p. 100 | Is it Right? by John H. Waggoner

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 15, 1870

Is it Right?

By John H. Waggoner

It sometimes happens that ministers are occupied with their own personal matters a large part of the time, but break away from temporal affairs to attend Monthly or Quarterly Meetings, and then throw in a bill for the time so employed. Now I have a few thoughts to offer on this subject:

1. In some cases these ministers are young and inexperienced, and are less qualified to take hold and help the work at a Monthly Meeting than the majority of lay members. Their counsel is comparatively worthless, and their preaching is really a hindrance, as it is very often the case that preaching is a detriment at Monthly Meetings.

There are places for all to work; places to help one another; where the tried or tempted should get help and encouragement from the faithful and experienced. Many a Monthly Meeting is a failure because the brethren and sisters, who ought to work and pray with and for one another, are simply preached to, and they go away barren of mind and spirit.

2. Whatever may be the calling or experience of a minister, if he is cumbered with temporal matters much of his time, he is not well prepared to labor in a Monthly Meeting. Indeed, the very fact that he has a call to the ministry, and is not fulfilling his calling, is evidence that he is not in a position to help those who are more nearly fulfilling their calling than he is his. If there is doubt of his call to the ministry, a Monthly Meeting is a doubtful place to prove the matter, for there the preaching should be most practical and searching.

3. It must be apparent to all, that if any one specially needs the influence of a good, spirited, devotional, social meeting, such as our monthly meetings should be, it is the minister in the condition above described. Why, then, should he receive pay for laying aside his worldly concerns to attend a meeting which he so much needs? And why should they who have experience in the things of God, who are fitted to do the labor that is required to be done in such meetings,

be called upon to pay for the attendance of another, who will, perhaps, stand in the way of the work?

4. The individual who has a call from God, though he lack age or experience in the work, if he has a due degree of heavenly wisdom, will not venture to sermonize before a company of believers who need labor of a different kind. Yet judicious, practical preaching may be just what is sometimes needed in a Monthly Meeting. Sanctified judgment to know precisely what is needed on such occasions is a very useful gift.

5. A person who is spending all his time in the ministry, and attends a Monthly Meeting, may with good reason receive compensation for his time, even though he is not best fitted to labor efficiently in such a meeting. It is right that he should get experience in all parts of the work, and but just that he be sustained, if his life is devoted to the work.

6. And if any are tried by these things to doubt whether they have a calling, I would say, a person may have a call from God, even though they are unfaithful for a time. But if any suffer their feelings to be touched, and fears arise, lest they should not be well paid for their labor, it is evidence, rendering it at least probable, that their call is a selfish one. One thing is certain, they will never be efficient in the work until their burden for money has entirely passed away, and a sense of the value of souls, the sacredness of the cause, and a spirit of groaning for acceptance with God, have taken its place.

J. H. WAGGONER.