Page:Committee on the War and the Religious Outlook - The Teaching Work of the Church (1924).pdf/159



One cannot rightly approach a study of the organizations through which the Church’s educational purpose is to be achieved without bearing in mind that no special “agencies” ever exhaust the field. The whole Church and every phase of its life need to be conceived in educational terms.

Worship is, or should be, of the highest educational importance and value. It is consciously directing the minds and emotions of the people toward certain ends. The symbolism of architecture, the forms of worship, the structure of the ritual, the selections of Scripture, the character of the prayers, the type of music, the selection of the hymns, all these are based upon more or less definite religious presuppositions, arouse characteristic religious emotions and seek to secure appropriate attitudes and modes of conduct. Their combined and cumulative effect is to mold the life of the individual into harmony with that of the religious group with which he regularly worships. The fact that the teaching value of these influences is often lost sight of, and that those affected by them are unconscious of being molded, does not make them any less significant.

The pulpit, as an educational factor, deserves far more attention than it usually receives. Preaching is, or should be, teaching. In most of our churches the sermon is intended to have a teaching value of a more or less definite kind. Altogether too much of the preaching of today,