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Diffusion of Christian Endeavor Societies

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Diffusion of Christian Endeavor Societies How to Gain Over 5 Million Global Followers Before Twitter, Facebook, Social Media… or Even the Regular Use of the Telephone: The Amazing Diffusion of Christian Endeavor Societies Paper Presentation at the Association of Youth Ministry Educators October 2014 Brian Hull, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Youth Ministry Asbury University [email protected] Abstract: This paper will demonstrate how Francis Clark utilized written communication, global travel and organization to make an impact on the global Church’s approach to youth ministry. By creating Christian Endeavor and nurturing its growth from one society with sixty members to over five million members around the world, Clark made a place for young people worldwide to connect, to serve and to lead for Christ and for the Church. The enormous procession of 15,000 delegates marched up Fifth Avenue to Central Park. As the procession passed by, the crowd of tens of thousands, who had braved one of the hottest days of the year, cheered them on. The procession and the gathering at the park were part of the Twenty-eighth Convention of the Christian Endeavor Society. Overseeing the convention and the society was the seventy year old, Francis Edward Clark, president and founder. The memories surely flooded down on Clark as he participated in the convention’s festivities. A few days before he and a handful of others had returned to Portland, Maine to hold a prayer meeting in the parsonage where Christian Endeavor was begun (F. E. Clark, 1922, p. 636). As he observed the representatives from around the world, Clark had to recall the first letters he received from each of the countries telling him of the beginning of their societies, his visits to those places, his friendship with leadership and the impact those societies had in starting the movement in other parts of the world. While he had no idea when he started what God would bring to this movement, he knew now some of the impact Christian Endeavor had on the church. Always looking to serve the church and to connect young people to Christ and the church, Clark saw this come to fruition around the world. Through his written communication, global travel, and organizational skills, Clark had helped Christian Endeavor change the face of Protestant Christianity’s ministry to young people. No longer relegated to the back-pew, no longer seen as “almost adults,” no longer waiting to be old enough to serve, young people were now active parts of most churches’ ministries. Clark had seen the church around the world change so that it now valued young people and saw a place for them in the church and in ministry. Page 1 of 45 Hull The author of this paper holds copyright protection of their work. This paper is shared with you in a spirit of collegial collaboration. You do not have permission to copy, disseminate, or quote extensively from it, without the expressed, written permission of the author. There have been several things written in the past few years about the Christian Endeavor Society and Francis E. Clark, its founder. As youth ministry education has “grown up” it has taken an appropriate interest in its roots. This paper will also focus on Christian Endeavor and Francis E. Clark, but with a more focused lens than just telling the story. The focus here is on the factors leading to the amazing diffusion of a youth organization across cultural, geographic and ecclesial boundaries. Context “When seen from the vantage point of the early 21st century, there is no doubt that the two generations between the late 1860s and the beginning of WWI remain the greatest technical watershed in human history”(Smil, 2005, p. 13). Change. In one word this best describes the culture of the world and the United States from 1850-1910. Everything changed; from the way that people lived their lives, to the work they did, to the tools they used, to the methods in place, to the location of the activities, to the way they learned, to the way they viewed right and wrong. This period introduced massive, radical and wide-sweeping change. Those living through this era saw changes in technology and science that changed the way they, and future generations, would live. Society in the United States became much more organized as businesses and communities learned to leverage their resources efficiently. People moved from a rural, agricultural setting, toward the new urban centers of industry. Education changed as well, engaging more of the population with a child-centered approach that would hopefully lead them to college. Moral issues were challenged and changed, as a nation prohibited alcohol and learned to drink again, accepted immigrants and freed slaves. At the heart of this change was an attitude that chose to look to the future, rather than just to be defined by the past. Page 2 of 45 Hull The author of this paper holds copyright protection of their work. This paper is shared with you in a spirit of collegial collaboration. You do not have permission to copy, disseminate, or quote extensively from it, without the expressed, written permission of the author. The United States was in the midst of massive transformations. New things were everywhere: new people from all over the world were immigrating to the United States; new cities were springing up and older cities were becoming large cities; slaves were being made free and children were being valued in a way never before seen. In the midst of all the change, the church was growing and working in these new mission fields. The challenges were great, but the church innovated, adapted and multiplied. In the growing United States the church worked in traditional and non-traditional ways to become a center piece of society through organization and focused evangelization of immigrants, former slaves and the young. The world was changing rapidly as well. Transportation would see incredible changes. The railroad would bring goods and people across large land distances in a short amount of time. Ocean liners would be greatly improved cutting down on cost and time of travel. With the expansion of the railroad and ocean liners, written publications, which were benefitting from technological advances, were able to be distributed to a much wider audience at greater speeds (Shrock, 2004, p. 151). The telegraph was also reaching more places around the world. Changes in technical and scientific arenas provide some of the physical evidence for the change of this era, but the changes were much deeper than just those. The organizational emphasis as people learned to work together to maximize output and efficiency was a major change as well, shaping the kinds of jobs and the location of jobs. The technical and scientific, as well as organizational developments, along with economic growth called people to these urban centers which changed the pattern of living and the values of the people. People’s stance and approaches to moral issues changed. Education changed in some significant ways. Change was everywhere and was long-lasting. The wide spread change in this one era pointed towards the future, rather than the past. Page 3 of 45 Hull The author of this paper holds copyright protection of their work. This paper is shared with you in a spirit of collegial collaboration. You do not have permission to copy, disseminate, or quote extensively from it, without the expressed, written permission of the author. These changes created an environment for an organization, like Christian Endeavor, to organize, promote and grow. In particular advances in technology would help Francis Clark spread the word of Christian Endeavor through better communication and travel. Clark would also capitalize on the organizational movement of the era. He represented an acceptance and utilization of these innovations for his cause: the spread of Christian Endeavor for the service of Christ and the church. Formation of Christian Endeavor Christian Endeavor at its best is a great educator because it inaugurates a leading-out process of the religious life of young people. It discovers a young person to himself as well as to others. It shows him that he has a tongue to be used in speaking of Jesus, and hands to be used in working for Him, and feet for running His errands, and, above all, a heart for loving Him supremely (Chaplin, 1900, pp. 119–120). Francis Clark was 26 years old and fresh out of seminary when he took the pastorate at Williston Church in Portland, Maine. Clark was a good preacher and leader, but his heart lay with reaching the youth. When Clark was a young boy he had seen his brother, before his young death, demonstrate the capability of young people to be mature, Christian leaders. He believed that all young people could and should achieve this Christian spiritual maturity. Clark, wanting desperately to reach the young people of his community, worked to understand what was happening to keep young people from the church. The Problem Like most great movements, the impetus for starting the Christian Endeavor Society was a simple problem: young people were outgrowing Sunday School before they were old enough to join and participate fully in the church. Sunday Schools of the day would focus on training children up through the age of 13, when they would typically have finished school. Thus there Page 4 of 45 Hull The author of this paper holds copyright protection of their work. This paper is shared with you in a spirit of collegial collaboration. You do not have permission to copy, disseminate, or quote extensively from it, without the expressed, written permission of the author.
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