y plans for Church Efficiency. Practical Methods for Church Work.
The Growing Membership. Need of a New Building.

The preaching filled the church. Men and women felt that to miss a
sermon was to miss inspiration and strength for the coming week's
work, a broader outlook on life, a deeper hold on spiritual truths.
But it was more than the sermons that carried the church work forward
by leaps and bounds, added hundreds to its membership, made it a power
for good in the neighborhood that gradually began to be felt all over
the city.

The spirit of the sermons took practical form. Mr. Conwell followed no
traditions or conventions in his church work. He studied the needs of
the neighborhood and the hour. Then he went to work with practical,
common sense to meet them. First he determined the church should be
a home, a church home, but nevertheless a home in its true sense,
overflowing with love, with kindness, with hospitality for the
stranger within its gates. Committees were formed to make strangers
welcome, to greet them cordially, find them a seat if possible, see
that they had hymn books, and invite them heartily to come again. And
every member felt he belonged to this committee even if not actually
appointed on it, and made the stranger who might sit near him feel
that he was a welcome guest. When the church became more crowded,
members gave up their seats to strangers and sat on the pulpit, and it
was no unusual sight in the church at Berks and Mervine streets to see
the pulpit, as well as every other inch of space in the auditorium,
crowded. Finally, when even this did not give room enough to
accommodate all who thronged its doors, members took turns in staying
away from certain services. No one who has not enjoyed the spiritual
uplift, the good fellowship of a Grace Church service can appreciate
what a genuine personal sacrifice that was.

After the service, Mr. Conwell stationed himself at the door and shook
hands with all as they left, adding some little remark to show his
personal interest in their welfare if they were members, or a cordial
invitation to come again, if a stranger. The remembrance of that
hearty handclasp, that frank, friendly interest, lingered and stamped
with a personal flavor upon the hearer's heart, the truths of
Christianity that had been preached in such simple, clear, yet
forcible fashion from the pulpit.

Another of Mr. Conwell's methods for carrying out practical
Christianity was