And Are We Yet Alive? by Maxie Dunnam

My friend, George (Chuck) Hunter, has told a thrilling story – one of those lively vignettes of Methodist history that gives us our vision for now and the future.

A great Methodist leader named C. C. McCabe was the leader of new church extension for the Methodist Episcopal Church in about 1881. He was a prodigious planner, strategist, fund-raiser, and mobilizer. Under his leadership for sustained years, the Methodist Episcopal Church averaged starting one new congregation a day, and some months averaged two congregations a day.

One particular day he was traveling to help launch a round of new church plantings in Oregon, Idaho, and Washington, when he picked up a newspaper that had recorded the speech delivered in Chicago by Robert G. Ingersoll, a famous philosopher and agnostic, to the annual convention of a group that imagined itself to be the wave of the future, the Free-thinkers Association of America. In this speech, Ingersoll contended that the churches of the United States of America were in a terminal condition and in another generation there would be few, if any, of them left, which, on the whole, would be a good thing. That incensed McCabe. He got off the train at the next town, went to the Western Union office, dictated a telegram, and sent it to Ingersoll at the convention that was still meeting in Chicago. The telegram read, “Dear Bob: In the Methodist Church we are starting more than one new congregation a day, and we propose to make it two. Signed, C. C. McCabe. P. S. All hail the power of Jesus’ name.”

That was the first of many spirited exchanges and debates between them. The word about that telegram got out and there evolved a folk hymn, part of which went like this:

The infidels, a motley band,

In counsel met and said,

The churches are dying across the land,

And soon, they’ll all be dead.

When suddenly a message came,

And caught them with dismay,

We’re building two a day.”

Chorus

We’re building two a day, dear Bob,

We’re building two a day.

All hail the power of Jesus’ name,

We’re building two a day. 

It has happened before. It can happen again. It should happen. It will happen again when we Methodists recover the warm heart, when we provide structures of love and care, and when we get a passion for ministry and mission, believing the world is our parish.  

Then, we can offer Charles Wesley’s great hymn to those so ready to proclaim the church’s death, and truly sing it with the conviction of seeing it again in our day.

And are we yet alive,

And see each other’s face?

Glory and praise to Jesus give

For His redeeming grace. 

Preserved by power divine

To full salvation here,

Again in Jesus’ praise we join,

And in His sight appear.

What troubles have we seen,

What conflicts have we passed,

Fightings without, and fears within,

Since we assembled last.

But out of all the Lord

Hath brought us by His love;

And still He doth His help afford,

And hides our life above.

Then let us make our boast

Of His redeeming power,

Which saves us to the uttermost,

Till we can sin no more.

Let us take up the cross

Till we the crown obtain;

And gladly reckon all things loss,

So we may Jesus gain.