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LVAL&{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\froman\fprq2\fcharset0 Georgia;}{\f1\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 Arial;}{\f2\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue255;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\stylesheet{ Normal;}{\s1 heading 1;}} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\nowidctlpar\lang1033\f0\fs22 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par BY PETER H. PLEUNE \par \par And he gave some to be ... pastors ... for the perfecting of the saints, unto the voorlc of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ: till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the Icnowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgroton man, unto the measure of the stature of the f illness of Christ. Eph_4:11-13. \par \par Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Be diligent in these things; give thyself wholly to them; tJiat thy progress may be manifest unto all. Take heed to thyself, and to thy teaching. Continue in these things; for in doing this thou shalt save both thyself and them that hear thee. 1Ti_4:14-16. \par \par ABINADON-COKESBUBY PRESS \par NEW YORK NASHVILLE \par \par SOME TO BE PASTORS \par COPYRIGHT, MCMXLIII (1943)\par BY WHITMORE & STONE \par \par All rights in this book are reserved. No part of the text may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publishers, except brief quotations used in connection with reviews in magazines or newspapers. \par \par Formatted by\par David Cox 2009\par \pard{\field{\*\fldinst{HYPERLINK "mailto:dcox@davidcox.com.mx" }}{\fldrslt{\cf1\ul dcox@davidcox.com.mx}}}\cf0\ulnone\f0\fs22\par \par \pard\keepn\s1\sb240\sa60\kerning32\b\f1\fs32 Contenido\par \pard\nowidctlpar\kerning0\b0\f0\fs22\par \pard\lang3082\f1\fs24 I. The Gospel According to You\tab 3\par II. \ldblquote THIS ONE THING I DO!\rdblquote\tab 7\par III. An Understanding Heart\tab 13\par IV. Ringing Doorbells\tab 20\par V. Slow, Curve Ahead\tab 25\par VI. Five Senses and Two MoreLVAL\tab 31\par VII. Those who are not with Us\tab 37\par VIII. Pastoral Psychiatry\tab 43\par IX. To Join this Man and this Woman\tab 48\par X. When Death Comes\tab 52\par XI. Books\tab 57\par XII. Time, Vacation, Money\tab 62\par XIII. This and That\tab 67\par XIV. Ministering to Children\tab 72\par XV. In a World at War\tab 79\par XVI. Faltering in our Task of Happiness\tab 82\par \lang1033\f0\fs22\par WAR EDITION \par \par Complete text. Reduced size in compliance with orders of the War Production Board for conserving paper and other materials. \par \par SET UP, PRINTED, AND BOUND BY THE PARTHENON PRESS AT NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA \par \par To my wife and daughter who have devotedly shared with me the bitter and the sweet experiences which constitute the undertones of this book \par \par IT IS PERHAPS JUST AS WELL THAT THE AVERAGE \par church member never sees a catalogue of a theological seminary. He is not too sure always that his minister is a normal human being ; and to find that his pastor studied such things as Apologetics, Homiletics, Hermeneutics, and the like, would only increase his bewilderment about the kind of preparation some of us must have had for our task. Then to learn that the special study of a minister's work as a pastor is called Pastoral Theology could not help very much in his understanding of how often we act the way we do. We can almost hear him muttering to himself, "Pastoral Theology! What has Theology to do with it? Why don't they teach just plain pastoral common sense?" \par \par There was an unusually rare understanding in the reply I overheard one church member make to another on this subject. \par \par One asked, "What is it that our preacher is going to teach at the Seminary?" \par "Pastoral Theology," the other replied. \par "What's that?" asked the first man. \par "That," said the other, "is what a minister has \par \par 8 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par to know about being a pastor that he can't get out of books." LVAL\par \par And here am I trying to put it into a book ! \par \par To be a good pastor does require a wisdom that is not academic. No set of rules could be laid down, or textbook be written, to fit the various demands of a pastor's work. It is both too simple and too complex for that. \par \par Even a loose definition of pastoral work is difficult. It is not enough to say that in the pulpit a \par minister is a preacher, and that outside of the pulpit he is a pastor; for preaching too is, or ought to be, a pastoring of the flock. We offer no definition of a pastoral ministry lest we seem to limit it. \par \par We do have a deep conviction that the determining factor in the field of a pastor's endeavor \par is not a matter of technique but of inner spirit and attitudes, and of the utter commitment of \par one's personal life, without pride or self-seeking, to the glorious task of hallowing, comforting, healing, and redeeming the lives of men. \par \par We confess that we do not know much about it. And what we do know may not be interesting or helpful to anyone else. But we have thought much about it. We have struggled along at the task for thirty years. For a few years we tried to teach a class in a theological seminary in what the catalogue listed as Pastoral Theology. We do know that many young ministers feel their inadequacy \par \par FOREWORD 9 \par \par here. It has helped us, and we hope them, as we have talked together about it. \par \par This little book is the result of a suggestion from a younger minister that we jot down some of the conversations we have had about the things that enter into being a good minister of Jesus \par Christ. That is all that we have tried to do. We have sought to follow the conversational manner in order to avoid the formal and the didactic. We have taken many things for granted. We naturally assume an intimate personal relation of the minister to his God, and his dependence on God for strength and guidance in all things. We will be thinking togeth LVAL er primarily about some of the ways in which we may give ' * all that is within us ' ' to the task for which God has appointed us, of shepherding some of his flock. \par \par Should any laymen come upon this book, we trust that it may serve to increase their patience \par with their pastor, and give direction to some daily sustaining prayer in his behalf. \par \par I wish to express my appreciation to President Frank H. Caldwell and Dean Lewis J. Sherrill, \par of the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and to Dr. Teunis E. Gouwens, for their critical reading of the manuscript of this book, and to the latter particularly for his hearty encouragement to begin to write these chapters out of our ministerial experiences. \par \par PETER H. PLEUNE \par \par \par \cf2\f2\fs23\par } q F[ b  k < U 16 - Faltering in our Task of Happiness &bV15 - In a World at War Y&@414 - Ministering to Children ܪ&L@13 - This and That &8, 12 - Time, Vacation, Money $uy&H< 11 - BooksVqq&& 10 - When Death Comes h&>2 09 -To Join This Man and This Woman na&ZN 08 - Pastoral Psychiatry oY&D807 - Those who are not With Us @O&PD06 - Five Senses and Two More ^D&NB05 - Slow, Curve Ahead :&@404 - Ringing Doorbells ~2&@403 - An Understanding Heart .'&L@02 - This One Thing I Do ȣ&D801 -The Gospel According to You :Z&RF00 - PleunePH - Some To Be Pastors6&VJLVAL&{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 Arial;}{\f1\froman\fprq2\fcharset0 Georgia;}{\f2\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\stylesheet{ Normal;}{\s1 heading 1;}} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\keepn\s1\sb240\sa60\lang1033\kerning32\b\f0\fs32 I. The Gospel According to You\par \pard\nowidctlpar\kerning0\f1\fs22\par \b0 WE HAVE BEEN TOLD THAT IN A SINGLE GENERATION\par \par we have moved from the horse-and-buggy days to a streamlined life. And the church has not escaped this movement of change. We have been swept along on this tide of innovation until some of us on the far side of middle life hardly recognize the church in which we began our ministry. Stately Gothic structures have replaced the little white meetinghouse. The old frock coat has been discarded f or the flowing robe, and the center pulpit for a chancel. Above all, a chancel! Some ministers just cannot preach at all until they have rebuilt the old church to include a chancel. Nonliturgical churches too must have their processionals, entroits, and recessionals. We have translations of the Bible in everyday speech, streamlined sermons, unified services combining study and worship. We have our church secretaries and mimeograph machines in a church office. We have directors of religious education. We have theological education comparable to specialized university courses. We ministers do more things, attend more meetings, raise more money, and plan more things than the ministers of yesterday ever 13 \par \par \par 14 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par dreamed of doing. I wonder what John Wesley or Phillips Brooks would think about what we call the march of progress in the church. \par \par Well, I imagine they would probably think it just that a mark of advance. A thing need not be wrong because it is new. Wesley and Brooks would doubtless be quick to use some of the new methods and materials of our day. I know that I have no desire to be limited by.the restriLVALcting forms and tools of the ministry of my boyhood. \par \par It is worth noting these changes, not for the purpose either of approval or of criticism, but that we may face squarely the fact of how little difference they make in the fundamental qualities of our ministry. The trappings of life change from age to age, but not life itself. \par \par Still the fundamental need of the ministry is a man. \par \par No change we make in the material structure of the church, in method, or in program, can alter the fact that the gospel remains a living force only by contact of life with life. The most adequate church equipment with the most enicient organization is cold and lifeless unless it centers in some personality. Someone has said that there is only one problem in the world, only one problem in the church. It is the problem of finding the right man. \par \par Being a minister of the gospel involves many things. It is more an involved task today than ever before. A man must be most everything to be a good minister. He must possess some of the \par \par THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO YOU 15 \par \par qualities of a businessman, a banker, and a general of an army. He must preach and organize and direct. He still needs, however, more than all to be a pastor. Nothing that happens in the changing structure of the church's life, or ever may happen, will alter that need. Our life may be streamlined, but it is still life. And it still takes life to minister to life. \par \par A minister must be both a preacher and a pastor. I am conscious of many limitations in my own ministry. But any lack of appreciation for the place and power of the pulpit is not one of them. Time, thought, and prayer must be given to the sermon. \ldblquote Blood, sweat, and tears\rdblquote must go into the preparation. To preach is an infinite privilege. The man who slights this task is slighting his Lord. The people want good preaching. \par \par They are infinitely patient with the kind of preaching we give them. They deserve beLVALtter than they get. But they want and deserve a pastor as well as a preacher. There is no good reason why they should not have both in the same man. \par \par Now the pastoral ministry is a personal ministry. And when we think together about a pastoral ministry, there is only one place to begin, and that is with ourselves. That is where we not only begin, but where we must continue, and where we will end with ourselves. We are prone to think that our ministry is determined by the type of church we serve, the co-operation of our official boards, the responsiveness of our congregation, \par \par 16 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par the kind of community of wMcli we are a part. We can muster any number of reasons for our success or failure, especially for our failure. But the main reason is always in ourselves. When we fail, some personal qualities have always been a factor in that failure. When we succeed, personal qualities in us will have been invariably a greater factor than any method or technique employed. It is of little importance for us to think at all about a pastoral ministry unless we consider ourselves problem number one. It is well to discount ourselves in any success, for others have always shared it. The true pastor will always recognize that in every failure he has had some definite share. To paraphrase a Negro spiritual, \ldblquote It's not my church, and not my officers, and not my community, it's me, it's me, it 's me, Lord. ' ' We can never leave ourselves out of the reckoning. \par \par There is a gospel according to you and to me. \par \par Few of us would agree on what makes a good minister of the Lord Jesus Christ. We would probably get an entirely different set of answers from the folks in the pews, and some surprising ones. \par \par We know, at least, that there is no mold for shaping ministers. They cannot be turned out on some assembly line. The whole task of the ministry is too specialized and individual for that. And the minister has no blueprint to follow. Even hisLVAL Bible is least of all a set of rules. Jesus told his disciples what they were to preach, but scarcely a word as to how they were to do it. How much easier it \par \par THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO YOU 17 \par \par would be for both church and minister if we had a model of a perfect minister and could say, \ldblquote This is it.\rdblquote \par \par \par That, however, is also the glory of the ministry. \par \par Because there is no exact design for the minister, our own talent of ability and personality cannot be ruled out. There are frequent illustrations of two men utterly different proving to be effective ministers in the same place and under the same conditions. Everyone knows of some church which, having lost its pastor, is certain that it can never find another who could fit its situation so well, only to find that another man different in age, appearance, personality, method, and as unlike the former pastor as anyone could be, succeeds in that task with the approval and the enthusiasm of all. We say that this shows how God can use any man. Yes, and it shows how God must truly have the man, not just a brain or a technique. \par \par President Woodrow Wilson, a son of the manse, and himself a Presbyterian elder, in an address on \ldblquote The; Minister and the Community,\rdblquote said, You do not have to be anything in particular to be a lawyer. I have been a lawyer and I know. You do not have to be anything in particular, except a kind-hearted man, perhaps, to be a physician. You do not have to be anything, nor undergo any stirring spiritual change, in order to be a merchant. The only profession which consists in being something is the ministry of our Lord and Saviour and it does not consist in anything else. \par \par There is then truly a gospel according to you. \par \par \par 18 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par In tine training of the Twelve Jesus laid down no rule of thumb for them. He offered no course in pastoral efficiency. He said something, however, that, had we heard it fLVALrom his own lips, we might have asked that he repeat it to be sure we had heard aright. And this is it: \ldblquote As my Father hath sent me [into the world], even so send I you! ' ' You! What had the Father done in sending him into the world? \ldblquote The \ldblquote Word became flesh.\rdblquote He was the truth of God embodied in a living person. In that land of the prophets he was the greatest preacher of them all. Men had never heard his like. \ldblquote Never man spake like this man.\rdblquote Yet, did the throngs crowd him just to hear him preach? He was even more a different person than they had ever known. \par \par In his person he drew men to him as the flower draws the bee. The fishermen left their nets to follow him not because he proclaimed a new theology. They never did quite grasp his full truth until after the Eesurrection. They left all, and followed him, almost blindly, because of the attraction of his person, the light in his eye, the smile on his face, the winsomeness of his conversation, the gentleness of his manner; because in him they saw light and glory, and something that made their fishing a drab and little thing. \par \par How do you visualize Jesus when you think of him yonder in Galilee? When in imagination you join the crowds to press close to him, what sort of picture has formed in your mind? Is he delivering a sermon, or do you see him at a wedding \par \par THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO YOU 19 \par \par feast, feeding a multitude, healing the sick, with the little children gathered about him, in a boat with his disciples, going about doing good? Pearls of wisdom drop from his lips, it is true. But they tell us less of himself than his stopping by the way to touch a blind man's eyes, or his finger writing in the sand as he drops his own eyes before the burning shame in the eyes of a sinful woman, or his walking along the streets of Jerusalem with Zacchaeus to be the guest in the home of this man who was scorned as a sinner. Jesus did not say, \ldblquote He that hat:LVALJh heard me,\rdblquote but, \ldblquote He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. ' ' God put his truth into the life of Jesus. And Jesus sent out his men to be something, not only to say something. \par \par There are definite ways of doing the work of a minister. God does his work in an ordered fashion. \par \par There was nothing haphazard about the ministry of Jesus. There are correct methods to be employed, the right tools to use, wise plans to follow; but the most important, and determining, will be the man who uses them. \par \par There is a gospel according to you. \par \par \ldblquote As the Father hath sent me [into the world], even so send I you.\rdblquote \par \par \par It is almost frightening to find ourselves at all in the succession of those sent forth by the Master to minister to men. Perhaps we say, \ldblquote It is too high for<me; I cannot attain unto it.\rdblquote Yet that is just where we need to begin. We must elevate our ideal, and our every thought of our task, \par \par 20 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par until we find ourselves crying out in despair, \ldblquote Who is sufficient for these things? It cannot possibly be I. \ldblquote If our pastoral ministry is something we are/too sure about, then it is not for us, and we will never make anything out of it. \par \par \par \par \pard\cf1\f2\fs23\par } LVAL&{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 Arial;}{\f1\froman\fprq2\fcharset0 Georgia;}{\f2\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\stylesheet{ Normal;}{\s1 heading 1;}} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\keepn\s1\sb240\sa60\lang1033\kerning32\b\f0\fs32 II. \ldblquote THIS ONE THING I DO!\rdblquote \par \pard\nowidctlpar\kerning0\f1\fs22\par \b0 IF OUR TASK WAS ONLY \par \par as simple as that! There is not one thing; there are a hundred things to do. Anything as comprehensive as the Christian ministry could not fail to be a demanding task. Our work deals with life, and is as wide as life itself. Other professions are by their nature limited. The doctor deals with the body, the lawyer with legal matters, the merchant with trade, the teacher with education, the politician with public affairs. Not one of these, of course, is wholly confined to his own particular sphere, but neither does his task include quite so much as the task of the minister. His work reaches out to include something of almost everybody's task. It seems as if he would be the last person who could rightly say, \ldblquote This one thing I do.\rdblquote \par \par \par But he had better learn to say it. If not, he may find himself doing so many things that he is not really doing even one thing. \par \par First, it will be necessary for us to come to some sort of decision about the relation of our life and work to the community about us. Our church is not a thing apart. Participation in com\par 21 \par \par \par 22 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par munity efforts is inevitable. Community agencies will expect our assistance, and ought to have it. \par \par In rural centers 4-H Clubs, Granges, schools, cooperative movements, and in the city Y.M.C.A, civic organizations, Boy Scouts, welfare agencies, etc, will all seek our help, and afford an opportunity for a wide ministry. \par \par Active participation in public affairs often becomes more acute for a miniLVALster in a small community, just as it is more difficult for a minister in a small church to regulate his activities within his church than it is for a minister in a large church. In a large church there is more lay leadership to share and lighten the minister's responsibilities. In a small church, if the pastor does not do certain things they will remain undone. In a small town this is true too about community activities. In a situation in which a city minister may readily say ''No\rdblquote as to community activity, the small-town minister may have to say \ldblquote Yes,\rdblquote \par or a necessary community service will go undone. \par \par I know a minister in a small town who has for several years been county chairman of the Bed Cross. He has a small church, well organized, its membership faithful and loyal. There is not much prospect for denominational growth. He has time for wider service. This he wisely undertook to render. He tripled the county membership in the Bed Cross, and broadened his own ministry immeasurably. He is the best-known and best-loved minister in the county. There seemed no one else \par \par THIS ONE THING I DO 23 \par \par to do this work. This minister did it, and somehow managed to make a pastoral task out of it too, for many more than those of his own little group. \par \par Always our community relationships require some co-operation with others in community movements. Some of these movements may not be religious other than in their effects. It would seem to be plain that a minister can have no part in partisanship action, and that he should be particularly on guard against activities in politics. \par \par One of the greatest dangers in community participation is in the tendency to become a community dissenter. A far greater influence in civic affairs is wielded by seeking to commend rather than to condemn. Condemnation in public affairs helps not at all, while constructive criticism is hard to shake off. I was once a member of a ministerial association LVALwhich met each Monday morning, and whose first consideration each week seemed to be, \ldblquote What can we protest against this morning?\rdblquote I cannot recall that anybody ever listened to anything we had to say. \par \par The matter of community activity is a vexing question. It is my personal observation and experience, through years of sharing in many activities outside of my own church, that all of one's community relationships are only auxiliary to the task that centers on the corner where one's church is located. Whatever I do, I must enrich my ministry there. There I have a fold and a flock. I am first of all their shepherd. It is beyond \par \par 24 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par all doubt a help to be respected and favorably known by many throughout the community. The pastures are broad and there are \ldblquote other sheep.\rdblquote \par \par But too often, when we leave our \ldblquote ninety and nine,\rdblquote it is not that we are truly seeking the wandering sheep. And I trust that it remains just a ministerial secret as to how many times our public activity is a matter of our unworthy and unprofitable bowing before the false gods of personal popularity. \par \par If there is to be a narrowing down of our ministry in the face of the many demands upon our time and energy, it is likewise true in regard to the content of our message and work. For we must come to some clear decision too as to how much of our ministry shall apply itself to the social structure of the life about us. We are prone to characterize our time in generalizing words. So we speak of it as a materialistic, a scientific, or a machine age. Certainly no such characterizing word can be wholly inclusive. But to say that our age is a social age would indicate, at least, one of the chief developments of the past century, and one that has left its mark upon the work and message of the Christian church. \par \par Is the gospel a social or an individual gospel? \par \par There are, of course, extremes of emphasLVAL is here. \par \par There are those for whom anything that smacks of a social gospel is anathema. They are afraid of the very term as of a plague. They do not countenance any mention of Christian social action \par \par THIS ONE THING I DO 25 \par \par from the pulpit or in the councils of the church. \par \par There are others who have no other text whatever. For them the pulpit is often merely a forum for the discussion of social action, and the church an agency of social reform. \par \par An average minister, however, finds himself somewhere between these two extremes. He is aware that the redemption of the individual is essential, but that society must be redeemed too. \par \par One thing is certain that our task is to be a challenge to life. We are to declare unto men that they must be born again. But what for? That they may be new creatures; that they may live a new life. And a new life must necessarily change the conditions under which it is lived. In Thessalonica they said of Paul and Silas, \ldblquote These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also. ' ' Our gospel has lost some of its first meaning if it is not revolutionary. It changes things. \par \par Everything needed changing in Jesus ' day. And Jesus was aware of it. He wept over Jerusalem. \par \par He said that its leadership was rotten at the core, that the poor were in rags and want, that hunger and disease stalked through the hovels of the wretched. He approved of charity. The disciples had a treasury for the poor. He healed the sick. \par \par He denounced the practices of the rich, the selfcentered, and the hard of heart. Neither his hands nor his heart were closed to the wretchedness of men about him. He believed in a better world. He pictured the kind of world God wants. He called \par \par 26 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par it the Kingdom of God. He prayed for,it. We cannot doubt that Jesus would approve of every modern social organization for the betterment of life, and every bit of legislLVAL!ation for the restraint of social evils. \par \par In the sixteenth century, the Reformation, as we know, changed the basis of religious authority from the church to the Bible. As Protestants we stake our faith on the revelation of the Book, not on the councils of Eome. That being true, the immediate task of the sixteenth century in Protestant circles was some clear statement of what the Bible taught. So there followed the years of the forming of theological creeds and systematized statements of faith. The church naturally became theologically minded. Now, no fault can be found with that. We must know, in an ordered, systematic way, what the Book tells us about God. \par \par Every branch of the Protestant church has a creed; if not a written one, there is necessarily some inner agreement as to a common truth binding that group together as a denomination. Theological formulas are imperative. \par \par Accompanying this emphasis upon faith was the abandonment of everything in practice and form that had been a part of the Roman church. \par \par And for more than three centuries we have been under that Reformation influence. It is only recently that there has been an appreciable recovery, in Protestant circles in America, at least, from the blighting effect of the sweeping aside of every\par \par THIS ONE THING I DO 27 \par \par thing formal and liturgical in worship. For long years the church was just a \ldblquote meeting house.\rdblquote \par \par Every formalism of worship was taboo. My own Dutch forebears put a rooster on their church steeples as a substitute for the cross. We abandoned even the central symbol of our faith. All that is happily changing. \par \par But the sixteenth-century influence of allegiance to a creed and a theological system lingered long too. The immediate necessity for a theological system turned out to be a limiting purpose in Protestantism, so that quite generally our emphasis has always been on correct statement of belief. \par \par The effect of this eLVAL"mphasis is seen in the presence of many denominations. They were the inevitable outcome of a stress upon theological formula. \par \par And beyond all doubt one of the present weaknesses of Protestantism is in the average church member's conception that he is a Christian when he has given his assent to a certain form of Christian belief. The effect of this, moreover, is seen in a long-delayed following out of the implications of our faith on our social structure. Martin Luther first neglected to follow out the implications of his faith when he turned against the peasants asking him to demand with them some of the elementary human rights and social privileges implied in the new religious freedom he proclaimed. What had his new form of faith to do with these! Luther's primary interest apparently was the acceptance of his theological system. To \par \par 28 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par a great degree this lias been one of the determining influences of the Reformation movement, and has shaped the thought and the purpose of the Protestant church. In its preoccupation with systems of faith it has strongly emphasized the redemption of the individual and neglected the social redemption of society. \par \par Current history reveals a widespread revolt against the church where it has wrapped about itself a cloak of oblivion to human misery; The Roman church has suffered thus in Spain and Mexico. Finding no fellowship, no sympathy, no intelligent guidance in facing the real problems of life, finding the church not only wrapped up in its own interests, but associated in their minds will those exploiting them, the people turned against it. The church in Russia brought about its own doom through a complete indifference to the common life of the Russian people. They saw no power or life in the church; so they brushed it aside. In Germany, where the church suffers under heavy civic disabilities, that very fact goes back to the surrender by the church itself of many social activities to the State. The church wLVAL#as concerned primarily with the formulas of Christian truth. All the social implications of the gospel it left to the government. How natural for the State when it becomes totalitarian to enlarge upon what the church has already left to it and to seek to include the entire church within its province!\par \par Our modern day has ample illustration of the fact \par \par THIS ONE THING I DO 29 \par \par that institutionalism, formalism, sectarianism, vested interests, and even a well-meaning otherworldliness are ways to separateness from the lives of people whom the church is destined to serve, and that when the church fails to bring to hear its spiritual resources upon the pressing daily problems of life, it sows the seeds of its own decay. \par \par Life does not exist for the sake of religion. It is religion that exists for the sake of life. We must believe that whatever touches life touches the church. The church cannot ignore the life and the conditions of life about it as if these are things apart. And they are wrong who would keep the church a private enterprise when it was meant to be the advance guard of the \ldblquote Kingdom of G-od in this world. There is no excuse for the church if it is organized just for itself. How can there be a gospel that ends with the individual? No man lives in this world as an individual. The gospel that has no social implications is not a gospel, for the gospel began with One who said, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. ' ' \par \par \par 30 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par No man is long a minister before he is aware in Ms own heart of wrongs that must be righted and evils that must be attacked. He sees that legislLVAL$ation must be enacted, common action must be aroused, moral safeguards must be erected, character-forming agencies must be supported, and philanthropic work must be done, or much of his preaching is in vain. There is a constant inner urge to do something about it. Just to preach seems not to be enough. The structure of life about liim lies heavy in his heart. From within his own soul there is no contentment with things as they are. If there is, he had better question his call to be a minister of Jesus Christ. \par \par And with the inner promptings of our own spirits, there are the many demands from without for definite social action. Every agency and movement for betterment looks to the minister. Civic officials seek his help. Reform movements want his leadership. Almost every mail brings some appeal for support and for action. Everybody else seems convinced that the church and the minister are in the business of social action. The minister is besieged to do something about things as they are, that they may be better than they are. \par \par But what are we to do? We cannot do everything that is demanded of us. Granted that we must do something, what is that we are to do, and how much of our ministry must be concerned with social betterment? \par \par It must be noted that the Book of our religion \par \par THIS ONE THING I DO 31 \par \par gives no details for social action. Jesus, instead of giving a program of restraint against privilege and power, says, \ldblquote Beware of covetousness. \ldblquote Our responsibility for the distressed and needy he covers with the story of the good Samaritan and the simple injunction, \ldblquote Go, and do thou likewise.\rdblquote \par \par When he touches the question of the woman of the streets, we hear him say, \ldblquote Go, and sin no more.\rdblquote Jesus meets a grafting ward heeler like Zacchaeus and visits with him in his own home. \par \par When we come to the prophets of the Old Testament, we find them preachers of righteousness, denouLVAL%ncing corruption, and putting their finger upon community sores and declaring that God would not have it so. But neither the prophets, nor He who was more than a prophet, ever offer a detailed program of social action. \par \par There is, however, in the Bible every motive for social action; and we would do better to add some method than, in stifling literalism, to abandon all method and program, and with it the very spirit of him \ldblquote who went about doing good.\rdblquote \par \par \par Our danger here is one of confusion as to what to do and how to do it, unless we face a few fundamental considerations. Some men have gone \ldblquote all out\rdblquote for social action, and have identified themselves with movements that.absorbed too much of their time. Others have gotten so far in the lead in socialistic endeavor that they have ended in a final retreat from the ministry altogether. \par \par \par 32 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par It will be helpful to remember that we are not experts in the field of social action. We are not economists, nor lawmakers, nor businessmen, nor welfare workers, nor politicians, nor judges, nor even reformers. We are ministers, and where leadership is necessary for needed social changes, others are technically better equipped than we are. If the present economic setup is wrong, it will take an economist to do something about it. \par \par Most of us cannot manage our own finances any too well. What the social leadership needs is Christian motivation. Every social program to be effective must be motivated by the Christian spirit and undergirded by a Christian faith. That is sitask great enough to engage all our energies. \par \par Furthermore, every social movement needs Christian public opinion behind it. Strong moral principles must be behind a new social order. The Prohibition experiment failed because it lacked a Christianized social conviction even among Christian people. No legislation or law is worth more than the public opinion behind it. A professLVAL&or of political science, speaking to our Men's Club, affirmed that the only task of a politician is to follow public opinion. He said that it mattered little after all who was in office, as the officeholder is only the man to do what the people have decided they want done. And that is not belittling the politician. So little gets done because the people do not know what they want.. Someone is needed to quicken a moral social consciousness, \par \par THIS ONE THING I DO 33 \par \par to challenge men and women to want, and to work for, the kind of world God means us to have. \par \par Our best contribution is to be a prophet of the\\ \par new order, to create a new motive, to insist upon I the pattern that Grod has laid down for the best life of men living together. \ldblquote We have a textbook as rich in socialized truth as it is in theological truth. Its gospel proclaims the service of the weak by the strong, of the poor by the rich, that the brotherhood of man is a parallel truth to the fatherhood of Grod, and that to be a pagan toward the one is to be a pagan toward the other. What bedrock convictions the average man has about those things will make or break any social effort. \par \par Who better than the minister can help to formulate Christian social opinion? What he can best do, if would seem, he ought to concentrate on doing. We are not experts in social leadership, but the experts are impotent without the Christianized convictions behind them which it is our business to create. \par \par Furthermore, many efforts fail because of a blind faith in the sufficiency of external conditions and changes. It needs to be said by someone that better hours of work and wages will not provide a millennium, that material abundance has,not led to the mastery of all human problems. A physically hungry man may not have much appetite for spiritual food, but a man with a full stomach is not any nearer the Kingdom for that. \par \par No new world is going to be built out of any of \par \par 34 SOME4 LVALD ' TO BE PASTORS \par \par the ingeniously devised prefabricated materials of our machine age. It still needs the bricks and the straw of the age-old Sermon on the Mount. \par \par Who ought to be certain of that if not we? \par \par The social gospel must claim our attention. \par \par But there are limitations for us. There is one thing we must do. And perhaps the whole situation for us can be most adequately met if we will remember that the one thing for us is, by God's help, to seek to develop a social consciousness, not to create a social system. \par \par \pard\cf1\f2\fs23\par } LVAL&({\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 Arial;}{\f1\froman\fprq2\fcharset0 Georgia;}{\f2\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\stylesheet{ Normal;}{\s1 heading 1;}} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\keepn\s1\sb240\sa60\lang1033\kerning32\b\f0\fs32 III. An Understanding Heart\par \pard\nowidctlpar\kerning0\b0\f1\fs22\par I LIKE THE WORD \ldblquote MINISTER. \ldblquote JESUS USED IT ABOUT \par \par himself. ''The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. \ldblquote He also used the word \ldblquote shepherd.\rdblquote \ldblquote I am the good shepherd.\rdblquote \par \par Our word \ldblquote pastor\rdblquote conveys the same meaning. \par \par A pastor is a ministering shepherd. He must tend all of the flock, and in every flock there are those who need tender care the sick, the troubled, the sorrowing, and the bereaved. They need the ministry of an understanding heart such as the first minister of burdened souls possessed. \par \par It is no criticism of any seminary training to say that it does not school a minister for this phase of his service. It is not uncommon for young men about to enter their first charge to be apprehensive about their lack of preparation for ministering to the troubled. If ever there is a too confident self-assurance, it is not at this point. \par \par Usually a young man begins his work with something of dread about his ministering to others in times of sickness, sorrow, and stress. \par \par No study could adequately prepare a man for this. What a man needs here first of all is a sympathetic, understanding heart. And his capacity for 35 \par \par \par 36 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par sympathy and understanding develops, not from a theoretical approach, but from actual contact with suffering, troubled, and sorrowing persons. \par \par Sympathy and understanding come to a minister as they come to a physician. As a medical student the physician studies theory. HeLVAL) may be even a little calloused in his attitudes, but it all begins to mean something different as in his internship he touches people's lives, and even more so as later a patient is entrusted entirely to his care. \par \par And more and more through the years the good doctor learns that his knowledge, skill, and technique are supplemented, and made effective, by his understanding and feeling toward patients as persons. Heart, hand, and head together make a good physician. And the minister, like the physician, will grow in sympathy and understanding as the needs of men reach out to lay hold upon his heart. \par \par A pastor's place in the hearts of his people is greatly determined by his ministry of comfort. \par \par There are always some into whose lives distress has come, and in faithful ministry to these over a number of years a minister reaches the larger number of his congregation at a time when, because of their sense of need, they are most receptive. The door to people's hearts is always ajar during their times of trouble, anxiety, and sorrow, and the minister can enter in, bringing his Christ with him in a way that he cannot do at any other time. The only opportunity comparable \par \par AN UNDERSTANDING HEART 37 \par \par to it is at the opposite extreme of experience. To share another's supreme joy is to come close to his inner life too. The Book of Proverbs declares, \ldblquote The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.\rdblquote But in both bitterness and joy the minister has an opportunity to get in behind the normal barriers to the human heart; and when he is no longer a stranger, there his true ministry begins. That minister is wise who remembers how largely all the effectiveness of his ministry to his people will be shaped by the touch of his own heart upon theirs at a time when they are wistfully sensitive to his sympathetic words and deeds. \par \par The Lord Jesus earned the name of the Great Physician. He was always concerLVAL*ned with people who were sick in body as well as those who were sick in spirit. Those who minister in his name must be interested too. Whatever pastoral functions are omitted or neglected, it should never be this one of ministering to those ill in body. People want their pastor in times of illness, suffering, and anxiety; and he touches then, not only the individual, but the family and the community of friends. Here is a task which requires delicacy of feeling and the depths of understanding and imagination. \par \par There are three purposes of a minister's care of the sick the expression of sympathy, spiritual counsel, and a ministry of actual healing of the body through helpfulness in mental attitudes. \par \par \par 38 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par These are not necessarily distinct and separate from each other. A visit in which sincere sympathy is manifest may serve all three purposes. \par \par I am inclined to feel that just the call itself may serve these three ends without too much conscious stress on either one. In a sickroom we should above all be natural, and be calm and possessed in our bearing despite any seriousness in the situation confronted. Because the situation presents a spiritual opportunity, it does not follow that this is a time for any long spiritual diagnosis or discussion. The patient knows that you have come as his pastor. Sometimes things not said strike home more truly than any glib words. \par \par A prayer of trust and gratitude and recognition of God's mercy, forgiveness, and tenderness of understanding will often do what direct words do not. A sense of reality about God can be manifested without being unduly serious. And lightness of mind or trivialities have no place here even if the illness is not of a critical nature. But smiles and laughter may, upon proper occasion, not be out of place either. The matter of prayer should not be forced. For a minister to say that he never makes a sick call without offering prayer may be an indication of a practice comforLVAL+ting to the minister's own estimate of his duty, but not necessarily anything of helpfulness to the sick one. The emotional condition of the patient may be such that a word in parting that he will be remembered in prayer is far more helpful than \par \par AN UNDERSTANDING HEART 39 \par \par a prayer spoken at Ms bedside. It is well for us to remember that our call is, or ought to be, for the purpose of helpfulness to the sick one and his family, not to carry out some unvarying practice of ministerial procedure. \par \par Sickbed resolutions or confessions should not be overemphasized. Dr. J. R. Miller, author of many devotional writings, and who had a very conspicuous ministry to the sick in a great Philadelphia pastorate, has stated that he never knew a case of \ldblquote deathbed repentance\rdblquote which lasted when the patient recovered. The remark of one sick man to his long-time enemy is unfortunately all too typical. His visitor was a man with whom he had had a lifetime controversy. But at the bedside the two were reconciled and words of friendship passed between them. Then, as the visitor was leaving, his reconciled sick antagonist called out, \ldblquote Remember, if I get well this don't count.\rdblquote \par \par \par A helpful spiritual service may be rendered through suggested reading or leaving books of inspiration with convalescing patients or those not too ill to read. Such books as Russell L. \par \par Dicks 's Meditations for the Sick and E. Stanley Jones's Christ and Human Suffering, carry a message of strength for a time of spiritual sensitiveness and need. The minister will, of course, not neglect the reading of the Word as appropriate occasions present themselves. \par \par In a ministry of sympathy and helpfulness, one must be ready to meet unusual circumstances. \par \par \par 40 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par Sometimes one's presence is a sustaining strength to loved ones as they await the outcome of an operation. They may ask their pastor to be with them in LVAL,such a time, or he, knowing some special circumstance, may offer to be with them then. \par \par One cannot always foresee the way in which it is possible to be most helpful. On one occasion a friend from a former pastorate came to Louisville for a major operation upon his wife. She was a member of the church. He was reared a Catholic and remained formally in that church because one of his sisters was a nun. Both of them were close personal friends of mine. Upon my joining nim on the morning of the operation, and as his wife was being wheeled into the operating room, he. asked me if I were not going into the operating room also. Turning to him I said, \ldblquote Do you mean that you want me to go into the operating room instead of waiting here with you?\rdblquote He feelingly replied, \ldblquote Yes.\rdblquote To which I answered, \ldblquote Well, I came here to help you, and if that does it I'll go in.\rdblquote And so I did. \par \par Unusual circumstances present themselves when the minister is not alone with a patient. It may be necessary then to place himself tactfully in the position of taking charge of the situation, at least for a few moments of devotion, when that is in order. And this is not always easily done, nor does it always result in a situation very favorable to devotion. I recall visiting an elderly lady in the hospital who had as her visitor an old friend \par \par AN UNDERSTANDING HEART 41 \par \par of long standing. Both of them were old enough to be living in the past, and especially the visitor, from whose reminiscences as to her family I had long suffered. She could start in the middle of her family pedigree and go in both directions at the same time. This afternoon she was engaged in her usual conversational parade of her ancestors, and I was at a loss as to how to stop her and to conclude my visit with a prayer for the sick woman before I left. After about thirty minutes I stood up by the bed waiting for an opportunity to break in with my prayer. After some minutesLVAL- of a still uninterruptable flow of ancient history, the patient herself broke in with the remark, \ldblquote Annie, you keep still a minute. Dr. Pleune is waiting to pray, and that will do me more good than hearing about your family.\rdblquote After which I had to begin to pray! When I had concluded, the patient quietly said to her friend, \ldblquote ALL right, Annie, you can go ahead now.\rdblquote I do not know what my visit did for them. But it surely revived their minister. \par \par There will be those who are ill for a long time, and those shut in on account of age and infirmity. \par \par Their burden is that they are shut off from activity and usefulness. An understanding heart will recognize how much may be brought into their lives through periodic visits of their minister, in which they may be led to feel that they are still a part of the Lord's work and that their sustaining prayers are a bulwark to their minister's \par \par 42 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par strength. A home service of the Lord's Supper on the afternoon of Communion Sunday always means much to those kept from their church. \par \par There is a special inclusiveness felt if this is done on the same Sunday that the rest of the congregation has gathered about the table of the Lord. \par \par When one or more elders accompany the minister there is created both an opportunity of helpfulness on their part and an increase of the sense of church fellowship in those for whom this ministry is rendered. \par \par A minister's understanding heart will embrace the material wants of some of his people. In a church of most comfortably situated people there will still be some who are poor and need assistance and sympathetic fellowship, and often material aid. Not only did Jesus say to the emissaries of John the Baptist who asked if he were indeed the Christ, \ldblquote Go... tell John what things ye have seen and heard;... to the poor the gospel is preached,\rdblquote but among the Twelve there was the bag from which the pLVAL.oor were served. Many churches designate the Communion Sunday offering for this special cause. The minister should instruct his people about this brotherly charity. \par \par It is understood that few should know about the distribution of such funds. The minister should be unrestricted in his withdrawals from the fund, whether or not he actually has them in charge. \par \par This whole matter of charity is difficult because of the modern complex social structure of our \par \par AN UNDERSTANDING HEART 43 \par \par i community life and the care of the poor being increasingly handled by the state or the municipality. And it all requires delicate handling because some of the most needy and most worthy will be the most shrinking in making their needs known and the most embarrassed in receiving aid. \par \par Nothing, however, so reaches a true minister's own heart as other hearts that are broken or bowed by grief. There is sickness of heart over the wrongdoing of a loved one. Shame and pride join in a withdrawal that often makes such situations hard to reach. Often all the minister can do is to loyally stand by. Frequently there is nothing one can do or say; but there is always the voiceless sympathetic understanding that leaps from a sincere heart to another in a trouble of which neither speaks, yet each knows how deeply the other feels. \par \par After years of service most ministers are aware of the overwhelming need of comfort among their people. John Watson, who wrote under the name of Ian Maclaren, said in his later years, \ldblquote If I had my ministry to live over again I would preach more comfort.\rdblquote The ministry of comfort is a great and constantly needed ministry. As Tennyson said, Never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break. \par \par When death comes there is no duty whatsoever that should stand in the way of a pastor reaching, \par \par 44 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par as quickly as possible, those who have been bereaved. It means much to them to feel thLVAL/at nothing else took precedence over their need. \par \par It is unquestioned that our sympathy must be genuine. No method of approach can take the place of genuineness of heart. All sense of professionalism must be absent from one's manner and from one's heart. This ministry is never easy. \par \par And it is utterly impossible if we are not truly affected by the other's grief. Job said, \ldblquote If your soul were in my soul's stead.\rdblquote We must put ourselves in their place, as if this someone were our own. \par \par \ldblquote When sorrow comes, the soul, or the family of souls, is ready for a spiritual pilgrimage. They may not be aware of it. They may seem even to be rebellious. Some stricken ones feel that they have been singled out for misfortune. Some through their tears demand an answer to their insistent, Why? Why? What an opportunity then comes to the preacher! People never forget what you do then. And the strangest part of it is that the best thing is not to try to do too much. The first time a young minister meets this situation he is apt to ask himself, \ldblquote What shall I say? What shall I say?\rdblquote Bless you, my brother, don't ever try to say very much, and most of the time say nothing at all. The curse of our ministry of comfort is words. Jesus, about to call Lazarus from the grave, did not talk about it. \ldblquote Jesus wept.\rdblquote A handclasp may speak volumes. Every minister has \par \par AN UNDERSTANDING HEART 45 \par \par learned this surely: that when someone, after a service, comes with a flood of words about what a wonderful sermon it was, it often leaves him cold. (Or are you still susceptible to that 1?) Then someone else just takes you by the hand and presses it a bit as he looks you in the face, but says not a word, and you feel a glow of heart that perhaps in your message you did truly help someone that day. \par \par We do not have to say much. Often the best thing we can do is to listen. Shakespeare says, Give sorrow words: the grief tLVAL0hat does not speak Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break. \par \par Most people find comfort in speaking of an absent loved one to another sympathetic heart. \par \par And the minister ought to be that one. I learned that one day long ago when, under circumstances that were terrible, a young husband in my church was massacred in San Domingo. The details were horrible. The young wife was left with a baby born just before her husband left on his engineering job. His body was burned under vicious circumstances in that distant land after a brutality of torture beyond description. What could I say to that young mother? I went to her. She was all alone in her home. I do not recall how we began to talk, but I had known them both quite well, and had visited them just before he had left on this ill-fated journey! So she began to talk about \par \par 46 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par Mm. And I stayed all afternoon as she spoke of Trim and their life together, sometimes pausing to take care of the baby his child in her crib. I said very little, and left feeling that I had ministered to her not at all. Bnt the next day her sister came to me to report, with glistening eyes, that the stricken mother had said what a wonderful comfort I had been to her because, said she, \ldblquote He had sense enough to let me talk.\rdblquote Well, it wasn't a conscious sense on my part that afternoon, but I have always tried to be that sensible since. \par \par We cannot hope to explain the ways of God. \par \par Sorrow and suffering are not always punitive. \par \par And it is cruel ever to even hint that this sorrow may have come to save from some worse sorrow or pain in the future. They are facing a present burden of grief, not some imaginary one of the future. Theology has its place, but rarely in any circumstance of grief. And idle explanations of the mysteries of God have no part at all. It is more comforting by far, with your own tears answering theirs, to say, \ldblquote I do not know why.\rdblquoteLVAL1 If we are to say anything at all by way of explanation, it may be by way of the fatherhood of God, drawing an analogy from our own parenthood with its love and its care for our own children. \par \par Our children too ask questions. We tell them that someday they will understand. They must often be bewildered also by our dealing with them. \par \par Sometimes we have to say \ldblquote No,\rdblquote sometimes re\par \par AN UNDERSTANDING HEART 47 \par \par strain and rebuke them. We cannot do otherwise, for they have, as yet, so little experience with life. \par \par We know that it is hard for them; still the passionate desire of our hearts as human parents is that, if our children do not understand, they will yet trust us and will feel that we love them beyond all telling. Well, we are all God's little children asking \ldblquote Why?\rdblquote in our utterly inadequate experience of all of life in God's great outreaching world. The Eternal Father can no more make all his dealings with us clear to us than we can with our children. And, assuredly, what he passionately wants from us is the same trust and awareness of his fatherly love and care that we want in the hearts of our children. What God wants is that we love and trust him still. He understands our tears, our sense of bewilderment, even our demanding \ldblquote Why?\rdblquote All that he asks of us, as his children, is what we want from our own. \par \par No ministry of comfort can end with a formal funeral service. The emptiness and loneliness come heaviest when the formalities of grief are ended. Let a minister seek out the sorrowing ones in the days that follow. Sometimes the practice of calling a week after the funeral, on the very day, may be followed. That is a hard day. That you remembered it means much. The first Christmas season, with the home so different, and other homes all bright and glad, is always difficult. Your remembrance of them with a Christmas message of sympathy and recognition will be a blessing of \par \LVALpar 48 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par comfort. \ldblquote Whatever one does by way of special remembrance will, of course, bind sorrowing hearts to you in enduring bonds of friendship and appreciation; but, what is more, it will also help to bind them to the Lord of all comfort, as they come to know that it is not just your warm, kindly personality expressing itself, but that you are representing him without whom all hearts are empty. \par \par An understanding heart! That is the glory of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ as given to us in the gospel story. How thoughtful and understanding and considerate Jesus was! How little his words would mean apart from his great understanding, sympathetic actions!\par \par \par Here is a little prayer that might be said by all of us who seek to minister in his name. It is from the pen of \ldblquote Dick\rdblquote (H. K. L.) Sheppard, in his book Some of My Religion. \par \par Give me grace today not to pass by suffering without some understanding and desire to help. Guard my lips from the clumsy speech that does not comprehend, and give me more wisdom, more understanding, more strong tenderness, and the power to help. 1 \par \par 1 Harper & Bros, 1936, p. 72. \par \par \par \par \fs24\par \pard\cf1\f2\fs23\par } LVAL&3{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 Arial;}{\f1\froman\fprq2\fcharset0 Georgia;}{\f2\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\stylesheet{ Normal;}{\s1 heading 1;}} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\keepn\s1\sb240\sa60\lang1033\kerning32\b\f0\fs32 IV. Ringing Doorbells \par \pard\nowidctlpar\kerning0\f1\fs22\par \b0 TODAY WHEN WE KING A DOOBBELL IT is QUITE LIKELY \par \par that it isn't a bell at all that sounds, but a gong or a set of chimes. The old-fashioned doorbell may be gone, but the wisdom and the necessity of the minister standing before the door of his people's homes seeking to come in for the purpose of an intimate and personalized ministry has not changed at all. \par \par It is well at the outset of one's ministry to establish a conviction as to the importance of calling upon one's people. There are many things in the ministry the actual effectiveness of which it is difficult to check. And calling is surely one of them. I have often questioned the wisdom of spending as much time in calling upon people as I have given to it. There are times when it all seems rather petty. And it takes so much time. \par \par There are so many other things to be done, and we go about ringing doorbells! Often it seems as if it is just one of those things a minister has always done, and, for all the results which are evident, nothing would be changed if we had enough courage to quit the whole thing and give our time to something else. Yet every minister 49 \par \par \par 50 SOME TO E PASTOftS \par \par could probably testify to the unmistakable fact that when he neglects this part of Ms work everything about his ministry suffers. There seems to be a very definite relation between a successful ministry and this act of ringing doorbells. \par \par It would help every minister to remember that he is peculiarly a pastor of families, not just individuals. Some denominations list their members as families. Some record of indiLVAL4vidual members is kept, of course, but a church is listed as having so many families. It keeps the idea of the family uppermost. \ldblquote We sometimes forget that the strength of Christianity is not in the church, but in the home. The home does not exist for the sake of the church, but the church for the sake of the home. The purpose of the church school should be to help the home in the training of children in Christian living, not to take over the task of parents. If this be at all true, the place of the minister's service is in the home fully as much as in the pulpit. \par \par Every congregation wishes its minister to be a pastor. In the New Testament the word \ldblquote pastor\rdblquote is synonymous with shepherd. Jesus, speaking of himself as the G-ood Shepherd, said, \ldblquote I \par \par ... know my sheep A stranger will they not follow.\rdblquote A modern flock wants no stranger shepherd. Even as to our preaching it will be most effective upon people whom we know and who know us. It is quite true that the man who is in\par \par KINGING DOORBELLS 51 \par \par visible during the week is likely to be incomprehensible on Sunday. \par \par Many of our contacts with people will be social in their nature, and for the purpose of the deepening of friendship. Every visit need not be strictly religious. We are human, or ought to be, and it is quite certain that many of our people want to know us as men as well as ministers. \par \par How about prayer on such calls? I recall one experience that has always helped me, both in my thought of a minister's personal relationship with his people, and this matter of prayer. One summer a family from my congregation, with some friends of theirs, rented a cottage next to our summer place for a period of two weeks. We fished and loafed and played together. I had been their minister for some three years at the time and thought that they knew me fairly well, and was surprised to have them feelingly express their gratitude for this opportunity of knowiLVAL5ng their minister better. Then the last evening we had a beach party, roasting marshmallows, playing games, and singing the old familiar songs. Before we broke up someone suggested that we ought to end with a prayer, for it was our last gathering together as a group. I had not thought of that at all; but at once, for everyone, it seemed a most appropriate thing to do. So a prayer was offered, and the memory of that evening has always remained with me as an example of an appropriate time to pray when the minister himself had not \par \par 52 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par been sensitive to it. We should, of course, be careful not to force prayer into our social contacts, but it may often be far more appropriate in the mind and heart of our people than it is in our own. \par \par Certainly there should be nothing in our social call that should make prayer out of place. \par \par \ldblquote We will do little calling unless we are systematic about it. Some time must be reserved irrevocably for calling and definite plans made to carry it out, or other things will crowd our calling from our schedule. It will often seem a task to which we must drive ourselves. That ought not to disturb us unduly. Some authors say that they have to drive themselves to the task of writing. \par \par The mechanics of it are perfect drudgery to them. \par \par We may not be able to detect it in the results of their work at all, and it is a surprise to us to hear them say that they find their task a burden. \par \par I can testify that, with all my deep conviction about the absolute necessity of calling on my people, I still, after many years, have to drive myself to it. There is not an afternoon set aside for calls but that I can think of a dozen reasons why it is not necessary to make them at that particular time. When I have made my first call I find it easy to continue and I truly enjoy it, but it never fails to be a hard thing to get started. This is one of the many things we need to plan to do even when we do noLVAL6t feel like it. \par \par Calls may be reasonably brief. They would naturally be longer in a country parish or a town \par \par RINGING DOORBELLS 53 \par \par than in a city, and circumstances will control here as in so many things about our work. Every purpose of a call is defeated, however, if it is so brief as to seem casual or hurried. I know of a minister who complained that another minister calling upon him was in such a hurry, and had spoken of the many things he had to do and the many calls he had to make, and in a few minutes was gone. \par \par If a minister, who for himself knows a pastor's task, could be sensitive at a hurried call and gain the impression that he is just a name on a list to be checked off as hurriedly as possible, what must be the effect upon the average church member? Ten calls are not necessarily ten times as effective as one. And no call should be made just for the sake of making one more call. \par \par We ought to be interested in the home and manifest that interest. Anniversaries, when known, the building of a new home, or even a change of address, provide opportunities for calls that show interest in that home as a home. \par \par Calls at offices and places of business of our men are usually greatly appreciated. It is often the only way we can see the men of our congregation. Wisdom must be exercised, of course, and here a call may well be brief if the businessman is busy; but frequently they are anxious to give the minister time and to show him about their place of business. That manifestly is a help toward knowing our man, and toward humanizing his conception of his minister. There can be little \par \par 54 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par question of the value of this kind of calling. Some businessmen may be surprised at having their minister walk into their place of business. They may wonder what he wants now. But any feeling of surprise is supplanted by a glow of appreciation when they find that he is just making a call as man to man. The most favLVAL7orable result upon the businessman, however, is not comparable to the effect upon the minister himself of knowing something of his men at their daily task. \par \par Prospective members will engage some of our time in calling upon them. The minister, however, should have the help of some of his members in contacting prospective members. Calls upon them other than by the pastor are usually necessary. \par \par Calling committees are quite willing to make some calls upon new people, especially upon those who have manifested some interest in the church. \par \par Some ministers have been unusually effective in organizing groups for personal work and making personal calls, but this remains especially a task for the pastor. I know of no case under my observation where, though a minister has succeeded in getting effective work done by some calling committee, he himself is not the key person after all in these contacts. Church members should help, and their work is invaluable, but the minister's part cannot be delegated to anyone else. \par \par There are some people who must be called on not because of any particular need, other than that a call acts as a prod in their careless church re\par \par RINGING DOORBELLS 55 \par \par lationship. The church has its share of delinquent members. David Harum, speaking about his church membership, remarked, \ldblquote The one I stay away from, when I don't go, 's the Prespyteriun.\rdblquote \par \par Every minister has those whose membership is like that. What these people need is occasional personal contact. It ought not to be necessary, but it is. They seem to be built that way. Sustained interest does not seem to be a part of their make-up. If we can improve their attendance and relation to the church by calling upon them occasionally, why not do it? It is a part of our task. Dr. Charles E. Jefferson remarked that if one person should drop away from the church each month without being noticed, that would make twelve in a year, and it would startle us LVAL8if twelve people should drop away at the same time, yet one by one is just as tragic. Very often a little personal attention by the minister would prevent it. \par \par There are some who become disaffected. They are easily hurt. The fault may be theirs and not ours, but it is surprising how many times a call made without any reference to their hurt feelings at all smooths all difficulty away. The importance of pastoral attention is evident from the reaction of some of those for whose laxness we are in no way responsible. Despite everything we do, they at last seem to drop away and we see nothing of them. They make no response to the church whatsoever. Perhaps then we reluctantly give them up, for we cannot forever spend our time upon those \par \par 56 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par who seemingly want nothing so much as to be left alone. Then someday they make as their excuse that the minister has not called upon them. It is their self -satisfying excuse for their own failure, but their inevitable placing of the blame upon us reveals an instinctive sense of the value of the pastoral relation. They always put their finger upon that. \par \par Dr. F. W. Boreham writes of those whose doorbells we may not have been meant to ring. None of us can adequately serve everyone. Someone else may be able to minister to them, but not we. \par \par Jesus himself could not satisfy everyone, nor can we. We need not break our heart over our failure with some member if, in the spirit of the Master, we have truly given our heart to our task. \par \par As about so many things in a pastor's work, our visitation calling requires patience and steadfastness. There is little about our task that is like adding one and one to make two. Calling is a matter of establishing relationships, of personalizing our ministry, of breaking down the distance between pulpit and pew, of creating a medium of understanding and interest that makes for reality in both the presenting of our truth and the receiving of it. It is difficult,LVAL9 therefore, to put one's finger upon results. One can never say this much calling will produce this much return. There can be nothing mathematical about it all, except that if this is not one of the basic investments of some of our time and effort our \par \par RINGING DOORBELLS 57 \par \par work will add up to very little. Timetables and evaluating scales have little place in a pastor's work. The one thing we can be sure of about visitation calling is that it is folly to neglect it. \par \par Every minister is sometimes aware that his calling affects the success of his efforts in unaccountable ways. He may, for instance, have a list of prospective members upon whom he calls without much response. None of them seems ready to become a member. But some other people whom he did not personally contact through calling voluntarily express their desire to join the church. It is easy then for the minister to say to himself, \ldblquote What is the use of calling? Why not spend that time for other things?\rdblquote But just let him try it that way! Let him give over calling entirely and these others to whom he gives little attention will not respond either. There are psychological and spiritual reasons for it into which one may probe if one will; but, in any event, let us remember that our calling often works after this manner. \par \par The thing we expect to happen may not come to pass; but, if we do not call at all, nothing happens. \par \par No one can say how much calling is enough. \par \par Some men set a goal, of so many calls a month. \par \par This undoubtedly is valuable as something of a spur, as all of us need some challenge to our lazy selves. Keeping a record against a set goal serves to check us up. A mental estimate of the number of calls made, like guessing at the attendance at a service, is always too nattering to ourselves. It is \par \par 58 SOME TO SE PASTORS \par \par well to have actual numbers to stare us down. But even the actual numbers are not necessarily a correctLVAL gage of effective calling. One hundred calls a month may mean much, or it may mean very little. Again mathematics plays no vital or conclusive part. If a certain number of calls is our goal, one may easily find it something of a satisfaction if there is no one at home, and a card may be left, and we are able to mark that down as one more call so that we can hurry on to the next. \par \par And it is not unknown for a minister thus to say under his breath, in the words of Elmer Blurp, \ldblquote I \par hope nobody's home, I hope, I hope, I hope.\rdblquote A list of calls made is just a list after all. It is not a record of what is accomplished. \par \par The one thing imperative is that we give ourselves conscientiously and devotedly to this phase of our ministry. We cannot read the gospel story of him who \ldblquote came not to be ministered unto, but to minister,\rdblquote without being impressed with his personal relationships. He touched all sorts of people. He was always giving himself to others. \par \par We read that he called the Twelve \ldblquote that they should be with him. ' ' Their personal relationship with him was a part of their training and of their final commitment of themselves to him. The Twelve were often surprised at his wayside ministries. He was never too busy to meet people and to do something for them. Nothing was an interruption for him, and some of the greatest things he did were done on the way to doing something \par \par RINGING DOORBELLS 59 \par \par else. No service and no demand were ever to him a routine or a burden. Jesus loved people. As his minister we must know people and love them too. \par \par Some of the ways to do it may often seem prosaic. \par \par And one of the ways is the ringing of doorbells. \par \par But if we do it faithfully and well, there will be an answering response in the hearts of men. And that is what calling is for. \par \par \pard\cf1\f2\fs23\par } LVAL&;{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 Arial;}{\f1\froman\fprq2\fcharset0 Georgia;}{\f2\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\stylesheet{ Normal;}{\s1 heading 1;}} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\keepn\s1\sb240\sa60\lang1033\kerning32\b\f0\fs32 V. Slow, Curve Ahead \par \pard\nowidctlpar\kerning0\f1\fs22\par \b0 A SUCCESSFUL JOURNEY UPOK OUR MODERN HIGH\par \par ways depends much, upon the road signs. The highway numbers indicate the right road. But to be on the right road is not enough. There are also caution signs that must be heeded. Of these one of the most common is, \ldblquote Slow, Curve Ahead.\rdblquote \par \par \par A phrase much quoted a few years ago was, \ldblquote Live dangerously.\rdblquote It has a proper challenge for us. We cannot be good ministers of such a one as the Lord Jesus Christ and always live easy, placid, safe lives. There are times when \ldblquote safety first\rdblquote is the refuge of a craven soul, and when only \ldblquote safety last\rdblquote will do. \ldblquote We cannot, however, abandon ourselves to a policy of recklessness. \par \par In life, as on the highway, right going is a matter of considered judgment. The wise procedure is to drive carefully. None of us has reached the point where all warning signs are unnecessary. We all learn best from our own experience. Nobody has ever improved upon the effectiveness of learning to profit by our own mistakes; but we need often to be reminded of our own experience, for it is easy to forget to remember. If mottoes in themselves were effective, this would be a good one to 60 \par \par \par SLOW, CURVE AHEAD 61 \par \par issue with every seminary diploma, with the requirement that it be put above one's study desk, \ldblquote Slow, Curve Ahead.\rdblquote \par \par \par It is, of course, not for the young minister alone that the ministerial highway is marked with signs of caution. Prudence remains a virtue with which a ministeLVAL<r must be on familiar terms until his work is done. \ldblquote Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.\rdblquote None of us is ever any more than a beginner in his task. \par \par When, however, we begin to think in terms of warning signs for a minister's task, it is hard to see the woods for the trees. There are so very many of them. Which ones shall we single out? \par \par How shall we generalize in a way that shall be constructively critical for us all? My choice of points at which to go slow is naturally not exclusive, for anyone else could easily choose many others. \par \par Caution is indicated in the matter of our hurry, our impatience, our eagerness for results. It is peculiarly a warning for a young minister. He has been through a training in a body of truth and of method. He is prepared to use them, and to believe that if he is only diligent and faithful certain results will inevitably follow. Well do I remember my early efforts with a sermon on Sabbath observance, and after most careful preparation and exhaustive treatment and some zeal in presenting it, how surprised I was that it made no apparent change at all in the Sabbath habits \par \par 62 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par of my congregation. But we never quite get over our expecting too much too soon as a result of our labors. \ldblquote The Impatience of a Parson\rdblquote is something more than the title of a good book. \par \par Danger lies ahead. Out of a too-eager expectancy of results are born worry and fret, nervous strain, criticism of others, a disproportionate sense of our own part, and even a lack of trust and faith in God. \par \par Jesus gave us our clue, \ldblquote First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.\rdblquote It is too much to expect that we would be able to continue in our task without some fruit for our toil. \par \par It would be silly indeed to sow our seed with no thought of a harvest. But it is just as lacking in sense to expect the harvest to folLVAL=low overnight. \par \par Perhaps the thing that I am driving at here is really a matter of too great a trust in our own ability and our own methods. When these fail us, as often they do, the consequence is either a feverish activity to find some new method, or we are plunged into a mood of despair. Most of us must admit that, in looking for some final and sure return from some plan of ours, we have often failed to learn the lesson of our fruitless effort, and have only sought the more feverishly for some other human twist of the wrist to bring it about. If we could only hit upon the right stratagem all would still be well! So our ministry descends to the level of a frantic search for some new scheme that cannot fail. And if our failure \par \par SLOW, CURVE ASEAD 63 \par \par has not meant a further dependence on the very thing that made for lack of results, it is probable that we have lost ourselves in a blue funk over it all. And it is very easy to get God mixed up in this too, and to believe that, because we have failed, God has deserted us. I don't know a juniper tree when I see one, but like Elijah I have sat under one many a time. \par \par And when things are not going according to our schedule, it is appallingly easy to find fault with somebody else for it. It is the cause of many a scolding sermon. And scolding sermons never did any good except to relieve the preacher's feelings. Our people suffer enough from our sermons without our using them as a vent for our peeves. \par \par I was once caught up short in this matter by my own child, who, having heard me preach a scolding sermon and noting some more fire in it than usual, said at the dinner table, \ldblquote Daddy, you sure like to jump on 'em, don't you 1?\rdblquote Hambone, the genial Negro philosopher, says, \ldblquote Pahson 'low dat's de shepherd's job to shear de sheep but 'tain' no need to skin 'em!\rdblquote The method is suspect because there is just too much self-satisfaction in the process. \par \par It does not maLVAL>ke much difference whether our demand for quick returns is the cause or the effect of our lack of trust and confidence in God's methods; this is really the heart of it. We have been choosing God's time and God's ways for him. Our frustration comes because we have been \par \par 64 SOME BE PASTORS \par \par trying to hurry God. We have forgotten that it is not we but God who brings about the result. \par \par Whose work are we trying to do, his or ours? I believe that I know what an ideal day in his service should be for me. It is that I should begin it on my knees in earnest prayer for God's presence and guidance for the day, and that he might help me truly to give all of myself to his work. And after I have done this, I should go about my work with my dependence on him, counting on him, but with true diligence in every effort of my own. And finally, if I have done that, conscientiously given of my best, I should be able to go to my rest at night without fear or anxiety for the day, as I then leave every outcome of the day to him. He is the one that will have worked through me during the day or nothing will have come of it. So why not leave it all to him? Tomorrow is another day. \par \par A second caution is in the matter of making an issue of things. It too is, perhaps, a warning peculiarly necessary to young men just beginning their ministry; but it is something to be heeded by us all, all along the way. We deal, of course, in issues of life and death. Matters of religion are vital for time and eternity. The church is the \ldblquote Bride of Christ\rdblquote ; its purity must be protected. \par \par Questions and practices arise which cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. Situations arrange themselves in a way that compels an adjustment of them. There are times when silence gives con\par \par SLOW, CURVE AHEAD 65 \par \par sent, and we must speak out. All of which, is true. \par \par There are issues which, if avoided, are as much of a denial of our Lord as was that of Peter in PilaLVAL?te's courtyard. But the lines are rarely as sharply drawn for us as we think. Surely it would be a more peaceful world, especially in the church, if more of us were less sure that so frequently destiny hangs in the balance waiting our action. \par \par Generally what we choose to think of as an issue is what we have created ourselves, or so named, because we want so desperately to have a hand in doing something about it. \par \par We ought to want to do something about many things. We ought not to be content with things as they are. There are many things in the lives of our people that ought to be different, as there are in our own lives. There are many things about our church that should be improved. There are official practices and official persons that could well be shaped anew. To be satisfied with the status quo is a mark of unfitness to be a minister at all. Our only hope to be a faithful minister of Christ is to hold his banner high, to march under it ourselves, and fearlessly challenge our people to go with us. But it is one thing to yearn for, and to work for, and to pray for those changes, and quite another to seek to force them by making an issue of them. \par \par The zeal of youth often makes its most grievous errors just here. That might be expected and excused because of inexperience and one's theoreti\par \par 66 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par cal preparation. But it is almost tragic to note how often this expectation is so fully and literally fulfilled. I have occasion to see and to receive reports about the work of young men beginning their ministerial careers. The most frequent criticism that comes to me is that they want to change everything, and do it right now. They make an issue of things that could be brought about to the satisfaction of everyone, including the Lord, if they would give them time. The other day a church officer asked if it might not be possible to teach the young men in the Seminary what he called a \ldblquote give-and-take attitude toward the church offLVAL@icers.\rdblquote He liked and respected his young pastor, but he felt deeply that the young man's standing on an issue, and holding uncompromisingly to it, was a grave weakness. It is, of course, for any man. We may have our way by forcing it, but the true shepherd does not drive his sheep; he leads them. \par \par A pressure that brooks no delay, or the very lack of it, may be a matter of personal temperament. \par \par If I may be pardoned for another personal allusion, I think that I have always been temperamentally unfitted to force an issue. And it used to worry me terribly. I wondered if I was not perhaps woefully weak-kneed about bearing down upon some things which seemed to require just that. I seriously questioned whether I was not something of a moral coward. But it does not bother me any more, and today I am grateful \par \par SLOW, CURVE AHEAD 67 \par \par that it is so. Thirty years of experience have given me an assurance that some of the best things that have come about in my ministry and pastoral work have been the result of the things I did not do. A case in point was an outbreak in an officers' \par meeting on the part of one man who spoke his mind forcibly and freely in opposition to some proposed action. It was not directed at me personally, though I could have taken it as such, for the proposal was one that I had made. He said that he was through and would leave the church if we voted what was proposed. We dropped the matter, though we considered it an important one. I felt that he had spoken in the heat of some personal feeling and had therefore overstated himself, as I have often done myself. So we did not refer to it then or later. The next day he met another officer on the street who had not been present the night before, and said to him, \ldblquote Did you hear what a fool I made of myself last night f ' ' \par A month or two later the proposed action was passed with his hearty support. \par \par I once made the mistake of raising an issue with a member who wroteLVALA me an unfair letter. He was a doctor whose church membership centered in that of his wife. She was an active worker. \par \par The content of his letter does not matter, but it was critical. He had been unwisely approached in a building campaign. I never will cease regretting that I answered his letter calling his attention to what the church had done for him and his, and \par \par 68 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par turning the point of his criticism back upon himself. If I had ignored and forgotten it he might have done so too; but I made an issue of it, and he saw to it that his family broke connections with us entirely. I never had a chance to minister to any one of them again. \par \par Slow I There is always a curve ahead in making an issue of anything. It can always be said that we must not compromise the Lord ever, but it usually turns out that the Lord had little to do with it. \par \par Another slow spot for us ought to be in accepting the fiction that as ministers we are any different from anyone else. The old conception of the minister as a man utterly apart in manner and dress has happily disappeared from the thought of the public, and the minister as well. But he is still deferred to. I am just now spending a week at a delightful auto camp where I can do this writing without interruption. And everybody about the place seems to treat me a little differently because I am a minister. It is rather pleasant and perhaps will do me no harm, unless I begin to defer to myself. Paul says, \ldblquote I say,... to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. \ldblquote It is a terribly easy thing to do, and it is not the least of the many things against which the minister must guard himself. \par \par People do say nice things about us. Fortunately we do not hear all of the things they say. Kind words are always most pleasant sounds, and we \par \par SLOW, CURVE AHEAD 69 \par \par often need them; but we are done for just as soon as we begin LVALBto believe all that we hear. Courtesy and politeness toward us are not to be disparaged, but we need to keep our heads about ourselves. \par \par After every service some people say flattering things to us about the sermon. What do you expect them to say? They cannot every one of them make a remark about the weather. There is one form of ministerial discount that is always in order, and that is our own.deductions of the praise that comes our way. If we do not know how little of it is deserved, we do not know enough about ourselves. \par \par Still another place in which to go slow is in actually making an exception of ourselves. The fact that our ministry is concerned with the life of others puts us on the judge's bench when we ought be standing with others in the dock before the Judge of all. What concerns us about others should concern us about ourselves. Hornell Hart says that he was astounded one day to have his daughter say to him, \ldblquote Father, do you know that you are an awful problem to me!\rdblquote He says that he had so concentrated on the psychological problems of youth that it had never occurred to him that in the pattern of life.for his own family he was not excepted as a problem. \par \par A young woman said to her pastor: \ldblquote You know, what I like about you is that in manner and in speech you do not set yourself off from us. I notice, for instance, that you never say 'you' but \par \par 70 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par always say 'we.' \ldblquote To which, her pastor replied, \ldblquote To tell you the truth, 'I* and 'me' give me so much trouble grammatically that I find it safer just to say 'we.' \ldblquote We do, of course, share all of life with our people, and the degree in which we manifest this both in manner and in speech will determine how far we can lead them. It is said that Father Damien one day began to use the words \ldblquote we lepers.\rdblquote He had discovered that he himself was a victim of the dread disease. And from the day he was able to sLVALCay \ldblquote we,\rdblquote his ministry began to be truly fruitful. \par \par If we begin to make exceptions of ourselves, there is no longer anything we can learn from our failures and the buffeting winds of adversity. \par \par There is a hymn which says, Blest be the sorrow, kind the storm, Which, drive us nearer home. \par \par Our great Atlantic liners have been in the habit of making record runs from European ports to New York City. Such records are, however, always made in fair weather when not the least thing goes wrong. But ask the captain, and he will tell you that his ship and crew are tested not by their smooth runs, but rather by those in which, through buffeting gales and mountainous seas, the vessel is at last brought safely into port. Some day the storm hits us in the failure of a cherished hope or project. Have we weakened ourselves by \par \par SLOW, CURVE AHEAD 71 \par \par making exceptions of ourselves? Can we take it? \par \par This is our test. Can we sail our boat in a storm? \par \par Are we ready to admit that life for us is cut out of the same cloth as for our people? Then, and not until then, will we have the first faint likeness in our ministry to him who said that he came \ldblquote not to be ministered unto, but to minister. ' ' \par \par When driving in mountainous country and following the curves of the road for a long distance one often comes upon an official sign reading, \ldblquote Caution Winding Road.\rdblquote I have often commented to myself, \ldblquote What do they think I've been driving on up to now?\rdblquote The sign seems to be utterly superfluous; but doubtless it is useful as a reminder that there is more ahead, so do not grow careless. Our ministry is on a winding road with curves aplenty. Someone has said that a rearview window is a good thing to use on the highway of life, especially when making a left turn. \par \par It is equally true that our forward progress will be determined by the use of our brake as we come upon the many LVAL.signs that read, \ldblquote Slow, Curve Ahead.\rdblquote \par \par \par \pard\cf1\f2\fs23\par } LVAL&E{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 Arial;}{\f1\froman\fprq2\fcharset0 Georgia;}{\f2\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\nowidctlpar\lang1033\kerning32\b\f0\fs32 VI. Five Senses and Two More\kerning0\f1\fs22 .\b0 \par \par IT IS A COMFORTABLE AND USEFUL THING FOB EVERY \par \par man to possess all of his five senses unimpaired. \par \par Yet it is not essential. There have been pastors who were blind, some who were deaf. My wife tells me that I have a woefully deficient sense of smell. No doubt there are those whose taste and touch are below normal standards. We cannot say that they would have better served their Lord but for this lack. Sometimes a handicap serves ultimately to increase one's usefulness. \par \par For a minister the five senses then are desirable, but are not a matter of absolute necessity. \par \par There is a sixth sense, however, and a seventh that are indispensable. The sixth is common sense, and the seventh a sense of humor. \par \par Common sense is defined as \ldblquote an ordinary mental capacity.\rdblquote There are few who would deny that we ministers possess ordinary mental capacity, especially if the emphasis is put upon the \ldblquote ordinary.\rdblquote Plenty of doubt, however, might be cast upon our measuring up to the further definition of common sense as \ldblquote practical understanding; capacity to see and take things in their right light; sound judgment.\rdblquote \par \par \par 72 \par \par \par FIVE SENSES AND TWO MORE 73 \par \par Our shortcomings are many. They are not all of them in the lack of good intent. Most of them are the result of a lack of just an ordinary common garden variety of good judgment. \ldblquote We need to bring all the mental and spiritual capacity we possess to our task; but no literary or ecclesiastical alphabet after our name, or title, or position in the church is a substitute for good judgment, or aLVALFny indication that we possess it. \par \par Tragic, indeed, have been the personal failures in the ministry for want of sound judgment. Some men, seemingly possessing every other quality but this, have been brought low by its absence. \par \par Good tools are not to be despised; yet, of themselves, they do not guarantee good work. This depends on the hand that uses them. Some men do better work with little than others do with much. For effective service in the field of pastoral endeavor, good judgment is second only to a convincing personal spiritual life. Every pastor can and must possess both. \par \par There are many people who are not Christians, or who are, at least, outside of the church of God. \par \par There are various reasons for it, chief of which is, of course, that the Evil One has sown his seed in the human heart. Our frequent approach to the problem is to assume that all of these deny God, and must be convinced of him and his ways and their own shortcomings. It would probably surprise many of us to learn how many of them do not deny God, or their need of nim. They are not \par \par 74 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par with us simply because our interpretations and our ways and our approach do not make sense to them. The number of men is legion who are outside of the church because of someone's poor judgment in presenting the Master of life to them. \par \par The Gospels are the only truly worth-while book on Pastoral Theology. What amazing discernment they reveal on the part of Jesus in his touch with men! All of us should read the G-ospels again and again, and yet again, for the purpose of absorbing something of Jesus' good judgment in his approach to men. His ways were as various as the individuals whom he sought. Think of his dealings with Peter and John, Judas, Zacchaeus, the woman by the well, the woman taken in adultery, the rich young ruler, the questioning lawyer, the Roman centurion, the disciples on the way to Emmaus, blind Bartimaeus, Mary and Martha, Nicodemus, theLVALG Pharisees, Pilate! He had no single formula for all of these, only an unerring discernment as to their needs. He called his disciples to him with the simple words, \ldblquote Follow me\rdblquote \par nothing more. How short we come of Jesus ' method with our creedal precepts and demanding forms of discipleship! We are more restricting but far less challenging than Jesus was. What was it that the Master had? Why not say it? Jesus had common sense, and he used it. May G-od forgive us for its absence or its disuse in our ministry!\par \par \par When we pray, as we surely do, for (rod's blessing on our work, most of us ought to be more \par \par FIVE SENSES, AND TWO MORE 75 \par \par definite than we are. The words, \ldblquote Bless us, Lord,\rdblquote \par may mean little or much, depending on what we need. To ask just for a blessing is widely inclusive, but it is certainly not specific. And if we were aware of one of our greatest needs in our pastoral task, there would be one specific blessing \ldblquote that we should pray for every day: \ldblquote Dear Lord, bless me this day with common sense. ' ' \par \par Because in other chapters we have tried to detail something of this ministerial sixth sense, let us turn to the seventh, which is like unto it a sense of humor. \par \par We may thank God that we live in a world in which there is laughter. There are tears here; there are tragedy and sadness. There are times when all we can do is to weep. But there is gladness too sunshine, humor, fun. There are times when all we can do is to laugh. \par \par Humor is a universal quality in human nature. \par \par There is no race of people who do not know how to laugh. Their humor may not be ours, but it is very real to them. Dan Crawford told us that the black man in the jungles of Africa can laugh most heartily. The Chinese have an especially keen sense of humor. It is something restricted to no race or color. It is such a universal quality that we should think of it as the gift of God it is.LVALH \par \par It is certain that our work is cast with a laughter-loving people. Americans demand that in every program of entertainment there be some fun. Our religious papers all have their columns \par \par 76 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par of jokes. Our newspapers would look strange without their funny strips. Several years ago, at the time of a nominating convention to choose a candidate for the Presidency of the United States, Will Rogers was appearing in a theater in the same city. It was actually difficult to keep enough delegates in the convention hall to do business, since most of them were listening to Rogers ' fun. \par \par He was probably saving the country at that!\par \par Humor is undoubtedly a most vital part of life. \par \par Most of us feel that there is something left out of the man who cannot laugh. We are uncomfortable in the presence of any man who has starved out his God-given power to see a humorous situation. \par \par There is really no non-sense about humor. True humor is the best of all good sense. There are various tests for insanity, such as putting a pail under a faucet, turning on the faucet to fill the pail, and then directing the subject to dip the water out of the pail with a dipper. If the subject turns off the water he is sane, but if he dips without turning off the faucet he is crazy. Another test that seems more valid is that of normal reaction in laughter to a chosen situation. Not everyone, perhaps, who laughs is sane; but those who never laugh, or chuckle inside, are not normal. Russell Conwell used to deliver a great lecture on laughter in which in part he discussed the ill effects which the inability to laugh has on the rational mind. \par \par Because he is dealing with reasonable beings, and because, above all, he himself should be a \par \par FIVE 8EN8E8 AND TWO MORE 11 \par \par reasonable being, a minister does well not to neglect his sense of humor. \par \par It is a quality which we should be sure to bring to our task. There is an LVALIexpression of the Psalmist, \ldblquote All that is within me,\rdblquote which any Christian would do well to remember when days are hard. \par \ldblquote When the Psalmist came into the presence of the Lord he was unwilling that his worship should involve only a fraction of his nature. He was not content that only one or two of his faculties or powers should prostrate themselves before the King of Heaven, but called upon everything within him to bless his Holy Name. Too frequently we endeavor to get on by the use of only a meager part of our equipment. We suppress a portion of our nature, and by the suppression weaken our power of service. A sense of humor is an asset at all times, especially in days that are particularly somber. If we suppress our sense of humor, we expose ourselves at once to all sorts of demons which are eager to overthrow us. We are never safe when we lose our power to laugh. A good laugh is a safety valve. The comic is a part of human life. The very reason that the world is dark is an argument that somebody should make merry. The world would be unendurable if there were no one in it any longer capable of mirth. If we wish to minister to the souls of men in needy times, we must use everything that is within us; and one of these things is our sense of humor. \par \par There are, of course, different kinds of laughter \par \par 78 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par and types of humor. There is the laughter at a sudden and clever turn of a word, the chuckle of pure good spirits, the laughter of buffoonery and the smirk of cynicism, the guffaw at the ludicrous and the cackle of unholy glee and irony. \par \par There is the mirth of the devil and the laughter of God. Laughter and tears are both with us. \par \par What we need to know is the proper time. And it is especially true of our levity. We scarcely make any mistake in our time to weep, but we often do in our time to laugh. \par \par There is then a time to be merry. There is first of all a time for joviality in our relatLVALJion to others. \par \par Laughter may be personal and selfish. We ought to learn to be joyous with our friends. We are aware of the need of friendly sympathy. We know that it means sharing another's grief, expressing our fellow feeling in our friend's moments of sadness, and helping him to bear his burden of sorrow. Any sympathy does mean that, but that is only half of it. If you are truly going to help your friend and neighbor you need to cultivate the art of laughing with him and sharing his gladness. It is far easier to laugh with him than to weep with him, and yet we often fail to do it. \par \par Joy may be as lonely as sorrow. There are times when joy is intensified wonderfully by another's sharing it. We have all had times surely when our happiness needed only the glad sympathy of another to make it complete times when we could hardly wait to break some good news to someone \par \par FIVE SENSES AND TWO MORE 79 \par \par who we knew would bubble over in elation with us. Assuredly it is a part of a pastor's task, and one of the great privileges of his ministry, to add to another's happiness by joining in his gladness and mirth and laughter. \par \par There is always a temptation to laugh at others instead of laughing with them. There is a laughing at others that is harmless. We smile at the ludicrous antics of a person trying to keep his balance when slipping on an icy surface, and rare is the one who fails to laugh heartily when, after having gone down with arms and legs sprawling, he tries to get up with dignity as if nothing had happened. But there is nothing heartless about such laughter, for we rush to help him, and the laughter dies at once if he is in any way hurt. \par \par Still, there, is a laughter at others which is mean, and the minister is not incapable of it. There is perhaps no weapon that can hurt so much as a laugh. It is never true humor to laugh at the failure of another. Furthermore, it shows our littleness of soul. There is a laughter and fun that is like mediciLVALKne; but laughter at another, when it hurts that other person, is poison to one's own spirit. \par \par There is such a thing as the laughter of scorn, and it is not for any human soul to use it. One of the Psalms says, \ldblquote He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.\rdblquote God can laugh that way because he is God, and we had better leave it to him. \par \par \par SO SOME TO BE PASTO&S \par \par No one has more need of a sense of humor than a minister of divine truth. And no one can better serve himself with a sense of humor than the minister. No man with a sense of humor about funny situations has all the humor he needs unless he has enough to sometimes direct it at himself. \par \par There is a sense, however, in which this may be a weakness. I once knew a seminary student who laughed away his chance to become an effective minister. He was a wretched preacher, but a most popular fellow. For that reason everybody tried to help him, but he loved a laugh too much. He was a great mimic, and he would imitate himself and turn his mistakes into something to produce a laugh. A proper sense of personal dignity, instead of making light of our failures and laughing at them, will endure the pain involved in overcoming them. \par \par On the other hand, there are many times when we take ourselves too seriously. The poorest of us often has too much pride for his own good. It would be better if we would learn at least to grin at our own shallow dignity. The proudest people usually have the least to be proud about. Now, the real enemy of pride is humor. The keenest barbs to pierce the armor of self-conceit are those of wit. The wit of others directed at self -pride and pretense would hurt, but our own wit directed against ourselves robs it of its sting. What could be more helpful when we find ourselves strutting over something for which we deserve no credit \par \par FIVE SENSES AND TWO MOHE 81 \par \par than to develop the art of just grinning at ourseLVALLlves? It may be one of the most difficult things to learn to do, but the rewards are worth the effort. \par \par The impressive, prideful attitude of some selfstyled superior-minded people toward religion is just funny. We would be less disturbed by them than we often are if we could see the actual humor of it. How pompously serious and inflated the critic often is! I once heard Dr. Dunbar Ogden tell of his meeting with a critically minded professor on shipboard. The professor, upon learning that Dr. Ogden was a minister, asked him for a Bible that he might read the Old Testament. In three days' time he brought the Bible back and, turning to several different passages in the Book, said, \ldblquote Did you notice this little absurdity?\rdblquote Ignoring the great laws of Moses, the sociology of the Prophets, the poetry and sublimity of the Psalms, all he could say was, \ldblquote Did you notice this little absurdity?\rdblquote Dr. Ogden >s humor saved him from concern and even annoyance as, looking at the man, he amusingly imagined God putting his finger down on the bald head of the professor and using his own words, \ldblquote Did you notice this little absurdity?\rdblquote \par \par \par There are some pastors whose serious-minded religion would be better for a little humor. There are some good men who are saints all right, but of an irritating variety. It is not for me to say that they fret the Lord, but I do know that, for \par \par 82 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par many others, they make religion a boring thing instead of attractive. There is nothing less attractive than piety divorced from common sense. \par \par Even a little sense of humor would help the man who is always playing upon one string. There are too many of us like the student in the seminary who, in his practice preaching, always preached on the same theme baptism. His professors felt that he was going a little strong on one subject; so they decided to give him a text which they believed would compel him to preach on soLVALMmething else. But they did not know their man. Using the text given him, he rose to preach saying, \ldblquote My text this morning is found in the first chapter of Genesis, 'God created the heaven and the earth.' My friends, the Lord made the earth one part land and three parts water, which naturally brings us to the subject of baptism.\rdblquote \par \par \par What most of us need is an old-fashioned court jester. The king business is about dead in our world today. It may be that the passing of kings is due to the passing of the court jester. He was the court buffoon, but he was nobody's fool. He was more useful than many a royal statesman. \par \par Everybody about the king was likely to be a \ldblquote yes man.\rdblquote People were afraid to be anything else. \par \par The court jester could say \ldblquote No.\rdblquote He did not always say it in so many words, but he could mimic and play the fool and bring home to the king, with a laugh, the folly of some contemplated \par \par FIVE SENSES AND TWO MORE 83 \par \par course of action. The laughter of a court jester saved many a kingdom. \par \par So it was a fine thing for a king to have someone who could look him in the face and laugh him out of his moods of folly, his silly pretense and his pride. It was a serious loss to our own country when the unofficial court jester of America, Will Kogers, passed away. It is a good thing for any minister to be laughed at sometimes. There is an inner voice in us all that can say to us what nobody else would dare to say. Knowing us as none other, it must sometimes chuckle in amusement. \par \par It is a voice that is trying to serve us and save us. \par \par And if we are half as wise as we often pretend to be, we shall encourage our other self, the inner voice, to be our court jester, giving vent when necessary to a shout of laughter at our expense. \par \par In one of his parables Saf ed the Sage said, Now there be many Earnest Folk who lack something at this point, and it is an ImportLVALNant Cog that hath been dropped out of their Machinery. They would be able to make a number of Grades that now are impossible to them if they would Shift their Gears and not attempt to take all the hills on High. And while nothing is much worse than a Sense of Humor that is not Ballasted by Sound Common Sense, yet on the other hand there is no man who hath so good a right to a little spice of Nonsense as he who is Habitually and Consistently a Sensible Man. \par \par There came once to see me a Woman! with a problem, and I listened unto her Tale of \ldblquote Woe and smiled. And \par \par 84 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par she said, Thou dost not sufficiently regard my problem as Serious. And I said, It is not Serious. All that thou needest is a Passing Smile and Something Else to think about. And she was grieved, and went her way, but afterwards she considered and thanked me. \par \par Life is serious enough, beloved, and he is a fool whose Incurable Laughter at all that doth occur in life is like unto the Crackling of Thorns under a- Pot, as my friend Solomon was accustomed to observe. Life hath its concerns that are not only Serious but Tragiek, and they must be faced in their Stark Reality. But there is no command in Holy Writ for to. Increase and Multiply our Tragedies and Discourage the Earth. Wherefore hath God imparted unto us something that He must count Very Precious in his own Character, even a Sense of Humor. \par \par I have no present intention of adding any to the Ten Commandments, but if I decide to supplement the work of my friend Moses, I shall consider this one, Thou shalt not take thyself too seriously. 1 \par \par Yes, there is a time to laugh; and the most frequent of times for the minister is to laugh at the man we pretend to be, that we may become the man we ought to be. None more than we needs to bid the inner self, who dwells in our soul, to laugh at us and to deride us, lest one day, for our failure to serve the Lord with \ldblquote all that is within [us],\rdblquote LVAL we may hear it in the dreadful form when \ldblquote He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.\rdblquote \par \par \par 1 Reprinted through the courtesy of the family of the author, Eev. William B. Barton, D.D. \par \par \pard\cf1\f2\fs23\par } LVAL&P{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 Arial;}{\f1\froman\fprq2\fcharset0 Georgia;}{\f2\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\stylesheet{ Normal;}{\s1 heading 1;}} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\keepn\s1\sb240\sa60\lang1033\kerning32\b\f0\fs32 VII. Those who are not with Us\par \pard\nowidctlpar\kerning0\f1\fs22\par \b0 A SAYING MAY BE HACKNEYED AND STILL BE PACKED \par \par with truth. One such saying is, \ldblquote It takes all kinds of people to make a world. ' ' The secular world, however, has no monopoly on varieties of types of people in its make-up. It looks as if our religious world is even overburdened with them. \par \par We are a varied lot, we Christians. If we were to look at ourselves objectively, stand off as one on the outside, we could hardly be proud of ourselves, as we note our larger denominational divisions, our sects and independent churches, our isms, our Holiness, Dispensational, Adventist groups, and our so-called modernist and fundamentalist factions, some within the larger groups, and others separate and distinct and militantly opposing. We are a motley crew. We not only seem to have a lot of different oars, but are pulling in opposite directions. And some won't even admit that we are all in the same boat. \par \par This situation is, of course, confusing to people outside of the church, resulting in the indifference and the scorn of many. There is no minister, hfljfever, who finds himself at ease about it. \par \par All of us are concerned that there should be so 85 \par \par \par 86 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par little unity of impact of our spiritual resources upon an evil world. And it becomes a deeply personal disturbance to many ministers as these widely differing viewpoints mean criticism or attack against themselves by those who differ with them. Some men find their congregations divided, with certain groups setting themselves in array against them. Some such groups, overstreLVALQssing some phase of religious truth, take the part for the whole and tirelessly labor their point. They are out of harmony with the teaching of their minister and they demand that he be the one to change his tune. \par \par Whether or not this be an acutely personal problem for us, we are all aware that there are those who claim to be within the fold of Christ who are not with us. And some are so definitely not with us that they are against us. Or maybe it is we who are against them. \par \par How are we to be faithful ministers and good pastors in this situation? It is evident that this is a question of attitudes. It is especially a pastoral question if, as it may happen, the differences are within our own congregation. \par \par It may be that we ourselves have some rather settled opinions about the religious values of some who differ with us. I know that I have. I am quite convinced that I would rather have my own child have no formal relationship with a religious group at all than to be under the influences of some of them. I am quite sure that some forms of religion make people morally poorer instead of richer, and \par \par THOSE WHO ARE NOT WITH US 87 \par \par weaker rather than stronger. It is possible, of course, that they would say that of mine. \par \par I know that there are some forms of religious emphasis which I feel definitely have this tendency. One of them is the religion of emotionalism. \par \par It is the religion of escape. It is fraught with the feeling of release. It is the religion now of copious tears, and now of loud hallelujahs, neither of which ever proves to be much more than a momentary stimulant. James tells of the man who,.looking into a mirror, \ldblquote goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.\rdblquote But emotionalism does not even look into the mirror of self -analysis. The pulsating ecstasy of feeling is too satisfying for that. Except for the time spent in so-called religious exercises which might otherwise have been LVALRspent for some even lesser purpose, nothing is different at all because of it. \par \par I have some aversion too for types of religion that build up mere codes of conduct as standards for Christian living. \ldblquote We not only have small and admittedly odd groups such as the Amish and Dunkards, for whom a style of dress and a restriction as to the use of modern conveniences is a distinguishing mark of their religion, but also we have something equally wide of the heart of religion in larger groups and churches, where things done, or not done, in accordance with accepted codes of the group are the standard of one's Christianity. Certain restraints are laid \par \par 88 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par down, and anyone who breaks over these is considered a heathen and a publican. Psychologically there is actually a morally deteriorating influence in such restrictions and limiting qualities of life. \par \par For one thing, there is too much moral satisfaction born of outward conformity with them, and too little training in moral discrimination and values against the time when one faces a situation not covered by the restricted codes of conduct. In merely learning the restriction of \ldblquote thou shalt not,\rdblquote one may miss altogether the undergirding principles of \ldblquote thou shalt.\rdblquote Here the Christian soldier may have learned a manual of arms, but not much about how to fight an enemy when on his own. \par \par Furthermore, I find myself critical of the strict lines drawn by the religion of \ldblquote modernist\rdblquote and \ldblquote fundamentalist.\rdblquote Personally I think that anyone would have rather a hard time lining up Jesus Christ strictly with either one. The Pharisees were certain he was a modernist. The Sermon on the Mount was revolutionary enough and a complete denial of old shibboleths. On the other hand, Jesus was loyal to the synagogue and the sacrifices of the Temple. He went back of the Torah to the older Prophets for his authority. It is hard to bLVALSelieve that such a one would approve of the volume of contention with which some have sought to place him solely on their side, or that he needs any lastditch defenders any more than he needed the literal sword of Peter in the G-arden of Gethsemane. \par \par \par THOSE WHO ARE NOT WITH US 89 \par \par If lie said, \ldblquote He that is not with me is against me,\rdblquote he also said, \ldblquote He that is not against us is for us.\rdblquote And if he told of a separation final and complete of the sheep and the goats at the judgment, he was yet widely inclusive when he said, \ldblquote Inasmuch as... ye have done it unto me.\rdblquote \par \par We often seem far more ready than Jesus was to draw a line and say, \ldblquote Stand you on that side, for on this side am I. \ldblquote\par The bitterly caustic remark of Job to his critics was deserved \ldblquote No doubt... wisdom shall die with you.\rdblquote Whatever position we hold, we can be of little use to God unless we truly manifest in our ministry that we do not merit a similar summary of our attitudes. None of us has a charter of all truth. The important thing for all of us is that if, for instance, we do abhor mere emotionalism, we yet recognize its worth over against the hardness of mere logic, and the warmth of its tears over against the coldness of unyielding hearts, and that we remember that narrowness is not worse than shallowness, that inner discipline and restriction must ever be present, and that zealousness and even controversy are better than dead formalism or a mere socially correct church affiliation. \par \par Nobody is going to be worth very much as a minister without strong convictions concerning his own interpretation of religious truth and those of his group; but let us be assured that others have convictions too, and that a consideration of \par \par 90 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par the things they hold may conceivably be critically constructive and corrective for us. \par \par Furthermore, we have our own jLVALTob to do and gospel to preach. It ought to be pro-Christ and not against some other group or some other minister. It may be that some other group or person is wrong. Yet it is better to preach for Christ than against them. And it does not follow that in proving they are wrong we have proven that we are right. The test of us runs deeper than that. \par \par Our orthodoxy is not established upon the ruin of that of anyone else. ' \par \par A rabbi friend of mine recently suggested that \ldblquote respect\rdblquote is a better word than \ldblquote toleration.\rdblquote \par \par Who more than a minister should respect the convictions and the work of others f Some are doing a work in a spot where we would fail. They are reaching men and women whom we could not touch. To tolerate them is not enough. We must respect them. And when we do not, we are out of line with the scripture that says, Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. \par \par And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not [love]... \par \par Some of the differences that arise in the interpretation of truth may seem more important than \par \par THOSE WHO ABE NOT WITH US 91 \par \par they really are. Temperaments vary and the angle from which one looks may give a different aspect of the same truth. Somewhere I once read a little story of a Scotch father that has helped me to understand how the same words may be used and the meaning put into them be wholly conflicting. \par \par The old Scot was very angry when his only son left home, and its restricted opportunities, to be on his own in the world. The father cut him out of his life and his thought, and bade his faithful daughter never to mention the name of her brother in his presence. The sister's heart was heLVALUavy about it all; but she was overjoyed indeed when, after more than a year of silence, a letter came addressed to the father from his son. Neither father nor daughter could read. The father was too angry and still too hurt to want to read it anyway. But after much persuasion the daughter induced him to go with her to the village butcher and ask him to read the letter for them. The butcher was a gruff soul with a harsh voice and contentious personality. So he roughly took the letter in his hand and with characteristic churlishness of accent read, \ldblquote Dear Father: I am very sick. Won't you please send me some money? Your son, John.\rdblquote \par \par Upon hearing it read thus, the father said, \ldblquote The ungrateful rascal! I won't send him a cent.\rdblquote The daughter sadly walked home with him; but before they entered the gate she said, \ldblquote Father, let's take the letter over to the baker. He is a good man and friendly, and he will read the letter to us, for may\par \par 92 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par be there is something that the butcher did not see. ' ' So they went to the baker, who was indeed a good man and understanding, with the spirit of Christ in his heart. Gently he took the letter from the father's hand and spoke with kindness of the absent boy. Then, with feeling and sympathy, he read the selfsame words: \ldblquote Dear Father: I am very sick. Won't you please send me some money? \par \par Your son, John. ' ' And the hard old Scotch father, with tears glistening in his eyes, said to the daughter tenderly, \ldblquote How much do you think we can send him?\rdblquote \par \par \par \ldblquote For ye have need of patience,\rdblquote wrote the author of the Book of Hebrews. It is up-to-date advice for the exasperation sometimes occasioned by some who suddenly become critical of our spiritual life. A new light has shone for them, and a new truth has dawned for them, and their minister must be converted to it. A zealous young woman came to a minister whom I knoLVALVw to tell him that he ought to make a new all-out surrender to his Lord. She did not know, and he could not tell her, that years before, as a boy of seventeen, he told his father that he wanted to be a minister but his father forbade it, and that when he was twentyone he again approached his father, who replied that if he chose the cloth the door of his house would be closed against him and he would no longer be his son. And from that day forward he was cut off from his father's house. Most of us have need of a continual surrender; and this min\par \par THOSE WHO ARE NOT WITH US 93 \par \par ister, acknowledging that, did not claim that his original sacrifice was enough. But he had need of patience, and he exercised it, remembering that youthful zeal, though inconsiderately critical, could yet be turned to good account. \par \par Dr. S. Parkes Cadman was asked in one of his radio question periods, \ldblquote How can I persuade another person to believe as I believe?\rdblquote He answered with telling brevity, as he knew so well how to do, \ldblquote By living a better life than he does.\rdblquote \par \par That is always the minister's opportunity in any difference of belief or practice. Our dogma is never as persuasive and convincing as the conclusiveness of a reality and sincerity in our personal religion. \par \par James Hilton, in Random Harvest, depicts a London cleric by the name of Blampied a quaint, varied personality, a timid, unworldly parson of fiction who was both a crusader and a mystic, but some of whose philosophy of life many of us could adopt with profit to ourselves and the cause we serve. Blampied says that every man should have some small matter to which he attaches undue importance, always provided that he realizes the undueness. \par \par The Oxfordshire men in the story obviously regarded the parson as an oddity, but being country people they knew that men, like trees and unlike suburban houses, were never exactly the same, and \par \par 94 SOME TO BE PASTORS \paLVALWr \par this idea of unsameness as the pattern of life meant that (as Blampied put it) they didn't think there was anything very odd in anyone being a little odd. \par \par Commenting about Ms former political activity, Blampied confesses, The truth is, Smith,... I never could get along with all the Risers-to-Seeond-That and the On-a-Point-ofOrderers. If I were God, I'd say Let there be Light. \par \par But as I'm not God, I'd rather spend my time plotting for Him in the dark than in holding committee meetings in a man-made blaze of publicity. 1 \par \par Dr. Halford E. Luccock speaks of \ldblquote crowding Christ into a uniform. ' ' That is a mistake we often make about him who is too big for any uniform and is always greater than any pattern we fashion to enclose him. Stanley Jones has spoken of \ldblquote The Christ of the Indian Road,\rdblquote saying that Christ ought to be presented as Christ, and stripped of our Western thought and preconceptions. A missionary of thirty years of service in China once told me that he was certain that they had made a mistake in their attitude about Chinese ancestor worship, for instead of sublimating it and transforming it into some form of the Christian conception of the living dead, they insisted that it be given up. As a result the Chinese concluded that Christianity meant a turning of their backs upon 1 Used by permission of Little, Brown & Go. and the Atlantic Monthly Press. \par \par \par THOSE WHO ARE NOT WITH US 95 \par \par their deep-rooted and worthy filial piety. How rarely do we dare preach Christ and let Tiim have his own way with men! We insist upon putting him into our uniform. Perhaps it is because we have never dared ourselves to wear his. It is so much easier to be busy sewing braid on our own, brushing it off and shining up its buttons, than to acknowledge its unlikeness to Christ's, whose uniform was a crown of thorns, whose symbol a cross, and whose purpose to do utterly the will of the Father. \par \par For contentiousness tLVALXhere is no place whatever, no matter what the issue. No difference of opinion or conviction, no question of orthodoxy or practice, can ever merit a surrender of the inner spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ in us. \ldblquote We must ever be his valiant followers. But it is tragic always when anyone comes to believe that he personally is the Lord's last line of defense, that he only is left, and that the issue is so final that he must draw the sword in defense of the Lord against all comers. Then it is that anything and everything contrary to his spirit may happen. \par \par And it usually does. \par \par There is a passage in the first chapter of Philippians that strikes at the heart of this matter. It is Paul of strong convictions, the sturdy, strong crusader for his Lord, who writes, Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will: the one preach Christ of \par \par 96 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds: but the other of love, knowing* that I am set for the defence of the gospel. What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. \par \par Notwithstanding, Christ is preached! Let us be sure that we do that in word and in life. None of us has enough of the grace and strength and spirit of our Lord to dissipate any of it in attack. \par \par Let us give our all to our ministry, as G-od gives us grace, and let the other fellow give Ms. It may be that God is using us all; and we ought then to give him a chance to use all we are, with, nothing of us diverted against anyone else. \par \par There is a radio story of a sheepherder, away on his lonely station, writing in to ask the broadcaster to strike A on the studio piano that he might tune his old violin, his only comfort in Ms solitary task. And so the broadcasting station did, and some days later a letter came expressing gratitude and saying, \ldblquote Now I'm in LVAL tune.\rdblquote Each of us has Ms own note, and others have theirs. \par \par We do not need, all of us, to play the same note; but we do need, each of us, to be in tune with the great A who is the Lord and Master of us all. \par \par \pard\cf1\f2\fs23\par } LVAL&Z{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 Arial;}{\f1\froman\fprq2\fcharset0 Georgia;}{\f2\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\stylesheet{ Normal;}{\s1 heading 1;}} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\keepn\s1\sb240\sa60\lang1033\kerning32\b\f0\fs32 VIII. Pastoral Psychiatry \par \par \pard\nowidctlpar\kerning0\b0\f1\fs22 THAT THERE is A QUICKENED INTEREST IF THE RELATIONSHIP \par \par of the mental sciences to religion is evidenced by the many recent books published on this subject. Books on psychology and psychiatry are on every religious book list. The terms psychology and psychiatry are often used interchangeably though they are not the same. Psychiatry is psychology with an M.D. degree. \par \par It is worthy of note that there is a change in the relation of these mental sciences to religion. \par \par A generation ago psychology was advanced largely as a substitute for religion. Today, together with psychiatry, it analyzes our religious behavior and helps us to understand the way in which religion operates within the individual. \par \par The minister has been variously affected by the emphases of these mental sciences. Some have bowed down before them. A Christian Century editorial says: \ldblquote Many have relied for the authentication of their message, not on a prophetic, 'Thus saith the Lord/ but on the word which has proceeded out of Vienna, 'Thus saith Freud and 1 This chapter appeared in The Begister, Louisville Theological Seminary, and is reprinted by permission. \par \par 97 \par \par \par 98 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par Adler.' \ldblquote Some ministers have found a new gospel in psychology. And some ministers, with scant knowledge of psychiatry, have rushed to establish religious clinics, and have set themselves up as counselors for all manner of mental and spiritual ailments. \par \par There is, however, a very definite and helpful use of the new facts of psychology and psychiatry on the paLVAL[rt of the pastor. A study of these subjects will help any man to preach Jesus Christ more intelligently and efficiently. It will further help him, in the pastoral relation, to minister better to men in the application of religion to life. And, still more, it will enable a minister, if personally applied, to be himself a better personality through which the Spirit can work. \par \par Much might be said as to an improvement in our preaching from a knowledge of psychology and psychiatry, but primarily we need their help in our pastoral work. If they are applied there, our preaching as well is sure to be favorably affected. \par \par Both psychology and psychiatry are studies in personality. And let it be remembered that in our ministry we are dealing with personality. The gospel truth is not an abstract truth. Jesus himself was constantly dealing with persons. In his teaching, for instance, about \ldblquote the water of life\rdblquote \par it was the woman at the well in Samaria who gave the truth its meaning. \par \par Now if we are to deal with the personalities of men and women in the name of our Lord, we need \par \par PASTORAL PSYCHIATRY 99 \par \par first an awareness of what is going on in the lives of people. And it is this with which psychology and psychiatry are concerned. We must understand better than some of us do the anxieties of.our people, their torture of spirit, their fears fears of poverty, ill-health, death, unpopularity their moods. of despondency, worry, their sense of defeat. There is the despair of many in the realization at last that the hopes and dreams of their life are never to be realized. There is the conflict between religion and sex. There is the clash of personalities in the marriage relation. \par \par There are mental disturbances both real and imaginary, resulting in sick souls and sick bodies. \par \par Much of this, of course, is covered by the old and familiar word \ldblquote sin.\rdblquote But \ldblquote sin\rdblquote is often too much of a generiLVAL\c term. We need to break it down into its many manifestations if we are to deal helpfully with man as a sinner and with the destroying effect of his sin in his life. \par \par And, if we need an awareness of the conflicts in personality, we need also to know something of what people do about such conflicts. The most characteristic reaction to the problems of personality is the turning to some sort of escape mechanism. We know that the crank, the legalist, and the Pharisee are in every company of religious folk. They are usually evading some major ethical requirement and compensating therefor by excessive concern about some small matter. \par \par We cannot thus classify every meticulous church\par \par 100 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par man, but the persons of whom we are speaking are by no means rare. Pride, boastfulness, and cultural superiority are often complexes which result from avoiding a coming to terms with one's own inferiorities. We need to know that destructive habits, as for instance drunkenness, are often secondary manifestations of a primary unhappiness and defeat. It is the easiest \ldblquote out\rdblquote for many a person. An enmity against another is often used as an evasion of the hatreds in one's own heart. \par \par When we wrong someone we frequently keep our fault out of our consciousness by assuming a critical attitude toward his slightest weakness. \par \par Sometimes men \ldblquote draw the sword in the name of the Lord.\rdblquote They believe themselves standing as the last defense of the Lord in the field of religious controversy. Too often it is the escape mechanism again. It is then a personal running away from facing one's own inner battle to conquer bitterness, and pride, and enmity in one's own heart. \par \par Most reactions of all of us to personality difficulty, which is another term for human sin, are in the direction of covering up, and refusing to face the stern realities of self. And these all are evidences of a sense of inner failure that, eitherLVAL] consciously or unconsciously, we seek to ignore or justify. \par \par To learn more about these reactions from a study of psychology and psychiatry will help us to know how to preach about sin. Some of the above reactions mean quite the same as the old term \ldblquote under conviction of sin.\rdblquote And if we study \par \par PASTORAL PSYCHIATRY 101 \par \par psychology it is not that we may preach it, but that we may learn how more effectively to reach the sinner with the message of the gospel. \par \par If our preaching in the pulpit is effectively done, it will often be followed by personal interviews with our hearers. The average minister today has more people come to him with their perplexities than did the average minister a generation ago. Now, we are busy with many things, with administration and with the preparation of sermons, and the coming of people to us for personal help is always an interruption. But we ought to encourage people to come to us, and we ought to give liberally of our time to personal contacts. \par \par And if they do not come, we should be greatly concerned about our ministry. If none come to us it must be because we are dogmatic, severe, unsympathetic. Men came easily to our Master. If we are truly ministering in his name, they will come to us. Let us encourage them to come, and let us seek all the help we can get toward turning them to him when they come. It must never be for us only an interruption. It is a glorious privilege. \par \par It is not, of course, necessary to set up a clinic or in any formal way to establish a counseling period. Our personal contacts may be casual. \par \par They may be in the home, in our study, or on the street. There are many instances in every pastor's experience when the casual contacts have been more fruitful than those of a studied approach. \par \par \par 102 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par People will come to us for the more definite interview and conference if they have learned from our method of preaching, andLVAL^ from our personality, that we are sympathetic and spiritually discerning. \par \par \ldblquote Without setting up a formal counseling service we can, however, and must, as occasion arises, give counsel of soul. Very often troubled souls are helped immeasurably by someone to whom they can unburden themselves. \ldblquote We can first of all be good listeners. Dr. William S. Sadler says that the problems of life are personality problems every one; that \ldblquote home\rdblquote is a symbol only, for it is actually a personal relationship. The difficulties there are first personal and secondarily home difficulties. He adds: \ldblquote The more you love a person, the more you can hate him if you go into reverse. ' ' \par \ldblquote Whatever technical or scientific terms we use about them, the difficulties themselves are all personal. Furthermore, Dr. Sadler says that, as ministers, we must remember that all cases of personality difficulty are a result of a frustration in reaching some goal. This is true of every nervous disorder whatsover. Therefore the minister in conference must not pay attention to the thing complained of. He must get behind it. He must ignore the defense mechanism. It is a smoke screen to keep up self-respect. \ldblquote We can help people to save their self-respect by getting back to what it is all about. The pastor cannot be content any \par \par PASTORAL PSYCHIATRY 103 \par \par more than can the physician merely to treat symptoms. \par \par We must remember that the person is in need of God, and that the individual himself is always a part of the situation at issue. The person complained of is never alone responsible. We must seek to bring home to the one in difficulty that inevitably there is something that he can do about it, that there is something in him that needs (rod's help to solve his problem whatever it is. \par \par We can teach men to pray. We can help them to make for reality in their religious life. Dr. John Eathbone Oliver, in his book Fear, said that thLVAL_ere is one group of persons who are never found in his clinic at Johns Hopkins, and they are the true Christians. Not the mere church attendant, not the person who has a correct theology, but the one who has trust and faith and dependence on God, who has in daily life made earnest with the fact that he is God's child. The difficulty, whatever it may be, is basically spiritual '! i*.!ij*i>6P1 \par \par lLu.CU...,!;jf. \ldblquote ' ' \par \par It is necessary to know when medical help is needed. A true knowledge of psychiatry will enable us to minister to souls in distress, but one of its most helpful services to us should be to show us that we are not trained psychiatrists and should not seek to serve as such. On the other hand, there is no magic in a pious prayer or a passage of scripture, nor can the personality difficulty be necessarily solved by a single dose of \par \par 104 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par spiritual medicine. It may take a long time and repeated effort. It certainly will take consecration, sympathy, understanding, devotion, and prayer. We must give of ourselves to the utmost when we have the privilege of personal interviews with a troubled soul. And we need to take counsel with those who can give us of their technical knowledge, not forgetting him who is Lord of the soul. \par \par But finally an acquaintance with the truths of psychology and psychiatry is necessary for the sake of our own personality as ministers of God. \par \par We need much for our task besides a technical theological education, important as that is. A missionary in India asked a Christian native boy to repair the wire of her electric lamp. The lad, after fumbling at the task for a time and getting nowhere, taxed the patience of the missionary, and she finally said to him in irritation: \ldblquote Haven't you any common sense at allf\rdblquote To which the native lad replied: \ldblquote Madam, common sense is a gift of God. I have only a technical education.\rdblquote \par \par \par As pastors weLVAL` often have little more than a technical education. The gift of God to see ourselves as he sees us is the kind of common sense without which we invalidate our ministry almost completely. It is urgent that we learn the truths of the mental sciences, not just for effective service to others, but to apply them to ourselves. We should often check ourselves for compensations, for the presence of excuses and evasions. Minis\par \par PASTORAL PSYCHIATRY 105 \par \par ters are ruined by little things. A text upon which as ministers we would do well to preach to ourselves is that of Ecc_10:1. \ldblquote Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.\rdblquote \par \par None of us can be perfect, but our eye must be upon ourselves, as well as upon others. It is imperative that we face the fact that we are especially subject to the personality defects of cant, of self-pity, pride, envy, of the critical spirit, of facing human sin before our people in terms of \ldblquote you\rdblquote and not \ldblquote we.\rdblquote \ldblquote We must identify ourselves with our people for our own sakes and for theirs. \par \par They need to know our sympathy and understanding. They will not turn to us if we are harsh in our judgments of them and easy upon ourselves, (rod cannot use a stuffed shirt, or any man who makes an exception of himself. In dealing with others a pastor often avoids trouble by recognizing it. Let him do so in regard to himself. We must admit that the sins of personality are our own, too. They must be taken to the same Lord whom we preach to others. What kind of a man we are is a determining factor in our ministry. In the end it determines everything. Above all, it is we ourselves who need a sane and balanced personality. We are our own best subjects. \par \par If we are to know about counseling others, let us be sure to counsel with ourselves, and with God. \par \par \par \par \fs24\paLVALr \fs22\par \pard\cf1\f2\fs23\par } LVAL&b{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 Arial;}{\f1\froman\fprq2\fcharset0 Georgia;}{\f2\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\stylesheet{ Normal;}{\s1 heading 1;}} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\keepn\s1\sb240\sa60\lang1033\kerning32\b\f0\fs32 IX. To Join this Man and this Woman\par \pard\nowidctlpar\kerning0\b0\f1\fs22\par THERE ABE MANY TERMS USED RELATIVE TO A Minister's part in a marriage service. He solemnizes a marriage; he performs a ceremony; he reads the marriage lines; he marries a couple; he officiates at a wedding. We may prefer one term above the other; but whatever words are used to indicate his official capacity, the minister serves in a threefold relationship: as the legal representative of the state, a priestly representative of the church, and as counselor and adviser to the man and woman whom he joins in marriage. \par \par As the legal representative of the state, the minister must conform to its laws and regulations. \par \par State laws are varied as to persons performing marriages. Legal residence is usually required. \par \par Sometimes the minister must give bond. In every instance a license is required on the part of those to be married. The minister must not only require the presentation of the license and ascertain that it is in proper form before he performs the ceremony, but must, without fail, return the proper forms to the county clerk for official registration of the marriage. This is required by law, and- is an obligation due the persons married, that their 106 \par \par \par TO JOIN THIS MAN AND THIS WOMAN 107 \par \par legal standing as a married couple may be officially recorded. Most licenses indicate a penalty upon the minister for failure to return the paper to the county clerk, and any laxness in its enforcement does not excuse the minister from his obligation to the parties married to see that their marriage is legally registered. The license contains information as to LVALcage, and, if minors, the consent of parents, and status of participating parties whether single, or whether previously married and separated by death or divorce. \par \par As to the wedding ceremony itself, there is no set form. There are. set forms of marriage services, but these may be modified or changed as the minister chooses, except that the questions as to consent from both parties must not be omitted. \par \par The ceremony may be memorized or read. Probably the service that is read suggests something more of authority than a memorized one, just as reading the Scriptures is preferable to a memorized recitation of them. Our personal opinion is that restraint should be exercised in the matter of interpolations on the part of the minister. \par \par Simplicity in the service is to be sought rather than flowery forms of extended advice to the bride and groom. It is not unknown for ministers to conduct this service as if they were the main participants in the ceremony. When changes are made in the service, let them be in the direction of simplicity and clarity, such as in the words used in the giving of the ring. The words, \ldblquote This \par \par 108 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par ring I give thee, in token and pledge of our constant faith and abiding love,\rdblquote are preferable to the older form, \ldblquote With this ring I thee wed, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.\rdblquote The latter is difficult to repeat after the minister, and I know of one instance when the groom said, \ldblquote With this ring I thee wed, and with all thy worldly goods I me endow.\rdblquote Whatever form of service is used, let it be dignified, scriptural, and impressive. \par \par Both church weddings and formal home weddings require a rehearsal. There are no unvarying rules as to formation or procession of the bridal party, except that the bride stand at the left of the groom. In the rehearsal the minister can be of helpful assistance as his advice is sought as to arrangements. He does not dLVALdirect the rehearsal, but should be ready to help carry out the bride's wishes; and in the presence of some officious volunteer director, relative or otherwise, who overrules the bride, as sometimes happens, he can tactfully support the bride that she may have her wedding the way she wants it. A brief resume of the ceremony and the responses of the bride and groom will acquaint them with the proper procedure. It is helpful in the actual ceremony for the minister to repeat clearly the instructions, such as when to join hands, that the bride and groom do not have to carry in their minds when in the service they are to do what, and may be able better to appreciate the significance of the service itself. \par \par \par TO JOIN THIS MAN AND THIS WOMAN 109 \par \par The suggestion in advance that the bride and groom look at each other as they repeat their vows, and not at the minister, will help in the impressiveness of the service. Whatever manifests a true personal interest in the wedding on the part of the minister will not only help in the preparation for the ceremony, but will be deeply appreciated on the part of the bride and groom, and thus help to make the church's part in their wedding significant to them. \par \par The choice of whether there shall be a church or a home wedding is naturally a matter for the bride and her family to decide. The determining reason for home weddings may often be the prohibitive costs of elaborate church decorations. We may be able to do something toward increasing the number of church weddings through discouraging, as far as possible, elaborate decorations and such expenses as that, which make church weddings so costly. If the wedding is solemnized at home, let it be truly solemnized. The minister can do much to make a home wedding as sacred as that in the church, and sometimes, because of its greater privacy and less stagey effects, truly more significant as a religious ceremony. \par \par Of late years there has been great emphasis placed on educational prepLVALearation for marriage in its religious, psychological, and physical aspects. It is undoubtedly needed. There are two forms in which this is advocated general education and personal counseling. It is obvious that \par \par 110 SOME TO BE PA8TOR8 \par \par there should be general education in preparation for marriage. In this the home, the school, the church, and other character-building agencies should participate. The instruction should deal, as the Committee on Marriage and the Home of the Federal Council of Churches has suggested, \ldblquote with the principles of happy and successful marriage such as ideals for the home, wise choice of partners, the wide range of marital adjustments, home management, children and their nurture, and especially with the place of religion in individual and family life.\rdblquote \par \par \par Premarital interviews are also advocated as preparation for marriage. Some ministers have made it a rule not to marry any couple with whom they have not had a premarital conference. There is a wide difference of opinion and practice regarding such interviews. Their value would naturally depend on the voluntary participation of the young people to be married. Some ministers feel that no rule can be properly laid down as to required counseling with the minister. Most young people seem to be as definitely serious and as religiously grounded as ever their parents were. If a minister has no set rule for premarital counseling, he can, and should, so establish himself in the life of youth that they will naturally seek him out for such counseling if they desire it, and he should be able to speak frankly and understandingly to them when they come to him. Ignorance and maladjustment of the sex relation is a fre\par \par TO JOIN THIS MAN AND THIS WOMAN 111 \par \par quent cause of unhappy marriage. As the minister has opportunity, he can suggest literature that deals helpfully and frankly, but in the Christian spirit, with such matters. It is of doubtful wisdom for a minister toLVALf insist arbitrarily that such information be given to every couple he is to marry, but there can be no doubt that he must be prepared to give it as opportunity naturally presents itself. \par \par No true minister will do anything to encourage the commercialization of marriage. Stunt weddings, and any use of them for advertising purposes, are \ldblquote out\rdblquote for any true representative of the church. They have no more place in the sacredness of things than a stunt funeral at a county fair, or the sacrament of the Lord's Supper held in the open street. \par \par One of the forms of pastoral ministry often neglected is the later pastoral service given to the married couple. A call upon them helps to continue their feeling that the minister has had a vital part in the founding of their home, and that his interest is real and abiding. And as he continues to share with them in the happenings of that home, he is in a normal relationship for them to turn to him, or for him to volunteer to help them should difficulties arise between them. \par \par Couples who make their homes in other communities may be helped to make satisfactory contacts with churches in the communities to which they go. And as the children come into the home, \par \par 112 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par let the minister be sure to share their joy and anxiety with them, whether they, be near or far away. In every way possible he should quicken their conviction that he did not merely perform a ceremony for them, but that he is one with them in their hopes and desires for the happiness of their continued marriage. \par \par The most disturbing thing for the minister and marriage is the problem of the remarriage of divorced persons. It seems simplified for the minister of churches which have rigid rules against remarriage except for the innocent party in a divorce secured on the grounds of adultery. All he has to do, it would seem, is to state the rule of his church. But for many men in such churches this is not too satisfLVALgactory a method, for it does not meet the real factors involved. We are not too consistent in adherence to scriptural warrant when, upon the remarriage of divorced persons by someone else, the church freely offers them every other sacred service of the altar. No Protestant church, at least, refuses the Lord's Supper to a couple it has refused to marry. We seem to say, \ldblquote We will not break our rule, but we won't let it make any difference anyway.\rdblquote Moreover, divorce papers do not invariably give the true reason for a divorce, and therefore they cannot be relied upon as a final judgment as to the scriptural status of divorced persons. \par \par Most of us wish that some church law could be laid down that is just and considerate, and worthy \par \par TO JOIN THIS MAN AND THIS WOMAN 113 \par \par of the sacredness of the institution of marriage, and that sustains its spiritual character. It is obvious that it is difficult to apply an arbitrary rule. \par \par On the other hand, no minister wants to have the individual responsibility of decision as to whom he may, or may not, properly remarry. \par \par The matter of divorce and remarriage is a perplexing one indeed. There are so many times when, whatever decision is rendered, a haunting doubt remains that, as ministers, we have not met the situation for the best good of either marriage in general or the individuals involved. The minister must be true to his ordination vows in the church of which he is a minister. If his church has rigid rules on the matter of remarriage of divorced persons, he can only obey them. If he is a minister of a church that has less rigid church law and practice, let him remember that he has an allegiance and responsibility to God. For the Protestant minister marriage is not a sacrament, but it is none the less a sacred rite. He can never take his relationship to it lightly. If he is free to exercise his own judgment, let it be done through counsel with the Most High ' 'who sanctifies marriage and hallorLVALws it.\rdblquote And, above all, let him scorn being known as a \ldblquote marrying parson.\rdblquote Ten marriages a year may not produce as many fees as fifty, but the smaller number may be a truer indication of the minister's sense of his holy calling, and offer him a peace of mind and heart that a prostitution of his ministry for fees must inevitably destroy. Ministerial \par \par 114 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par integrity is essential always, and in no place more than in the disturbing question as to whom, under Grod, he is privileged to marry. \par \par Fortunately the perplexities of the divorce situation are not always present. And it is well to remember that participation in a marriage is normally one of the happy things in our ministry. \par \par We are often weighed down with a sense of obligations, problems, and duties. Both ourselves and our ministry are the poorer for it. It would be well if, in regard to our ministry, we would often declare a moratorium on the word duty, and in its stead think, and use, the word privilege. There can be no question but that it is a privilege for the minister to be called in to share in the happiness and joy of a wedding. Too often the church is considered by many as an instrument of restraint, the advocate for all things beyond the range of common life, and ever giving tongue to duty, that \ldblquote Stern Daughter of the Voice of G-od!\rdblquote \par But at a wedding the church and minister are included as partners in one of life's high occasions of gladness and lofty expectations. Jesus was a guest at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee. He added to the joy of the feast. It is the privilege of the minister to be something more than simply the officiating clergyman. Let him participate in such a way that his calling, and his church, and his Lord, may be brought into a fitting relationship with one of life's most gladsome moments. \par \par \par \fs24\par \pard\cf1\f2\fs23\par } LVAL&i{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 Arial;}{\f1\froman\fprq2\fcharset0 Georgia;}{\f2\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\stylesheet{ Normal;}{\s1 heading 1;}} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\keepn\s1\sb240\sa60\lang1033\kerning32\b\f0\fs32 X. When Death Comes\par \par \pard\nowidctlpar\kerning0\b0\f1\fs22 OUR MINISTRY IS CONCERNED WITH LIFE AND DEATH \par \par with, life in two worlds, and death in this one. And perhaps no part of our pastoral mission is a greater test of what is in us of the spirit of Christ than our ministry to grieving hearts in the time of death. And with death comes the service for the dead, and the ministry of comfort and strength for their loved ones. Funerals are, particularly, a service which must never be for us a common thing. If ever our Lord has touched our hearts with tenderness and thoughtfulness of others, it will be manifest at this time. \par \par For a pastor a death means much more than a funeral. It means a service to be rendered from the moment he is called about the fact of death, and extending, in most cases, for many months to come. There is usually no delay in notifying the minister when death has come. Let there be no delay in his reaching the home that is bereaved. \par \par It means much to a family to know that their pastor counts his service to them in their critical hour as something that takes precedence over everything else. It may be that they are not yet ready to make arrangements for the funeral, but 115 \par \par \par 116 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par they are ready for their pastor's love and comfort and prayer. The minister should meet them first of all as a comforting friend, not as one who has called to make arrangements for a funeral. Sorrow fills their horizon. We must in no way belittle it. It is not our task to try to explain it away, but to bring them close to God. It is not ours to suggest that things might be worse. It is worse for them. It isLVALj ours to let G-od in for them. It is not often that the grieved are rebellious. They are often bewildered, and want, above all, someone upon whom they can lean, in whom they can trust, with the confidence that he understands how they feel, and feels with them. \par \par Phillips H. Lord, as Seth Parker, once told the story of a young widow who seemed inconsolable when, after a few months of married life, her husband was killed in an accident. None seemed able to help her. She would not leave the house. \par \par No one could cheer her. She did not want them around. One day an old doctor friend dropped in for a call and stayed the afternoon. The next day she was out in her garden tending her flowers as of old, and the following day she went out to do her marketing. And soon she took up her life in a normal way again in spite of lingering marks of sadness. To her neighbors it seemed as if the doctor had worked a miracle. \par \par One day Seth asked the doctor what he had done to soften her grief when all others failed. \par \par \ldblquote Well,\rdblquote said the doctor, \ldblquote I didn't try to cheer \par \par WHEN DEATH COMES 117 \par \par her up as the others had done. I sat down and told her about losing Mary a couple of years after we were married, and how I'd loved her, and how hard it was to keep going after the Lord had taken her from me.\rdblquote \par \par \par \ldblquote But didn't Lucy start crying?\rdblquote asked Seth. \par \par \ldblquote Yes,\rdblquote said the doctor. \ldblquote But I moved over next to her, and I put my head down on the table and cried too.\rdblquote 1 \par \par That is what Jesus did. At the grave of Lazarus, Jesus wept with the sorrowing sisters. \par \par It suggests to us our first ministry of comfort, that sorrowing hearts should know, first of all, the depth of our feeling with them. \par \par When the bereaved family is ready to talk about the funeral services the minister can helpfully counsel with them, advising with them as to LVALktheir own wishes, tactfully making suggestions when necessary, and avoiding always any sense of a stereotyped procedure on his part. \par \par It is apparent that some of our funerals still have something of pagan practices about them. \par \par There may be some things that we will feel should be more Christian. But funeral customs in some communities are so traditional that it is difficult to change them. However desirable a change may be, in our estimation, we must be guided by local custom and make changes slowly. When changes are made in customary procedure, it is wise to do 1 Used by permission of Mr. Lord. \par \par \par 118 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par only some one thing differently that adds to the Christian meaning of the service. And if the change truly does so, more and more people will wish to have it that way, and the old, less desirable custom can be ultimately dropped away. \par \par One of the most desirable changes that has gradually come about is in the direction of brevity for funeral services. A service of from twenty to thirty minutes is not hurrying the last rites for the dead. The solemnity of the service makes it seem longer than it is. It is a long, long period for sorrowing hearts. \par \par Many ministers no longer preach a funeral sermon. Many have abandoned the practice of even making any \ldblquote brief remarks\rdblquote of a personal nature. The custom is growing for ministers to confine themselves to the words of scripture. This has been my own practice for many years. I was led to do this by the frequency with which I was asked to do so. I found in my experience that, when I most desired to make some personal reference to the Christian life of the one gone on before, I was. invariably asked not to do so, while occasionally, when little could be said, too much was expected. And thus for more than twenty years we have acceptably followed this custom. \par \par Any minister preferring this form of service may not be able to introduce it all at once, noLVALlr should he try to do so, but he will come upon some who so request it. He thus has an opportunity to re\par \par WHEN DEATH COMES 119 \par \par veal how meaningful such a brief scriptural service, without sermon or eulogy, can be. \par \par It would seem that the words of God himself should be the words to use at the time of death, especially as it is so often under circumstances beyond any words of our own. Certainly it is no time for man's judgment, either upon the person or the circumstances of his passing. We ought to take our cue from Jesus here, who, knowing better than we can ever know, refrained from passing judgment in some astounding cases. We can read the words of God and dare to let them bring their own judgment. We can leave something to the intelligence of men. There is less glossing over the evils of men from saying too little than from saying too much. There are many things that we had better leave to Q-od. And it is well for the minister to remember that a funeral service is not his place to be prominent, that in all things he is merely the instrument of the voice of God, and not God himself. \par \par Making a service truly meaningful in which the Scripture alone is prominent is complicated by the wretched way in which many men read the Scriptures. Here is literature beyond comparison with any other. We call it the Word of God. In it are challenge and demand, hope and assurance, promise and comfort, life and death. There ought to be something in the way it is read that would bring men to the edge of their seats in commanding attention. Instead it is too often their oppor\par \par 120 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par tunity to sit back in ease and think of something else. The inattention of an average audience to the reading of the Scriptures is appalling. It is neither their fault nor that of the Scripture. It is wholly ours. The Word of God has never come alive to many people because we have always read it as a lifeless thing. \ldblquote Without question every minister shouLVALmld seek some voice culture and practice in interpretation from competent instructors, until he learns to read the words of God in such a way that they will sound as a message from the Most High. To stumble over and to mumble the life-giving words, to read them as if they were some foreign language, is unforgivable. It is true that no mere elocution is enough. The well-known story of the actor and the Old minister, each reading the Twenty-third Psalm, and the actor saying, after the minister had brought silence and tears instead of applause, \ldblquote My friends, the difference is that I know the Psalm, but this man of God knows the Shepherd,\rdblquote touches the heart of it. But it must have been true that the old minister read the Psalm with something of his knowledge of God in his manner and his voice too. The Scriptures always ought to be a personal message for those who wait upon its words. It is a personal message the word of God himself for sorrowing, hungry hearts. And it is tragic that so many times it should fail to reach those hearts because we read the precious words in a manner so unworthy \par \par WHEN DEATH COMES 121 \par \par of them. I believe that if I had only one word of counsel to young men about a funeral service, it would be to enrich their experience in the reading of the Word of God. No practice in reading, or expense in private instruction, is too much if we can improve our interpretation of the Scriptures. They deserve an intelligent exposition always; and in the presence of grieving hearts nothing in their meaning of comfort, and their message of faith and hope and love, should be lessened by our poor, faltering interpretation of them. \par \par The prayers at a funeral service should, of course, be comforting, and a solace of hope for sorrowing hearts. There can be thanksgiving for the life of the one taken away, and praise for faithfulness of life and service. Such praise should be in sincere gratitude, and not made the occasion of eulogy in prayer. A brief prayeLVALnr for God's blessing upon his words of truth may be made before the passages of scripture are read. This will bring home to the hearers the truth expressed by Peter, who said, \ldblquote Lord, to whom shall we go? \par \par thou hast the words of eternal life.\rdblquote \par \par \par No form of service can be laid down for every circumstance. Some people desire music at the service; others do not wish it at all. If there be music, let the minister suggest, as he has opportunity, some meaningful hymns of hope, and trust, and praise. One of the most impressive services I ever witnessed was that of a home missionary \par \par 122 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par in whose service the congregation joined in the singing of \ldblquote Ten Thousand Times Ten Thousand,\rdblquote \par with his widow raising her voice with others in the glory of the thought. Instead of hymns sung, they may be read; and sometimes, after the hymn has been read, the organist might play it softly as the words silently sing in the heart to the accompaniment of the music. \par \par Every minister would do well to gather from many sources different funeral services, poems, hymns, that his services and passages read do not become stereotyped, either for himself or for some who may hear him frequently. Passages of scripture will, of course, be chosen with reference to the particular occasion. There are passages suitable for the funeral of a little child, and others for those of three-score years and ten. \ldblquote We will need to be prepared to officiate at services for saints and sinners, for those with faith, and those with no faith at all, for some to whom the house of God has been the home of their soul, and for others who have been utter strangers to the church. And sorrowing families will differ, too, in their spiritual experiences. These various circumstances will determine the choice of scripture, and, furthermore, make it clear that no set form of service can serve for all funerals alike. \par \par The services atLVALo the grave may be varied from the familiar committal form. Many people desire that the committal words be omitted altogether. \par \par When any fraternal order is to have part in the \par \par WHEN DEATH COMES 123 \par \par funeral service, the minister should meet its representative that there may be a mutual understanding about the order of service. Usually the fraternal service is conducted at the grave and takes the place of the minister's service. Courtesy requires the minister to remain through the other service, and customarily he is asked to conclude the entire service with the benediction. \par \par Turning from the grave the sorrow is not left behind, nor is the minister's task of comfort ended. Bereaved hearts will need his help for a long time. Our greatest ministry of helpfulness may be rendered in the days and weeks that follow. We can be of help through counsel not to make decisions as to sweeping changes too quickly. \par \par We can help much by just letting the sorrowing ones know that we have not forgotten. Eecognition in our prayer when they attend the worship service for the first time, a call made upon the anniversary of the remembered day, and anything that shows our understanding heart, will be a ministry of comfort, if indeed it be that our service has not been, as it never should be, a professional one. \par \par The matter of fees for funeral services is a real problem. It seems to be increasingly the custom to send the minister some fee for his services, even on the part of his own church members. No minister should do anything to encourage it. It is, however, exceedingly difficult to discourage it. \par \par Even a public statement that no fees are expected \par \par 124 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par seems to be inadequate. When a fee is offered it is embarrassing to the giver if it is refused. He is led to feel that he has done the wrong thing. \par \par Recently I told a young widow of one of my officers that I felt embarrassed by her having sent me aLVALp check for the funeral services. She wept bitterly about that, saying that the last thing she wanted to do was to embarrass me. I found that it would have been better for me not to have tried to return it. Sometimes the minister is under some personal expense, and often this is not paid. The fees received may equalize that for him. One can return the gift, if possible, or accept it with a note of thanks, and use it for the church, or the poor, or for some book in memory of the one for whose service it was given. \par \par The funeral is, indeed, a spiritual opportunity. \par \par People are eager to believe in something. It is true even of unbelievers. There is nothing very happy about infidelity at any time. And it all comes home with sharper reality in the presence of death. Even Eobert G. Ingersoll, by the side of his brother's grave, spoke of \ldblquote the rustle of angels' \par wings.\rdblquote A minister's presentation of eternal truths, his own confidence and assurance, and his sense of spiritual values, can bring to the shadows of death the light of a world unseen. At this time ears are attentive and hearts are open. This is our opportunity to lift a whole company of people into a fresh sense of God's nearness and reality, and help to invest their daily life with a \par \par WHEN DEATH COMES 125 \par \par new and finer meaning as the values which are imperishable are brought home to them. \par \par And out of this ministry to others in bereavement and death some strength and faith and blessing should come into the pastor's own life. Leslie Weatherhead says that one of Ms friends, passing through deep sorrow, said to him, \ldblquote If I could have my life again, I would include that experience of sorrow because it taught me so much about God and about life.\rdblquote The true minister has not only his own sorrows, but those of others upon his heart. They too can teach him about God and about life. And God and life must be very real to him if he is to minister to men in any way wh<LVALLatever, whether in joy or in sorrow. \par \par \par \par \pard\cf1\f2\fs23\par } LVAL&r{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 Arial;}{\f1\froman\fprq2\fcharset0 Georgia;}{\f2\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\stylesheet{ Normal;}{\s1 heading 1;}} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\keepn\s1\sb240\sa60\lang1033\kerning32\b\f0\fs32 . Books\par \pard\nowidctlpar\kerning0\f1\fs22\par \b0 No MINISTER CAN WALK ALONE AND BE A GOOD \par \par minister. He cannot afford to live only in the days of his own years, nor can he see all of life through his own eyes or know all truth through his own experience. He must travel the world around. \par \par He must live for a while in all ages. He must know people of all lands, listen to voices long silent. His study windows must open upon all the world. Books and more books are the answer for him. He needs the friends they bring him. He needs books as his meat and drink. He needs them in his task as the carpenter needs his tools. \par \par Books mean nothing at all to some people. A minister friend of mine told me that, sitting in a barber chair, he was asked about his son who had been a customer too, but had not been in the shop for some time. \par \par \ldblquote How is your boy!\rdblquote said the barber. \ldblquote I have not seen him this year.\rdblquote \par \par \par \ldblquote He is away at school.\rdblquote \par \par \par \ldblquote Why, I thought that he had finished college,\rdblquote \par said the barber. \par \par \ldblquote Yes, he has; but he is at the University of Chicago now,\rdblquote said the minister. \par \par 126 \par \par \par BOOKS 127 \par \par \ldblquote What is he studying there?\rdblquote \par \par \par \ldblquote He is taking a course in literature, and most of his study is in reading many books,\rdblquote the minister explained. \par \par Then said the barber, \ldblquote Four years at college, and then he goes to the university just to read books! My Lord, I never read a book in my life! ' ' \par \par Few of uLVALss, perhaps, require any reminder that a minister without books can be neither a worthy preacher nor a good pastor. Most of us are quite aware of the relation between our library shelves and our equipment in both mind and heart for our work. Our difficulty is not that we feel no need of books and reading, but that we hardly know which books to read, and which to buy, and how to buy them. \par \par A careful regard for all the various fields of reading will help us in our choice of what to read and what books to buy. \par \par There are the fields of philosophy, theology, and biblical studies. We must keep alive to these. \par \par They cover our own field of knowledge. We cannot afford to be ignorant here. \par \par Some knowledge of history is essential. We are now living in the present, and religion is a matter of everyday living, but often there is truth in this criticism which an English clergyman made on American preaching \ldblquote so much as though nothing had happened before last Saturday night.\rdblquote \par \par \par \par 128 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par We will want to know something of the lives of men. Biography will therefore be included in our reading. Every preacher will find suggestions and help in the life stories of men like Phillips Brooks, John Wesley, or Alexander Whyte. There has been a great increase in biographical writing in recent years. We have the lives of many men in many areas of life opened before us. \par \par Sociology and economics must not be neglected. \par \par We are preaching to, and living with, men and women in a world of changing social patterns and economic problems. Our message is changeless. It is the same for every day and every time. \par \par But new terms and new approaches must bring the eternal, changless truth to apply in new situations. \par \par Science too must be taken into account in our reading. We can never be experts here and should not try to be. We ought, however, to know something of what is happening in the scientLVALtific world. \par \par And we must be wise and sensible above all else in our use of what we learn here. The pulpit has been used to debate and attack scientific theories. \par \par Our present danger is that we may go to the other extreme and take them for our texts. Carl Wallace Petty said, There are those committed to the ministry of the altar who find their highest glory in acting as acolytes to the priests of the laboratory. Apostles of the atom, evangelists of the electron, in their anxiety to be interpreters of the latest vogue in science, they forget that, after all, \par \par BOOKS 129 \par \par at the center of religion is^a cross and not a crucible We are not confronted with the task of convincing skeptical minds that the religion of Jesus is reasonable. We are up against the more stupendous enterprise of convincing pagan hearts that it is desirable. 1 \par \par Temptations, we know, come to us in very subtle ways. If evil were always recognized for what it is there would not be so much of it. There are lurking dangers in the most admirable reading program. One of them is in reading only for the immediate requirement for sermon material and ministerial needs. Another is in the lure of sheer intellectualism. We must not be led into a world apart from the people we are committed to serve. \par \par We have to read and know many things, but we cannot be content with just possessing a superior knowledge. Sometimes we can find that we have come a long way from the knowledge of our fathers, only to discover that we have come in the wrong direction. \par \par When Grandma, and Grandpa, had a guest over night, They gave him at ten o'clock a kerosene light; Then the poor victim, shivering, repaired To an icy spare room that never was aired; Gooseflesh all over as he washed in a bowl; Very brief commune with God about his soul Then he dove hastily into the bed, And reached for the solace on the stand by its head; \par \par 1 From Today's Jesus. Copyright, The Judaon Press, PhiladelphiaLVALu. Used by permission. \par \par \par 130 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par There he found always the excellent books Of Talmage, Martineau, Beecher, and Brooks. \par \par Grandma, and Grandpa, my great-aunts are dead, But still stands the table by the guest-room bed; Steam heat, electric light, flowers and fresh air Make the job of going up not so hard to bear; Hot bath, shower bath, needle bath and spray Give you such comfort that you don't need to pray; Sink on the box springs and reach for a book; Don't you want that one? Have another look; Culture our watchword, and this is what it means Einstein, Eddington, Millikan, and Jeans. 2 \par \par And \ldblquote that's the world today\rdblquote for too many ministers. \par \par The scope of our reading will, of course, include fiction. This is the limit of the average church member's indulgence in books. We need not be ashamed of reading fiction for its own sake. \par \par And certainly we ought to know something of what our people are reading. It is not necessary to read every best seller. Just a \ldblquote look see\rdblquote at the book, or a review, will serve for some. A good detective story may often be what we need for relaxation. Then, too, a novelist has to be interesting. Maybe a preacher can learn something from him on that score. Some works of fiction should be on our book list. \par \par Our bookcases should have one shelf or more for poetry and drama. There are dramatic quali\par a Walter Prichard Baton. Used by permission. \par \par \par BOOKS 131 \par \par ties in abundance in the gospel story. Poetry and drama will help us to appreciate these and use them. \par \par Whatever the counsel about books of sermons, every minister is sure to read some of them. And why not? None of us knows so much about how to preach that he cannot be helped by seeing how the other fellow does it. And it is not without possibility that sometimes this may be fruitful in learning how not to do it. We all need the inspiration and uplift that caLVALvn come to us from another's ministry. When I was beginning my ministry, I lived in New York City and took every occasion to hear Dr. John H. Jowett in the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. Instead of making me, a neophyte in the ministry, feel my woeful shortcomings as a preacher, I always came away from hearing Dr. Jowett thrilled and enthusiastic at the privilege of having some part in a ministry so great. I am quite sure that I would starve to death spiritually if the only sermons I ever heard or read were my own. \par \par We must have some place on our study desk for church papers and magazines. Some of them will acquaint us with plans for church management. They will help us to evaluate and adapt methods, enable us to check our own, and sometimes may encourage us as we find that we are on the right track. \par \par In our reading we will naturally gather mate\par \par 132 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par rial for future use. \ldblquote We will make notations in the books themselves or otherwise keep some reference to the things we have read. But how to find them again when we want them I do not know. \par \par I have heard of men who had devised some method of cross references and filing of reading notes; but after fruitless efforts to do it myself, I am convinced that the proverbial needle in a haystack is not harder to find than something I have filed away. Most of us just have to put our book on the shelf, and sometimes find the thing we want again when we want it, and sometimes not. \par \par Much of our material naturally serves its purpose of inspiration and illustration quickly because both Sunday and Wednesday happen along every week. \par \par There are books which may be considered very definitely our working tools. They are an encyclopedia, commentaries, a concordance, and a thesaurus. Use of them will vary with different men. \par \par Sets of books and commentaries in many volumes are not too profitable because frequently one or two authors are featured, and the rest areLVALw just filling. A good concordance is a necessity. I personally could not get along without my thesaurus. \par \par As to commentaries, it is every man for himself. \par \par The tendency is undoubtedly in the direction of a lesser use of them. Single volumes by different authors who are especially equipped, for comment on special books are preferable to sets. No man can be an authority on every book in the Bible. \par \par \par BOOKS 133 \par \par Books of illustrations are rarely worth, their price. Their use illustrates nothing but a sense of unreality in religious experience. Choice of illustrations from our general reading, or our own experience, may be less pretty, but they will be more vital. \par \par Sometimes we forget to include the Bible in our reading list. In all our reading the comment of one minister's daughter is suggestive. One Sunday afternoon her father was preparing for a special Sunday-evening engagement after having been away from his study for most of the week. He had his papers before him at home, with books on a chair near by, and some on the floor. \par \par The children were making considerable noise; so he asked them to try to be quiet. And one of them, unaccustomed to seeing her daddy doing his sermon work at home, asked, \ldblquote What are you doing, Daddy?\rdblquote \par \par \par He replied, \ldblquote I am trying to write a sermon.\rdblquote \par \par \par Then the little one, looking at the books and papers strewn about, said, \ldblquote Why don't you fool 'em, Daddy, and give 'em one out of the Bible?\rdblquote \par \par \par The problem of what to read, and how to use what we read, is great enough, but for most of us it shrinks beside the question of how to buy the books to read. The average church member does not realize that the minister pays for gasoline for several thousand miles' use of his car for church purposes, and that he must buy from thirty-five to one hundred books a year. One min\par \par 134 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par iLVALxster said to me the other day, \ldblquote I never buy ten gallons of gasoline but what I say to myself, (There go a couple of books.' \ldblquote It would seem that churches ought to help their ministers here. But they don't, and that's that. We just have to do the best we can about it. \par \par Our limitation of funds will, at least, help us to buy wisely. The family objection to our too great expenditure for books may well be heeded. \par \par We must be fair to them here. One of my seminary professors said that he was helped to keep peace with his wife about book expenditures, and to get fuller value from his books too, by leaving every new book on his desk until it was read, making this rule for himself: \ldblquote No new books until these are read.\rdblquote \par \par \par Some fees received may be most properly added to one's book budget. I have received fees at times for funerals when accepting them was an embarrassment to me, and the refusal of which would be most embarrassing to the donors. It is difficult to know what to do about it. One solution is to use such a gift for books, perhaps informing the family that you will use the money for that purpose, and inscribing the name of their loved one in the books as a memorial. \par \par I have always found a visit to a book store both a delight and a disturbing experience. There are so many books that I would like to read and ought to read. Yet I am limited as to time and money. \par \par It is a delight to browse among the books, but it \par \par BOOKS 135 \par \par is also discomforting to know how much I am compelled to miss of all that I would like to make my own. \ldblquote Well, we cannot read all the books we would like, much less afford to buy any more than a small proportion of those we want for our own bookshelves. The first thing to do is to be philosophical about it. If we had the money we could not,possibly read all the books we would like to buy. Many of them, therefore, would necessarily have to remain closed to us LVAL . The second thing is that, after we have carefully and wisely made our limited choice, we have a full and grateful appreciation for the vast stores of knowledge that exist for us to explore as we are able to do so. \par \par \pard\cf1\f2\fs23\par } LVAL&z{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 Arial;}{\f1\froman\fprq2\fcharset0 Georgia;}{\f2\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\stylesheet{ Normal;}{\s1 heading 1;}} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\keepn\s1\sb240\sa60\lang1033\kerning32\b\f0\fs32 XII. Time, Vacation, Money \par \pard\nowidctlpar\kerning0\f1\fs22\par \b0 THESE OF MY NEPHEWS, ABOUT six, EIGHT, AND TEN, were overheard one day when, after the manner of children, they were talking about what they wanted to be when they grew up. \par \par The youngest said, \ldblquote I want to be a motorman.\rdblquote \par \par \par The eight-year-old replied, \ldblquote Aw, I don't want to be anyone who just runs things; I want to be a preacher like Uncle Pete.\rdblquote \par \par \par But the youngest, to whom, of course, attending church services was an ordeal of some length and fatigue, answered, \ldblquote Not for me; you have to stand up all the time.\rdblquote \par \par \par Then the oldest boy contributed his bit of wisdom by adding, \ldblquote Yes, but look what you've got during the week.\rdblquote \par \par \par The idea, we may be sure, is not confined to children that the minister has really got something between Sundays. And they are right at that. \par \par I wonder if we ourselves are always aware of how much we have? We have six days that are all our own. We have no boss, no one to tell us what to do, or when to do it. We have no time clock to punch. We have a week's time on our 136 \par \par \par TIME, VACATION, MONET 137 \par \par hands to do with as we will. That is a great privilege. It is also a great danger. \par \par It would be well to remind ourselves each morning of this privilege, and of our guilt if it is abused. For we will have gone a long way in the faithful use of our time when we squarely face the fact that our time is in our own hands. If it is wasted, we are responsible. If we are too busy, we have allowed it to be soLVAL{. If we have too little time for study, or personal devotions, or visitation, or anything else we must do, it is not time that is at fault, but our management of it. \par \par When a minister takes up a new work in a new community, he is usually considered fair game for everybody who wants to use him in some public activity or program. Let him keep his head in this circumstance. He has not suddenly acquired an exalted place in the community. He is just a new face and a new voice. Unless he is cautious he will soon find himself a community Boy Scout or community handy man. As to participation in varied types of programs, let him remember that it is not likely that the public is clamoring to hear him, but that some program chairman, with a duty to perform, is seeking to complete a program. His part is to get somebody to say \ldblquote Yes,\rdblquote and his job is done. The most likely candidate is the new minister. We cannot afford to be boorish in such circumstances, but neither can we afford to be an easy mark. It is not part \par \par 138 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par of our task to be a \ldblquote yes man\rdblquote to every call that is made upon us. We have long heard that \ldblquote time is money.\rdblquote For the minister it is at least valuable enough not to let it be used indiscriminately. \par \par Some ministers are great joiners. They have membership in lodges, civic groups, luncheon clubs, musical organizations, clubs and boards of various kinds. It would be neither reasonable nor wise to assume an attitude of aloofness toward all activity and association with one's fellows, but any minister who joins every group into which he is invited, or engages in every activity that solicits his effort, is woefully careless with one of Ms most precious assets time. \par \par No man can properly tell another how to use his time. It ought to be clear that we must plan our day. An elaborate schedule is not required. \par \par It is stretching a point too far to make a schedule for every mLVAL|oment in the day, but intelligent order in our use of time is a necessity. \par \par Some men can plan in greater detail than others, but it is absolutely essential for all of us to order times for study, calling, reading, meetings, and the broad outlines of our program. We are fond of telling ourselves, and others, how busy we are. \par \par Sometimes we are not as busy as we think we are; sometimes we are busy at the wrong things. \par \par And always the fault is ours. We have just as much time as anybody else has for his job. And our time is our own. I think that if we honestly \par \par TIME, VACATION, MONEY 139 \par \par face that fact many of us will use our time more wisely and will do a better job. \par \par It would seem that most everything about one's ministry is something of a problem. Well, in part that is true. The personal elements of a minister 's life are more a factor in his task than they are in that of anyone else. We have chosen that kind of a task. \par \par There are some perplexities for us even in the matter of our vacation. Some of our people, at least, are perplexed about it. The preacher does not seem to them to be very much broken down by his work. They do not have a month away from their work. Satan is always on the job. Why should a minister take a vacation for a whole month or even more? \par \par However it came about, it is the established custom for a church to give its minister a vacation. Somebody must have discovered at some time that it is as good for the church as for the minister that they be rid of him for a while each year. Probably more of our people than we know appreciate the imperative need of relaxation and rebuilding in the exacting work of a minister and pastor. These will expect us to relax and to enjoy ourselves, and to come back refreshed and strengthened for our task. \par \par How shall we use our vacation time? No man can even suggest what kind of a vacation another needs or enjoys. I used to try, upon the request of others, toLVAL} find some place for them near where \par \par 140 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par I spend my vacation. But not any more. Never, not even once, did my conception of what they would like coincide with theirs. I am convinced that in vacations each man is a law unto himself. \par \par Ministers are as individual as anyone else, if not more so. Some like to travel, some to rough it, some to attend religious conferences. Some work hard at it; others just want to loaf. Let a man have the courage to do what he wants to do. 1 used to feel a little guilty about not going to the summer conferences of my church, and somewhat apprehensive about my complete surrender to my lazy self to the extent that days on end even reading anything more than fiction was a burden. But it does not bother me any more. I have found that a complete change was just what I needed to send me back to my work with a zest far beyond that with which I had laid it aside. \par \par I find it a delight, on my vacation, to sit in a pew on Sabbath mornings and not to preach myself. I could not stand to hear the same man for fifty-two Sundays in the year without a break. \par \par But after those few Sundays off, nothing could hold me back. I want to hear myself again. \par \par Whatever sends us back to our task enriched in mind and body and soul has been a means of grace to us and to our people. And whatever does that, let us continue to do, whether or not it follows the pattern of anyone else. Jesus frequently said to his disciples, \ldblquote Come ye yourselves apart... \par \par and rest a while.\rdblquote If we have tried humbly and \par \par TIME, VACATION, MONEY 141 \par \par earnestly to follow our Master in other things, we may rightly try to follow him in this too. \par \par In the normal course of his task the minister will have many things to say to his people about money. There are perhaps even more things that he ought to say to himself about it. And what he says to himself about money is going to have more influLVAL~ence on his people than what he says to them. Our fundamental attitude in regard to money will determine our life for good or ill. It will determine the effectiveness of our work, and our personal happiness and contentment as well. \par \par Paul says, \ldblquote Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.\rdblquote He is speaking, of course, of the right of every man to his support in material things. The words, however, are just as true if we interpret them to mean that they who preach the gospel should live of the gospel alone. It suggests to me, at least, that as a minister I ought to live within the income received for preaching the gospel. Our salary may not be as much as we feel that we need or desire, but seeking to supplement it with other sources of income, of whatever kind, is dangerous indeed. Some years ago a nationally known minister of great power, having yielded to. this lure, testified to its ruinous effect upon his ministry, and humbly begged the forgiveness of those who may have been led by his example. His useful career remains clouded to this day. It is too easy to become more of a busi\par \par 142 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par nessman than a minister. It is inevitable that it will divide our interest. We have one business, and one business only. Of no one is it so true as of a minister that \ldblquote ye cannot serve God and mammon.\rdblquote \par \par \par There is probably not as much understanding about money between the church and the minister as there ought to be. And for this the minister himself is largely to blame. He has sometimes been silent about money, not only to his own hurt, but to the harm of the church as well. Most churches want to do the right thing by their minister financially. They have little idea of what must go into his work from his salary. Dr. Cleland B. McAfee, in his book Ministerial Practices, has a suggestion about frankness in salary discussion when receiving a call. It would seem that afteLVALr a minister has served his people for some ' \par time, and has established by his devotion and his conduct that money is not of primary consideration with him, he ought to be able on proper occasion to speak without undue reserve about money as it pertains to himself. In one of the three churches I have served, a friend, close enough to me to know something about my financial situation, without my knowledge spoke to some of the officers about my salary. Then he came to me and told me about it and said that they had expressed surprise that I had never spoken to them about it, as they did not know my need. Well, was that an invitation! Thus at their suggestion I made a \par \par TIME, VACATION, MONET 143 \par \par frank statement to them to their satisfaction and mine. It does not seem to me that such action was altogether unique. \par \par Let a minister tell himself, believe it, and practice it, that money is not the deciding factor in his own happiness and satisfaction. The years of depression and reduced salary taught many a minister some things he should never forget. One of them is that to have given oneself to one's task without stint, and with no lessening of effort and devotion, commands a self-respect that is without price. If ever our financial return is the measure of our giving of ourselves in the service of the Lord, we ought to be utterly ashamed of ourselves. And we will be. \par \par How to spend one's money may seem to present little difficulty because we will never have very much of it to spend. It might be accepted that of necessity we will learn the laws of thrift. \par \par A definite budget will be a great help. If possible, a budget for both husband and wife is advisable. \par \par We will need to beware of the dangers as well as the benefits of installment buying. Prompt payment of bills is a matter affecting both our own peace of mind and the success of our work. Nothing can so undermine our effectiveness in our task as laxness here. A minister's credit is taken LVALfor granted. Without the utmost restraint he can be hopelessly in debt. It is tragic that so many men have impaired their usefulness through the use of the simple words, \ldblquote Charge it.\rdblquote \par \par \par \par 144 SOME TO BE PASTORS \par \par As a rule one's salary is fairly proportionate to the scale of living needed in the field served. \par \par In the course of time salary increases will come to us. These should be used to relieve the pressure of our current living expenses, but they should also help us to provide for our future. One of the best ways for any minister to provide for the future is through life insurance. This provides protection for his family should he be taken from them. And should he live to retirement age, his insurance values can be added to his retirement income. The ministers' annuity plans of most churches provide at least a foundation for retirement income. An ultimate insurance income added to one's pension receipts will provide a modest but adequate retirement fund, and meanwhile enable us to dismiss this whole matter from our minds during our active ministry. \par \par Modern hospitalization insurance providing for hospital service is open to ministers as a group. \par \par Sick-benefit insurance policies that pay sick benefits in cash over a period of weeks or months are also available. \par \par Owning a home is possible under present longterm methods of payment if one's pastorate is likely to cover a number of years. Home ownership is a matter both of saving and of security and contentment. \par \par Our finances may always continue to be something of a problem; but nobody has an easy time in this matter, not even those who seem to have \par \par TIME, VACATION, MONET 145 \par \par much more than we. If the truth were known, some of them may be envyin