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VOLUML FIVE
NUJIVEH fOniY-THKEE
A SPIRITUAL DYNAMO IN WASHINGTON
John "K. Briggs, an Old Carolina-Georgia *Boy, Doing Great Work in Nation’s Capital —Fifth baptist Church Veritable
"Bee Hike” at Home and a ”Lighthouse” Across the Seas.
UST imagine this salutation and the
answer ringing out ever and anon on
the streets of the Nation’s Capital:
“I belong!”
“So do I!”
This cherry, unique
J
greeting may be spok
en by a tall, stalwart
man with broad shoul-
ders and a face that looks like a cor
ner on sunshine, while the response
comes from a merry-faced child,
who shouts back that answer like a
birdlet in the meadow sings its
matin song. Or, the salutation and
the answer may be just reversed.
If the chubby little darling happens
to spy the tall man first the child
shouts: “I belong!” and the pas
tor answers, “So do I!” For that
is the greeting agreed upon be
tween Pastor John E. Briggs and
the 900 Sunday school children of
the Fifth Baptist Church —just
the livest wire in evangelism and
progress in the city of Washington.
It Attracts Attention.
And I declare to you, my good
people, that that sunny salutation,
ringing out here and there between
the pastor and the youthful mem
bers of his flock has a magical ef
fect on those who see and hear.
Inquiry reveals the identity of the
man and the child or sometimes the
musical dozen of children, who re
joice in such a winsome “Howdy
do!” And the unreached, non
church-going man with a heart
-hungry for love and warmth, natu
rally wants to go around next Sun
day and see those happy children in
their bee-hive temple of work and
worship, and then listen to the
Words of Life from that tall man
whose face is a speaking benedic
tion and whose life is a sermon and
a song.
My engagement with John E.
Briggs and his great Washington
church came after more than five
years of honest effort to get to-
gether on the part of us both. Fact.
Loving and honoring John E. Briggs, vigorous son
of North Carolina, when we were at Mercer Uni
versity together, that college friendship has deep
ened through the years. With him in my educa
tional campaign when he was pastor at Greensboro
and Siloam, he was generous enough to plan for
me time and again during his wonderful “admin-
ATLANTA, GA., DECEMBER 15, 1910.
istration” that added eleven hundred members to
Capitol Avenue Church, Atlanta, in five years. But
something—something—something would always in
tervene. So when the call came from Washington
the hot prohibition battle in Florida again post-
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poned my going until, in sheer desperation, I de
clared: “I’m going this time or break a trace” —
whatever that means.
Attractions That Detract.
Beginning on Thanksgiving night, after the pastor
and brother-pastors had conducted the meeting, since
the Sunday before, the “Lord of the harvest” and the
God of battles gave us a signal victory.
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas was not
the best time for an evangelistic campaign, and with
so many attractions to detract in the whirling, daz
zling, bewildering capital of the nation, it would
have been “hard going” but for the
And thus it w r as easy to prove the truth of the
message to men and women in the congregation,
whose lives had been touched with cheer and bless
ing by the pastor and his helpers. I do not mean
that John E. Briggs does not study. He nearly
(Continued on Page 5.)
TWO DOLLARS !A 'LEAR.
FIVE CENIS A COPY.
tactful, tireless, unremitting, ever
lasting house-to-house work of the
pastor and his loyal, royal wife.
My, my! They never did stop.
As soon as breakfast was over, re
gardless of the weather, they would
start on the chase, the pastor in
one direction and his wife in an
other. And, bless you, Miss Lynn
another tireless worker (who is
temporarily assisting the pastor),
in another. After a child who was
missed from Sunday school last
Sunday; after a church member
who is sick (physical, yes; and
spiritual ailments included); after
a man whose wife is a Christian
but whose home is shadowed by his
sin and neglect; after a sinful son
or a careless daughter, who is
breaking mother’s and father’s
hearts —after, oh after everything
that will build the church and
everybody who needs loving kind
ness and saving gospel truth!
Such a “team” surely I never be
fore saw at work in a big city
church.
Why Some Preachers Fail.
I know now, as I never realized
before, why some city pastors fail.
Because they are not willing to pay
the price. Because they—they and
their wives forget the beautiful,
awful meaning of the words: “He
saved others —Himself He cannot
save.” These pastors, good men
but short of vision, sit in their
studios too long, digging up Greek
roots and trying to smooth out
knotty problems in “Christian So
ciology,” while here and there a
successful pastor of the John E.
Briggs type goes out and meets
these problems face to face and ap
plies to them the solving touch of
sympathetic, sacrificial love.
Easy to Prove It.