Laymen’s Home Missionary Movement— Is It An
Organization?
Question (1920)—Are you not forming an
organization of the Laymen’s Home Missionary
Movement?
Answer.—We are not forming an organization of
any kind; for the Laymen’s Home Missionary
Movement is not an organization; it is a movement, a
voluntary activity in which the Lord’s people
cooperate in service to people outside the Truth. If it
were an organization, it would have the essential
parts of an organization, which are (1) a character or
constitution, either in writing or by verbal agreement;
(2) expressed or implied tests as qualification for
membership and for officers; (3) members who have
the right to vote and elect officers; (4) a Board or
Committee of control; (5) executive officers; (6) bylaws,
either in writing or by verbal agreement. The
Laymen’s Home Missionary Movement has none of
these things; therefore it is not an organization. Our
well known opposition to organizations having the
work of the Priesthood in charge should have kept
back the questioner from suspecting that we are
forming an organization. The only organization with
which we desire to be identified is the one that the
Lord, not man, formed—the Body of Christ, fully
organized for its members in a voluntary and orderly
manner to fellowship with one another in the study,
spread and practice of the Truth. The dear brethren
of God’s Priesthood who are working in the Laymen’s
Home Missionary Movement do fellowship in the
study, spread and practice of the Truth as now due;
but in no manner are they banded together by the
machinery of a human organization. Therefore the
Laymen’s Home Missionary Movement is not an
organization. It is a movement, an activity.
PT. 1920 Pg. 197
