“For a long time in our Presbyterian heritage, we used a form of questions called the ‘Narrative on the State of Religion,'” the Rev. Jim Singleton told the more than 2,100 attendees of the Fellowship of Presbyterian’s Covenanting Conference.

Every congregation in the denomination had to answer the narrative’s questions and submit them for review by the presbytery.

“If you look in the minutes of 1925 and before you will see these wonderful reports,” said Singleton. “It’s story-telling by congregations.”

During his presentation, Singleton proposed that the new Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians (ECO) bring back the “Narrative” as a means of annual reporting. He said that in the 1920s, when the denomination “stopped looking at the stories and started looking at numbers. The narrative report was dropped.”

Singleton then reviewed questions from the 1908 “Narrative.” It included questions concerning:

• Attendance upon the service of the sanctuary by members and others;
• Proportions of families that observe family worship;
• Observance of the Lord’s day by the members;
• Home-training of the children in the Scripture and in the catechism of the church;
• Training of pupils in the Sabbath school in the Scripture and the catechism of the church (Singleton said that during that time, Sabbath school was for non-Presbyterian children. The congregation’s children were to be trained at home.);
• Fidelity of the membership in honoring the Lord with substance;
• Has the congregation paid its minister fully and promptly the amount promised him?
• Have there been any special manifestations of the Holy Spirit’s power in the church either by conversions or by increased activity in church work?
• To what extent does worldly conformity exist in the church?
• What evangelistic work is done by the church outside of its bounds?
• What is the church doing to secure people for the Gospel ministry?

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