Evangelists

"Here am I; send me."

Thus wrote Thomas C. Darst, Bishop of East Carolina, in a message to the Protestant Episcopal Church released last week by the National Commission on Evangelism. These simple words, he felt, should be found in the heart of every true Episcopalian. Nor was the utterance mere lip-service, for Bishop Darst himself, released by his diocese, will soon tour the U. S. preparing the way for the great Episcopal crusade, a crusade for 100,000 new communicants.

Is the Protestant Episcopal Church "as idle as a painted picture?" Have Christians forgotten that they are "saved to serve?" Are the "fields ripe for the harvest?" These are some of the trenchant questions provoked by Bishop Darst's letter. Well aware that, as compared with New Testament times, "the Church today is incomparably rich in money, organization, influence, power," he pointed out that it is "failing to produce anything like Apostolic results."

"The whole Church--not just a few individuals--must be awakened and aroused to its duty to spread the Evangel. This means nothing less than a complete change of mind, a reorientation of our whole attitude, a new baptism of the Spirit. . . . Viewing the fields already ripe to the harvest, we would offer ourselves as reapers, saying individually and corporately--'Here am I; send me'."

Plans for the crusade are still incomplete. Committees are in session; campaigns are being planned. But so much is known: 200 evangelists, picked men, well trained, will go two by two into the dioceses. And before them, to spread the word, will go Bishop Darst.