An Organization Emerges

It is doubtful if any organization begins with a corporate charter and a constitution. The Christian church began not as a structure but as a process. The adherents of the faith were spoken of as followers of "the way." They had walked with Jesus, become committed to him, and, with his death and resurrection and the coming of the Spirit, had accepted his life style with joy and freedom. For a time they met in the vicinity of the Temple, but then gradually became their own structure.

Faith at Work began in the same dynamic way. For a time it drew inspiration and guide-lines from the Oxford Group; before and after the break with the Group, Calvary Church in New York was the steadying center of that "way," but increasingly the movement over-brimmed its banks.

When, at the hinge of 1951-52, Sam and Helen Shoemaker moved to Pittsburgh and Calvary Church developed new clerical leadership, it was natural for Faith at Work, still largely organized around The Evangel magazine, to move its headquarters to another location.

The Joshua who inherited leadership from Sam Shoemaker was Irving Harris. Harris was a Presbyterian clergyman who had been closely associated with the Shoemakers and The Evangel since the 1930's. Assisted by another gifted and devoted member of the Calvary family, Bertha Elliott, Harris moved The Evangel to 8 West 40th Street, New York City. Faith at Work was incorporated March 14, 1956.

Among the people who gathered around Irving Harris and helped to actualize the dream of Christian faith at work were many who had found their original inspiration in the Group. Sam and Helen Shoemaker, despite their new field of ministry, remained committed co-workers. So did Ralston Young, Sherry Day, Ken Kenneth-Smith and Lee Whiston, among others. Henry P. Van Dusen, Norman Vincent Peale, Rosalind Rinker, Catherine Marshall, Corrie Ten Boom, Eugenia Price, Gert Behanna, Paul Tournier, Abraham Vereide, Norman Grubb, were also part of that fellowship. Several in this apostolate wrote for The Evangel and served as speakers at conferences which developed in the 1950's.

Faith at Work's "Jerusalem" was New York City. To begin with, people came to New York to make contact with the Shoemakers and to participate in the activities at Calvary House. Sam and Helen both traveled extensively but the feast days were observed in the proximity of New York.

The Pocono Conferences originated from the New York center. They were designed to bring together for a weekend of inspiration the growing hundreds who had been touched by the Calvary ministry and the message of The Evangel. The format was the large public meeting under the leadership of gifted, charismatic people, largely male and largely clerical. Lay witnesses were used in the meetings, but their role was not to lead or crucially to affect the character of the movement so much as to report what God had done for them. The thrust of these reports was less vulnerable sharing than the witness to victory.

To begin with, there was little "group process" as it is now known. After the public sessions which stressed inspirational speaking, lay witnessing, and great singing, "after-meetings" were held under carefully selected leadership to give people a chance to "get changed" and to seek counsel about their personal lives and struggles.

Gradually the Pocono Conferences were mirrored in similar meetings around the country, and before long, weekend sessions stressing "lay witnessing" were being held in local churches and became the keystone for the "lay witness" missions now sponsored by several major denominations around the country.

During the time of Irving Harris' leadership of Faith at Work, which lasted until 1963, the essential character of the organization remained unchanged. Ralph Osborne speaks of "the basic emphasis of commitment, deep sharing, and guidance" brought into the origins of Faith at Work by Sam Shoemaker and Sherry Day, among others.

Confession, Commitment and Community

This emphasis, which embraced conversion to Christ, an experience of Christian community, and the application of the faith to witness and work in daily life is mirrored in Sam Shoemaker's frequently quoted aphorism, "Get changed, get together, and get going." During the fifties this constituted the modus operandi of the Faith at Work family, and it attracted the interest and often the commitment of people from a range of evangelical groups, including International Christian Leadership, Young Life, Christian Men Incorporated, the Billy Graham organization, Worldwide Evangelization Crusade, Marble Collegiate Church in New York, and many others.

If this was the emphasis, how did Faith at Work of the 1950's differ from many other evangelical programs? The main differences, as far as I can determine, were the emphasis on "deep sharing" and the vivid sense of community.

Ralph Osborne sees this sharing as including "confession and openness at all levels." By this, however, he means "openness" at the level of the spiritual and perhaps moral struggle. In conformity with the procedures of the Oxford Group, the Faith at Work family of the 1950's shared what might be called "volitional problems," instances in which "guidance" had not been sought or followed and in which the forgiveness and absolution of the group was sought.

Other problems were not aired. The breakfast and luncheon groups and the afternoon teas which formed the occasion for gatherings of the Faith at Work family were times of warm, convivial sharing of life and faith. The value of these meetings for people, threatened and frozen by the de-personalized society in which they were forced to live and work cannot be exaggerated. However, they did not encourage the emotional intimacy of group process. "Whatever small groups there were," writes Ralph Osborne, "were not concerned with group process. Rather, they were to provide a setting and openness for later one-to-one encounters."

Despite this apparent limitation, Faith at Work provided an opportunity for being oneself within an accepting Christian fellowship. This made it different from a number of parallel organizations. Different also was the sense of community. The personal warmth, the sense of being "in touch" with a worldwide family, the opportunity for sharing one's spiritual struggles, the sense of being tied in with the realism and power of a working Gospel-all these things were Faith at Work. They helped to expand the range of Faith at Work in the 1950's. The organization saw new centers of apostleship develop, not only in the United States but in England and Canada and the magazine was being eagerly read in ever widening circles.

There was no dramatic influx of adherents to the organization, but a steady permeation of the church by a leaven which both in fact and in potentiality suggested lines of growth for the future.