growing out of the 
 general lack of knowledge on the part 
 of the people with reference to Paul's 
 missionary journeys, were called "Little 
 Journeys with Paul," in which an 
 evening was given to Paul's mission- 
 ary journeys. Maps and blackboards 
 were used and the hardship of the 
 journeys, etc., gave many valuable 
 lessons for counsel. 
 
 The Early Candlelight Service 
 
 Keeping in mind the old custom of 
 bringing candles to the house of God 
 that it might be lighted, a service 
 was planned called an Early Candle- 
 light Service. The seating of the room 
 was circular and nothing but candles 
 were used to light the room, the 
 
THE MEETINGS 83 
 
 candles being placed about the walls 
 and on the minister's table. In the 
 center of the room was a table on 
 which a number of small candles 
 formed a cross. 
 
 Two thoughts were emphasized in 
 the Scriptures and the minister's brief 
 talk: that the source of every man's 
 light is the cross, and that each is 
 commissioned to be the light of the 
 world. Accordingly, after testimonies 
 and prayers, which all bore on the 
 subject, the minister led the symbolic 
 service, in which each person took a 
 candle from the cross, signifying 
 whence his light came. After this a 
 brief prayer was offered, then, as all 
 stood in a circle, the minister, with 
 his candle lighted the first to his 
 right, and that one lighted the one 
 to his right, and so on, until the 
 whole circle was lighted. It made a 
 very beautiful service, and as im- 
 pressive as beautiful. 
 
84 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 A rather unusual thing for a prayer 
 meeting was that there was not a 
 prayer or testimony but which bore 
 on the subject. 
 
 Living Up to Our Hymns 
 
 Why do people sing certain hymns 
 so heartily? Why do their hearts 
 warm and their eyes glisten at the 
 sound of the old familiar hymn? 
 Quite often because it is old, and 
 brings back the memories of the past; 
 quite as often because they love the 
 tune. The real thought and meaning 
 of the words are often overlooked, 
 and we declare enthusiastically in song 
 what we neither believe nor live. 
 
 A service with splendid results may 
 be had by taking some of the familiar 
 hymns and going carefully over the 
 meaning of their thought, with the 
 idea of living up to these high ideals 
 and noble sentiments. Let this ques- 
 tion be prominent: What would a 
 
THE MEETINGS 85 
 
 stranger think of me if he knew me 
 only by the hymns I sing, and how 
 near would he be to a right estimate 
 of my character? 
 
 If I Were the Preacher 
 
 Two very live meetings may be 
 had by taking the two subjects, "If 
 I Were the Preacher/' and "If I Were 
 the Congregation." At the first meet- 
 ing the people are asked to tell what 
 they would do were they the minis- 
 ter; how they would run the church; 
 what things they would emphasize, 
 etc. 
 
 At the second meeting the minister 
 talks on what he would do if he were 
 a member of the congregation. Of 
 course no one can tell just what he 
 would do in some one else's place, 
 but it is good to put yourself, as nearly 
 as you can, in the other man's place 
 at times, and sympathize. 
 
 Like the Church Program meeting, 
 
86 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 these bring out good suggestions, and, 
 at least, get people to thinking. 
 
 Relatives in the Bible 
 
 What people in the Bible are your 
 relatives? The question itself arouses 
 interest. In looking at the various 
 Bible characters you find some that 
 you like better than others. Peter 
 appeals to one; John to some one 
 else; Paul to another, and so on. 
 Everyone has his favorites. Quite 
 often we like this character or that 
 because he is related to us by some 
 characteristics. A very interesting 
 meeting, therefore, can be developed, 
 by asking the people to look through 
 the Bible for familiar characters, who 
 are related to them in this way. In 
 one such meeting one man felt that 
 his nearest relative was the one who 
 fell asleep in church under Paul's 
 preaching. Some would not confess 
 it, but they might find that Isaac 
 
THE MEETINGS 87 
 
 was their nearest relative, because 
 he did the same things that his father 
 did; built the same wells, and told 
 the same lies. 
 
 The Last Supper 
 
 This is a service in preparation for 
 communion. Without allowing the 
 meeting to be so serious that it is 
 sad, the people are asked to consider 
 the important things they would like 
 to say to their friends, were this their 
 last supper with them. Of course it 
 is at once evident there would be 
 many things we would say to loved 
 ones that would be too sacred for a 
 public meeting, yet there are some 
 things which may well be said and 
 with more fitness in the light of their 
 being farewell words. 
 
 An old-fashioned Methodist love 
 feast goes well with this meeting. 
 
 Church Program Night 
 The idea of this service is to get 
 
88 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 the people to plan a church program, 
 as they would have it. A blackboard 
 is used, and people are requested to 
 suggest the items of importance, which 
 they feel should make up the program 
 of the church. One of the interesting 
 things about this service is that some 
 people have never thought of a church 
 program. The service will give many 
 people a larger idea of the scope of 
 the work which the church is under- 
 taking, and very often brings out 
 some splendid suggestions for the min- 
 ister. 
 
 It will be found advantageous to 
 take up at this service such a program 
 as the missionary program of the 
 church, which is very essential, along 
 with the duplex envelope system. It 
 may also be well to consider some of 
 the overlapping of church work by 
 different societies in the church, and 
 see if suggestions cannot be brought 
 out whereby some central authority 
 
THE MEETINGS 89 
 
 can plan the church program so that 
 this can be avoided. 
 
 Reception to New Members 
 
 This night is a regular feature. 
 Communion is held once every two 
 months, and the first Thursday night 
 prayer meeting after communion takes 
 the form of a reception to new mem- 
 bers. Certain ones are asked to re- 
 ceive; they are the host and hostess 
 for the evening. They stand at the 
 door with the new members, and in- 
 troduce them to all who come. The 
 evening is more of a home evening, 
 and very informal. After the usual 
 prayers light refreshments may be 
 served. This may be made one of 
 the very best of the midweek services. 
 
 Cloud of Witnesses 
 
 Almost every church looks back with 
 pride to certain ministers and laymen 
 who have been strong influences in 
 
90 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 the church life, and almost every 
 church has pictures of such men and 
 women. It is a service both interest- 
 ing and meaningful, especially for the 
 young people, to get out these old 
 pictures, and hang them about the 
 walls of the room, then have those 
 who knew them tell of their life and 
 work; the thought to be kept upper- 
 most in this meeting is the respon- 
 sibility that rests upon us because of 
 the faith and labors of our fathers and 
 the challenge of their expectancy. 
 
 How We Have Taught Religion 
 in the Home 
 
 We hear a great deal about religion 
 in the home, though not so much as 
 we used to. Certainly, anything that 
 will help to emphasize the value of 
 religion in the home is needed. In 
 this meeting people are asked to re- 
 late the ways in which they have tried 
 to teach religion to their children in 
 
THE MEETINGS 91 
 
 the home, what methods they have 
 used in family prayers, or any other 
 suggestions that the people have to 
 offer with reference to successful means 
 of bringing religious instruction to the 
 lives of their children. 
 
 Church Union 
 
 A very informal symposium was 
 held one evening on the subject of 
 "Church Union." Four laymen — a 
 Congregationalist, a Baptist, an Epis- 
 copalian, and a Methodist — described 
 briefly what things in their polity 
 were different from the other denom- 
 inations. Each made suggestions as to 
 how he thought a common basis of 
 union in the matter of organization 
 might ultimately be reached. The de- 
 sign of the meeting was to bring out 
 from the people themselves the fact 
 that the greatest part of the task of 
 church union, a substantial unanimity 
 of spirit and faith, and has already 
 
92 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 been achieved. Such a meeting will 
 inevitably bring up the possibility of 
 a better present federation in the local 
 field. 
 
 Progressive Meeting 
 
 For this service several rooms of 
 the church are arranged so that in 
 them various needs of the church are 
 presented. If there are not many 
 rooms in the church, then sections 
 of rooms can be screened off. A leader 
 is selected to be in each room to ex- 
 plain the need, as the people pass 
 around visiting the exhibits. It is 
 well if the minister leads the people 
 about, although, if there are too many, 
 there may be other leaders. At each 
 room or place the people pause, while 
 the work to be done is presented and 
 prayer is offered for this particular need. 
 After visiting all of the rooms, the peo- 
 ple assemble again for general prayers 
 and counsel for the church work. 
 
THE MEETINGS 93 
 
 Building a Character 
 
 A blackboard is used at this serv- 
 ice, and after a brief talk, in which 
 the minister explains the service and 
 emphasizes the importance of charac- 
 ter-building, the people are asked to 
 build a character in the meeting. 
 Anyone is asked to suggest an im- 
 portant characteristic that he thinks 
 ought to make up a part of the life 
 of any character. Very soon many 
 of the people will be stating certain 
 characteristics that to them are essen- 
 tial to an ideal life, and before the 
 service is over there will be some 
 splendid material with which to con- 
 struct a life. After all the sugges- 
 tions are in, the leader can condense 
 these suggestions into the essential 
 characteristics that go to make up a 
 true personality. It will easily be 
 seen that there will be plenty of ma- 
 terial in such a service as this to bring 
 
94 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 out splendid testimony and prayer. 
 Some of the very finest lessons of 
 life can be developed through such a 
 means as this, and lessons that take 
 hold of people because of this ped- 
 agogical method of bringing them be- 
 fore their attention. 
 
 Religious Conversation 
 
 At this meeting, after the intro- 
 ductory part of the service, the peo- 
 ple are divided into small groups of 
 four or six, each group is assigned 
 a leader, and it is better if these 
 leaders have had a meeting with the 
 minister previously, so that they will 
 have some idea of the way to begin 
 the conversation. After the grouping 
 the minister assigns a religious topic 
 to each group, and the people simply 
 talk together, as they would in their 
 homes, about anything that they may 
 think of with reference to this religious 
 topic. 
 
THE MEETINGS 95 
 
 Like the meeting of the groups in 
 prayer, the informality of this service 
 brings out much more discussion than 
 is usual in the average prayer meeting. 
 
 All the News That's Fit to Print 
 
 Especially to those living within 
 reach of New York city, this heading, 
 "All the news that's fit to print' ' is 
 a very familiar one. It will be found 
 to be an interesting service if at the 
 prayer meeting a newspaper is printed. 
 Of course no printing can be done, 
 but the people are asked to bring to 
 the service some poem or some prose 
 selection or some clipping from a news- 
 paper, which they consider to be im- 
 portant, and then these things are all 
 put together and a newspaper is formed. 
 
 My Best Vacation 
 
 Let the people discuss in an in- 
 formal way what they consider their 
 best vacation, and tell why, then let 
 
96 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 the minister sum up the thought of 
 the evening in closing. 
 Use just before vacation time. 
 
 Church Budget 
 
 Let the midweek service vote the 
 church budget. We do not mean this 
 to be final — but let the people here 
 indicate what they think the money 
 of the church should be spent for, 
 and how much for each item. There 
 are some within the church who do 
 not think it very democratic, and feel 
 that the officials are a rather closed 
 corporation. It will do them good to 
 express themselves, and may bring out 
 some good ideas for the officials of 
 the church, as well as furnish good 
 thoughts for real prayer and testimony. 
 
 Mirrors 
 
 Taking Paul's thought that in this life 
 we see in a mirror, there can be de- 
 veloped an interesting meeting by con- 
 
THE MEETINGS 97 
 
 sidering the different types of mirrors 
 we look into in life. Some people look 
 into mirrors that magnify, and they ap- 
 pear to themselves greater than they 
 are. This is the mirror of conceit. 
 
 Some look into mirrors that min- 
 imize themselves, so that they appear 
 less than they are. This is the mirror 
 of lack-of-self-confidence. 
 
 Some people look into a glass that 
 confuses, so that large things in life 
 seem small and unimportant things 
 appear important, and so on. 
 
 Interest can be quickened by having 
 these different kinds of mirrors at 
 the service to illustrate each point. 
 Attention can also be drawn to large 
 mirrors of this type that most people 
 have had experience with in places 
 of amusement. 
 
 Amusements 
 
 Amusements make up so much of 
 people's lives — so much more than we 
 
98 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 sometimes think — yet there is great 
 confusion in the minds of many as 
 to just what are profitable and what 
 unprofitable ways of recreation and 
 amusement. A meeting of frank dis- 
 cussion on this subject will very often 
 clear the matter for some people, and 
 be encouraging to the younger people 
 who are in attendance. 
 
 Patriotic Meeting 
 
 Many suggestions will immediately 
 come to anyone's mind with reference 
 to patriotic decorations and arrange- 
 ments for a patriotic meeting. This 
 meeting can be held near the thirtieth 
 of May, or the Fourth of July, or 
 even near the time of the birthdays 
 of some of our great statesmen, such 
 as Lincoln or Washington. Flags, of 
 course, will from a large part of the 
 decoration, and patriotic music and 
 readings will enter into the service. 
 Very small flags may be used to give 
 
THE MEETINGS 99 
 
 away as souvenirs of the meeting. 
 This meeting is especially good, as it 
 may be made to appeal to the younger 
 people of the church, even the boys. 
 The Scouts can be used to enliven 
 this meeting — both the Boy Scouts and 
 Camp Fire Girls. 
 
 An Art Gallery Meeting 
 
 Perry pictures, reproductions of the 
 old masters, especially those with les- 
 sons of religion and life, are used for 
 this service. Such pictures as "Break- 
 ing Home Ties," "The First Winter 
 of the Puritans," "The Legend of the 
 Holy Grail," "The Angelus," etc., 
 should by all means be included. 
 
 The pictures are arranged in series 
 to bring out character lessons, then 
 each series is hung or pinned up in 
 different rooms of the church; or, if 
 there are not many rooms, then in 
 sections of one room. One person 
 will have charge of each of the groups 
 
100 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 of pictures. The congregation is then 
 divided into several groups, and they 
 pass around, stopping in each room, 
 or each section of the room, where 
 the person in charge explains the pic- 
 tures and draws the lessons from them. 
 This will require thirty or forty min- 
 utes, and then all reassemble for gen- 
 eral prayers. 
 
 Family Prayers 
 
 Under this simple wording the 
 Thanksgiving meeting was announced 
 and held. It aimed to live up 
 to its title and give more than a 
 remote suggestion of that atmosphere 
 of a home where family prayers were 
 a regular, natural, and real thing. A 
 fireplace was set up at the front of 
 the room with red electric lights in 
 it to represent the family hearth (where 
 a real fireplace can be used the effect, 
 of course, is much better). Some of 
 the older persons of the parish were 
 
THE MEETINGS 101 
 
 asked beforehand to conduct the fam- 
 ily prayers. After the people assem- 
 bled they were broken up into several 
 groups and went to different rooms, 
 and there these leaders conducted fam- 
 ily prayers, just as they would in 
 their own home with their family. 
 The meeting was a simple, old-fash- 
 ioned Thanksgiving meeting, with the 
 particular feature of emphasizing anew 
 the value of home worship. 
 
 "By the Christmas Fire" 
 
 The fireplace and a small Christmas 
 tree were used in connection with the 
 meeting the week before Christmas. 
 It was designed to make a lull in the 
 rush of Christmas preparation in the 
 home, stores, and the church, and 
 afforded an opportunity to remember 
 what it was all about. The best-loved 
 of the Christmas songs were sung, 
 two lullabys by some of the Sunday 
 school children, and several old carols 
 
102 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 by two or three members of the choir. 
 Three selections were read by different 
 people. The Christmas story from 
 Luke, part of the Cratchits' Christmas 
 dinner from The Christmas Carol, and 
 the last two paragraphs from Henry 
 van Dyke's The Meaning of Christ- 
 mas, were read. 
 
 A Chain of Prayer Across 
 the Ages 
 
 It will be noticed that many of 
 the meetings here described have been 
 on the subject of prayer. This has 
 not been due to accident or lack of 
 proportion, but to the conviction that 
 the distinctive function of the prayer 
 meeting is the cultivation of the prayer 
 habit. The purpose of this particular 
 meeting was to show the universality 
 and range of prayer down through 
 the ages. Two books were used in 
 preparing for the meeting — The Mean- 
 ing of Prayer, by H. E. Fosdick 
 
THE MEETINGS 103 
 
 (Association Press), and A Chain 
 of Prayer Across the Ages (Dutton). 
 Most any collection of prayers would 
 do equally well. The introductory part 
 of the service consisted of the reading 
 of prayers representing different ages, 
 different experiences, and different 
 needs. The Meaning of Prayer contains 
 a fine selection of prayers voicing differ- 
 ent emotions in prayer, praise, thanks- 
 giving, penitence, petition, interces- 
 sion. To show these different aspects 
 of prayer, prayers by various men 
 were read — Saint Augustine, Thomas a 
 Kempis, Bishop Launcelot Andrewes, 
 and Beecher; and as representing 
 the new sense of social aspiration and 
 brotherhood, Walter Rauschenbusch. 
 With such an introduction, a meeting 
 may take its own course. The im- 
 pression left is sure to be that of 
 prayer as the means of entrance into 
 the great and goodly fellowship of 
 the world's largest souls. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 ADDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS 
 
 Signs of the Times 
 
 At this service, especially if the 
 service is in a large city, there may be 
 hung about the room certain signs, 
 with which the people are very fa- 
 miliar — signs that are for the pro- 
 tection of the people in their general 
 intercourse, and yet signs which may 
 bear a moral or religious significance. 
 Take such signs, for example, which 
 we are very familiar with in New 
 York city, such as, " Watch Your 
 Step," "This Way Out," "This Way 
 In," "Pay as You Enter," "Shine 
 Inside." Each one of these signs, 
 when people are reminded of it, will 
 bring a real message. 
 
 "Watch Your Step," that it may 
 104 
 
ADDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS 105 
 
 lead you in the right direction, and 
 that it may not lead others astray; 
 "Pay as You Enter/ ' so that you 
 will not wake up in years to come, 
 and find yourself in debt; and so each 
 of these signs, and many others, which 
 might be mentioned, may be used, not 
 only to bring messages on that par- 
 ticular night, but may also tend to 
 cause these people to remember lessons 
 of that night whenever they read these 
 signs again. 
 
 The Things That Jesus Likened 
 Himself to in the Bible 
 
 The title of this service is explan- 
 atory in itself. Jesus likened himself 
 to Bread, Way, Light, Vine, Shep- 
 herd, Door, etc. For this service the 
 leader should announce at the service 
 the week before that this was to be 
 the nature of the service, and ask 
 the people to look up references in 
 the Bible, which refer to Jesus, or in 
 
106 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 which Jesus refers to himself as like 
 certain great, substantial things in 
 this life. 
 
 The things to which Jesus likened 
 his disciples may be helpfully grouped 
 together, using the Bible references to 
 Salt, Light, Friends, Leaven, Seed, 
 Sheep, etc. 
 
 The Child in Ouk Midst 
 
 In preparation for this meeting the 
 people are asked to interview children 
 to find out their opinions with refer- 
 ence to God — as to who God is, where 
 God lives, what God does, who God 
 associates with, how God communi- 
 cates with us, and how we with him. 
 Two things will probably develop from 
 such a service as this: it will be re- 
 markable to see how nearly genuine 
 is the simple faith of the child, and it 
 may also tend to help the older ones 
 to be more sympathetic with the view 
 point of the child. Jesus said that 
 
ADDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS 107 
 
 a little child should lead them, and 
 unless we become as little children we 
 cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. 
 Some people have never really under- 
 stood these teachings. 
 
 The Midweek Reception 
 
 Certain ones are selected for this 
 service to be at home to the mem- 
 bers of the church, and they make 
 provision for the service just as they 
 might were they receiving in their 
 own home; then they greet the people 
 as they come, and conduct the service 
 as though the people were their guests. 
 Interest can be added to such a serv- 
 ice if these people will send out "At 
 Home" cards to the people of the 
 parish, or, a better thing is to have 
 each person who will send an "At 
 Home" card to several others, who are 
 not in the habit of attending the 
 service, and then be there to greet 
 them and make them feel at home. 
 
108 THE MID-WEEK SERVICE 
 
 How Men of the Bible Prayed 
 
 In his little book entitled The Mean- 
 ing of Prayer Harry Emerson Fosdick 
 has some splendid illustrations and 
 references showing how various men of 
 the Bible prayed — their posture, their 
 attitude, their words, and spirit and 
 prayer. This in itself forms the basis 
 for a very suggestive service. 
 
 An interesting meeting can be de- 
 veloped in which such things as the 
 following are considered: 
 
 Jesus's conversations. 
 
 Jesus's answer to questions. 
 
 Jesus as a debater. 
 
 The types of faith which Jesus met, 
 and how he met them. 
 
 The types of doubt which Jesus met, 
 and how he met them. 
 
 The Great Battlefields 
 of the Bible 
 
 The greatest battlefields of the world 
 
ADDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS 109 
 
 are in the heart. Biographical ap- 
 proaches to very common problems in 
 everyday life may be had in a series 
 of prayer meetings which take up 
 "The Great Battlefields of the Bible." 
 These would be experiences in the 
 lives of men where they either con- 
 quered or were conquered by some 
 great temptation or calamity. For 
 example: 
 
 Christ in the Wilderness. 
 
 Saul and his fits of despondency. 
 Also Elijah. 
 
 Job. 
 
 Solomon — the battle against dom- 
 ination by material possessions. 
 
 Moses, Daniel, Judas, etc. 
 
Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
 Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
 Treatment Date: August 2005 
 
 PreservationTechnologies 
 
 A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 
 
 111 Thomson Park Drive 
 Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 
 {724)779-2111