For such reasons it is important that the implications of discipleship be made very plain to the boy, and this in terms of specific conduct in the home, at school, on the playground, at work, and in all the usual social relations.  Without this, there may be fatal inconsistencies in the boy’s conduct, not because he is essentially vicious, but because he has been unable to interpret high-sounding sermons and biblical ideals in terms of commonplace duty.  If the evangelical message encourages, condones, or permits this divorce, it becomes an instrument of incalculable harm.  Boys must be held to a high and reasonable standard of personal duty and group endeavor.

From this point of view the weakest feature of the church boys’ club is its tendency to overlook specific work for others.  The serious-minded leader will not be altogether satisfied in merely holding boys together for a “good time,” wholesome as that may be.  The service ideal must be incorporated in the activities of the club.  The nascent altruism of the boy should receive impetus and direction and the members should engage in united and intelligent social service.  Give the boy a worthy job; give him a hard job; give him a job that calls for team work; and give him help and appreciation in the doing of it.

It is sometimes difficult to devise and execute a program of this kind because of the limited opportunities of the particular town in which the club exists and the narrow ideals of the church with which the club is affiliated.  Yet it is always preferable to enlist the boys in some altruistic enterprise which lies close enough at hand to give it the full weight of reality.  Only so can we satisfy the concrete value-judgment of the young matriculant in the great school of applied religion.

This, however, should not be to the exclusion of those vast idealistic movements for human good embodied in world-wide missionary propaganda of a medical, educational, and evangelistic type.  Only, taking the boy as he is, it is not best to begin with these, because of their lack of reality to him and because of his inability to participate except by proxy.  It is well that he should extend himself to some faraway need by contributing of his means, but these gifts will get their proper significance and his philanthropic life will preserve its integrity by performing the particular service which to his own immediate knowledge needs to be done.

The proper care and beautifying of the streets and public places in his own community, the collection of literature for prisoners or the inmates of asylums or hospitals near at hand, supplying play equipment, clothing, or any useful thing for unfortunate boys in congested city districts, helping the minister and church in the distribution of printed matter and alms, aiding smaller boys in the organization of their games, helping some indigent widow, giving an entertainment, selling tickets, souvenirs, or any merchantable article