Holding an Audience by Arthur G. Daniells

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 24, 1911

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 88, No. 34.

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Holding an Audience

By Arthur G. Daniells

The Gospel Ministry — No. 6

Holding an Audience

(A synopsis of Bible studies given at the Philadelphia ministerial institute.)

House-to-House Visitation

ONE of the greatest secrets of holding an audience is to visit as many of the members in their homes as possible. The minister who is active and faithful in house-to-house visitation will get a strong hold upon his audience, and keep it together. Such an important element of success in a minister's work should not be neglected. Many people are hungering and thirsting for the living water, and the minister who visits them and prays with them, will have great influence and power for good. In large cities, Bible workers must help the minister to do this work, but the minister himself must take part in it. Coming into contact with the people will help him to preach better.

Good Preaching

Good preaching is one of the best methods of holding an audience. This is next to house-to-house work in importance. A preacher should exert himself all through his ministry to rise above a tame, prosy manner. He should speak to the people so earnestly and forcibly that he will make them feel that he surely has a message from God. He must summon all his energies and throw them into his effort. His inherited tendencies that are not designed for public exhibition must be overcome, that he may do the best work possible for his Lord.

The minister should ever strive to improve. A man who can learn to read and speak at all, can learn to read and speak well. There is no limit to the improvement he can make. He ought to do better work every year. But the fact is, many fail to keep on improving. They are very anxious about making a good start. They want their first sermons to be good, and so they make great preparation during the first year or two of their ministry. But when they find that they are able to present the truth fairly well, they cease to put forth their most earnest efforts, and after a few years it is plain to all that they are no stronger nor more efficient in their ministry than they were at the end of the first year or two.

Length of the Sermon

Be brief. If a minister will prepare his sermon as he should, and preach with the earnestness he should, he will be able to crowd into a forty-five-minute sermon all that an ordinary audience can appropriate. If a minister will limit the length of his sermon to forty-five minutes, he will have better success, it will be better for the audience, and they will get a better idea of what he is trying to teach, than if he talks an hour or longer. These truths are new to the people, and we should present only what they can get hold of clearly.

Importance of Earnest Preaching

Great victories may be won on our knees with God in our ministry. It is to be feared that many a tent effort has closed in humiliating defeat, that might have closed in glorious triumph, if the workers had gone apart by themselves, and there prayed earnestly to God to move the hearts of the people. The Lord not only sends us to warn souls, but to win them to him. If people attend the meetings eight or ten weeks, and listen attentively to the truth, why can not they be prevailed upon to obey? We believe that it is the Spirit of God that causes people to come to our humble tent-meetings night after night; and if it is, it must be that that same Spirit will work mightily with us to lead people to decide for the truth.

Leading People to Decide to Obey the Truth

It is not enough to lead people to decide. We must lead them to decide to obey. It makes no difference whether we have five or five hundred, we want to lead as many of them as possible to decide for the truth. We do not expect that everybody that hears us will obey. There are things working in the hearts and lives of people which prevent that; but we must expect that some of the seed will fall into good ground.

The first item, and one of the chief elements in this, is the earnestness of the preacher and the workers. Of course, we know it is the Spirit that leads them to obey; but we ourselves must be tremendously in earnest about this work, and preach God's truth as if we believed it with all our hearts.

The second item of importance is personal work, meeting the people where they are. Go out and visit with the men; get hold of certain business men in the town, who are coming to the tent, or whose families are coming. Do not hinder them in their work, but run in for a few minutes and have a personal talk with them. It will help them to be friendly, and they will encourage their families to go to the meetings, even though they themselves may not take their stand for the truth. If we will preach the truth with all our souls, those men will see that we are in earnest; and they like to see earnest preachers. They would rather hear a man preach the message with earnestness than have him give a moral essay. Earnestness will make up for many things that we do not have in our work. We may not have a finely carpeted church, a grand pipe-organ, and all that; but it is what people get from a sermon that makes the place desirable to them.

So in bringing people to a decision, a preacher must be earnest, he must do personal work, and pray. In order to bind off his work well, he must do thorough work, preaching the whole truth. He must not round the corners, bringing out only the pleasing features of the message. He must preach God's truth as it is, using wisdom in the order in which he presents his subjects. When people take their stand under such work, they are not likely to waver a little later on, when another preacher comes around and preaches something that they have not heard from the first preacher. The one who preaches the message first, should be so thorough, and give the message so fully, that when the people take their stand, they will do so with a fair understanding of the whole truth.

A. G. DANIELLS.