The standard for the gospel ministry has been placed high by the speakers thus far in this convention, but none too high; and it is only reasonable that we, as Seventh-day Adventist ministers, should, more than any others, determine to reach it in the name and by the power of the Lord of hosts.
If we improve our ministry, we must give more time and thought to it. I consider that the discussion of this question at this session of our General Conference will prove to be a good step toward the much-desired result. The end sought is worthy of the time and labor bestowed. “Agitate and educate,” is as truly important in this line as in any other.
1. We should study carefully what constitute the qualifications necessary to a successful ministry in this cause. It is not enough to do this occasionally at our sessions of the General Conference. Doubtless more might be done through our periodicals, and by work in the local field, to stimulate prayerful thought on this subject; but the real power must be found, and will be found, by us each, in our closets. Our motto should be, “As for me and my house.” It is useless for us to give rules, unless our lives constitute an inspiration for improvement.
2. We must encourage only such men to enter the field as give evidence of fitness for the work. On this point I would ask, first, Is the man spiritual? Second, Has he a proper education? Under this head I would know that he knows the great foundation truths which have made us a separate people, and that he regards them as his message.
3. Adaptability, or aptness to teach. A man may be spiritual and educated, but if he is not “apt to teach,” he is not fitted for the ministry. 1 Tim. 3:2.
4. Earnestness and diligence. A lazy man is a curse anywhere, but especially so in the Seventh-day Adventist ministry. It matters not what other qualifications a minister may have, if he is not giving evidence of doing honest, faithful service daily, he needs improving or removing. He who is each day seeking to do his best is each day fitted to do better and still better service, and can say with the apostle, “I die daily.”
As “ministry” means “service,” the only way we can improve the ministry is to improve the service. Service should be considered from the standpoint of both quantity and quality. One may do much, and another do little, and neither do anything well. It has been said, “Not how much, but how well.”
I wish to say a few words first concerning pulpit service. We need to study simplicity, clearness, and brevity. A minister who holds his audience an hour to tell them a little truth that he might tell them plainly in thirty minutes, ought to join the ministerial improvement society. He is like the farmer who made his cow drink a large pailful of water to get a lone potato or two at the bottom. If the minister has only a potato to give, let him give it in the name of the Lord, and direct the people to the well of salvation for water.
The only watering of truth that God accepts is tears whose well-springs are hearts burdened for the salvation of men. If our pail is full of good food, let us bear in mind that too much food at one meal is injurious.
One of the heaviest crosses we as ministers have to take up is marked “brevity,” but I am convinced that it constitutes one of the necessary steps to the improvement of our ministry.
Our Study
“God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”13
We each need daily to study the cross of Christ, and we must see it in the light of the everlasting gospel message of to-day. We are told that the cross of Christ will constitute the science and the song of the redeemed throughout eternity. Let us study that science, and learn that song as a present reality, or we can not do the work before us. To the extent that we do this as ministers, the ministry will be improved.
Some seem to think that almost any one can preach. But true preaching is as certainly a science as anything in this world; and he who thinks this science is gained without heartfelt struggles and painstaking effort is most sadly mistaken.
Our ministry is not so strong to-day as it might be, and as it ought to be, because we have not counted the cost, or, after counting it, have not paid the bill.
We are told that many of our ministers will have an account to render to God for rusted talents, that many who are weak to-day might be intellectual giants if they had properly used their God-given powers. “Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, It might have been.”
The doctor spends from three to four years of hard study to fit himself to minister to man's physical needs. The laws of the land demand this, for the life of man is at stake. Shall these things be, and we encourage men, either by word or by vote, to go out and practise upon the souls of men without a test of ability or fitness?
I do not claim that a college course is necessary to fit a man for the ministry, but I do hold that every man who is allowed to enter the ministry either as an ordained evangelist or as a Bible worker, should have a good understanding of the language he is to speak to the people.
I am far from making this the essential thing, but it should be recognized as one of the essentials. I can not think of a sadder travesty upon the religion and work of Christ than for his church to sanction or tolerate a cheap, or incompetent, ministry. The message we have to give to the world may properly be called the last book, or, if you please, the advanced calculus of gospel science. It embraces the graduation lessons on truth that fit a people for translation. I would that we might sense deeply our high calling and the demands of the hour.
While we can not get our fitness alone from school-books, or even from the study of the Bible in our schools, the times demand, and reasonably too, that our ministers study books and apply themselves till they can read and pronounce and arrange words properly. Every minister should have a good vocabulary of choice words. Let us avoid slang phrases, and all questionable expressions.
We have the grandest and most beautiful truth the world can ever know, and it seems sad to hear men clothe it in ragged grammar and tattered rhetoric. While we have no right to depend upon grammar or rhetoric to convert a sinful heart, we do have the right to expect the power of the Spirit of God to rest upon the minister, who, not for his own glory, but for the glory of God, seeks to clothe God's precious truth in as respectable a dress as possible, that the ears of men and women of letters who come to hear may not be jarred, and they be driven away by discords in expression.
I have no disposition to try to catch my ministering brethren in their speech, but I have heard such expressions as the following over and over again in a single sermon: “Jesus loves you and I;” “He died for you and I;” “He came to save you and I;” “We hadn't ought to reject his offers of mercy;” “He had went,” “government,” or worse even, “guvmunt,” for “government;” “Jeruslum,” for “Jerusalem;” and “doin'” and “goin'.” I once heard quite an energetic Seventh-day Adventist minister quote the Saviour's sad doom upon Jerusalem as follows: “O Juicelum, Juicelum, etc.”
It is sad to stand at the tent or church door as the people pass out, and hear such expressions as the following: “Well, that fellow knows how to slaughter the king's English, doesn't he?” I believe that these blunders are not all the result of ignorance, but are due to lack of thought, and, brethren, we must not be careless in God's work, for God has said, “Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently [carelessly].” Careless attitudes and actions in the pulpit also tend to cheapen our work, and weaken our ability to do the sacred work of God.
I believe our ministry might be improved in these things if we had the moral courage to tell one another of these mistakes, in the spirit of Christ, and “between thee and him alone.”
We are also in danger on the other side of this question, when unnecessary time is spent in shaping and polishing language. When this is the case, the dress hides the soul-saving truth. The speaker sees his words and sentences; he watches anxiously to bring his climax at such a time and in such a way that it will sparkle just so, and thus he loses sight of souls who are waiting before him for the bread of life. The congregation usually sees what the minister sees. If he sees himself, they see him, and when they go out they say, “What a wonderful sermon!” instead of, “What a wonderful truth!”
The science of preaching lies with the men who know how to hide behind the cross; who see Christ and him crucified, and enable their audiences to see all their clean-cut words and beautiful figures adorning not a man, but a soul-saving truth. Rhetoric and oratory are most blessed gifts if in the hands of a sanctified minister.
The ministers who are improving are the ones who are crying daily to God for help to speak his word faithfully. They are the men who, at the close of every sermon, cry earnestly, “Lord, teach me how I can do better next time.”
All-Round Men
Success in our ministry demands more than pulpit service, however good that may be. The Testimonies to ministers have said that the minister should realize, when he leaves his desk, that his work is but just begun. The science of true study and ministry is to be largely learned in the homes of the people. He who shuts himself away from this part, or excuses himself from it without excellent reasons, is severing the very sinews of his strength, and he need expect but little fruit from his labor. The minister, in the highest sense, yea, in every sense, is a missionary. His business is the science of getting to the people—meeting them where they are, and convincing them that both he and God are seeking them in love. The world's greatest minister, and greatest preacher too, “for no man spake like this man,” met the people in the home, in the field, by the sea, in the mountain, everywhere. He walked and talked with men daily; he touched blind eyes, leprous flesh, and said with tenderness, “Go in peace.”
Christ called Zacchaeus down from the tree, and invited himself to dine with that rich man, and before he left, he said to him, “This day is salvation come to thy house.” This ought to mean much to us.
The most comprehensive testimony concerning Christ's ministry is found in the words, “Who went about doing good.” I can but believe that his talks by the way, which doubtless caused many more than the two disciples to say, “Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?” were as powerful sermons as that one so often quoted, “the sermon on the mount.”
As we cease to study the life and work of Christ, we shall cease to preach Christ. We may preach about Christ, and about “our message,” but he who really preaches these great gifts of God to man, must have them as a part of himself.
How can a minister give proper direction to his Bible workers if he is not a Bible worker himself? How can a minister lead others to pay tithes if he does not pay tithes himself? How can he properly impress upon his people the value of our papers and books if he has not read them, and does not read them himself? How can he enthuse men with the importance of the canvassing work if he has never canvassed, and does not himself sell our literature?
The value of a minister in this cause depends much upon how he is born and educated. We need all-round men—men who have the message, not a fragment.
Whom Shall We Encourage to Enter the Ministry?
I strongly plead for young men who14are willing to study to show themselves approved of God,—men who are willing to step on the first round of the ladder first, and not the last round first,—men who are willing, and will keep in touch with each round as they go forward and upward. As the three messages of Revelation fourteen are a threefold message, a message in which the first joined and went with the second, and the first and second joined and are going with the third, and no man can preach “our message” unless he preaches it that way, so I believe the different parts of our evangelistic work constitute natural steps, each one of which leads to the next one, and goes with it step by step till one grand whole moves forward to victory.
I believe the most successful ministers are those who are willing to and will take the steps in their order. The first step toward the ministry is the study of the gospel as revealed in the messages for to-day. Who can say, I have finished that step, and can leave it behind as I reach the second? As the personal reading and study of the truth is the first step toward the ministry, that, instead of preaching, must be the laborer's first work with the people. Can he ever cease working to place the pages of truth in the hands of the people and helping them to study them?
The Bible worker or minister who comes again and again in contact with the same individuals has the greatest influence (if he will use it) to get men and women to study the life-saving truth. The canvasser can bring it to the door, and leave it on the center-table, but the minister of Jesus Christ can lead the people to open the book and study.
When a young man says to me, “I have no burden for the canvassing work, but I feel that the Lord is calling me to enter the Bible work or the ministry,” I decide positively that I shall not lay hands suddenly on his head. The young man who longs to be called “elder,” and hastens to have it printed on his Bible and hymn-book, has little conception of the sacred work to which he aspires. He needs to study Phil. 2:5-8, and pray for an understanding heart.
In closing this topic, “Whom shall we encourage to enter the ministry,” let me suggest that our schools are designed of God to furnish the men needed.
Our ministers, and also the teachers in our schools, should be carefully watching the young men in our academies and colleges, and should encourage them to fit themselves for the work of God. Those young men who show themselves to be students, those who master difficulties, and reveal a true missionary spirit, and who are ready to go anywhere and do anything they can to forward the work of God, should be encouraged to enter the field. They will not seek or desire to jump into the pulpit. The thought of it will cause them to tremble; but they will seek by contact with the people on the first round in the ladder to prepare for the great and sacred work of the gospel ministry.