A 05 -The Minister In His Community
CHAPTER FIVE IN HIS COMMUNITY THE MINISTER IN HIS COMMUNITY THE minister’s sphere is larger than his own parish. “The field is the world,” and he is related to the whole field. It would be as illogical as it is unscriptural for a minister to care for his own parish and leave the regions beyond to the missionaries in foreign lands. But this address deals chiefly with those near-by relations that involve the minister’s visible life. His relation to other ministers is one of equality. No matter what education and what forms of ordination induct them into church relations the highest position is that to which ministers are called and ordained by the Holy Ghost. Any superiority claimed by one class of ministers, above another class of ministers, is of human origin and unsupported by Scripture or historic facts. The highest call and the highest ordination is by the Spirit of God.
Paul was never ordained by the church; in fact, the church refused to accept him at first. This principle of equality should be recognized by all ministers. The question of a closed pulpit might be justified by church polity, but not by the word of God. Jesus went into Jewish synagogues though the synagogue was not orthodox in the gospel sense. It is not a question of intellectual orthodoxy, but of spiritual life.
Other ministers should be accorded genuine recognition in our hearts and in our churches. The one should be as open as the other. The presumption is that this subject includes ministers of one’s own denomination as well as other denominations. It includes all ministers of Jesus Christ. The minister’s relation to them should be fraternal, frank, co-operative. Congregations follow ministers more than either knows. Unbrotherly ministers estrange congregations and weaken Christianity. It is not the divisions of Protestantism so much that weaken its force as the ignorance and unbrotherliness of ministers; and that sometimes inside the pale of the same denomination. Petty jealousies, unholy ambitions, political scheming, and hostile attitudes have defiled the ministry and reduced church efficiency. Fraternal relations must not be feigned, but frank, growing out of heartfelt genuine brotherly love. This feeling may be cultivated like any other Christian grace; and no minister should wait for others to make the advance. If snubbed, do not recognize it. Persist in brotherly advances and win out in your own soul, if you do not with other ministers. Jesus did not agree with all men, nor was He well received by all; but He was genuinely fraternal and affectionate towards all men. Ministers should be known, as t’he early Christians were known, by their love for one another. Co-operation is a law of nature, a law in modern business, and should be a law among ministers. The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America has undertaken the Herculean task of cultivating this principle, not only among ministers, but among denominations; and wonderful results are flowing from this movement. In every community, ministers should co-operate in all common interests of the kingdom; such as temperance, Sabbath observance, social virtue, charity. Some things are too large for one minister, yet easy for all. In some communities ministers are less cordial than business men or society women; but it should be remembered, always that ministers are responsible for the unbrotherly feeling, unrighteous treatment, and unchristian spirit among churches and people.
Negative wrong often counteracts positive good.
Individual churches lose as well as whole communities by ministerial aloofness or antagonism. The gospel lived is more potent than the gospel preached. This is seen in the life of Jesus who came to fulfil the law. His personal life was more than the ten commandments or the Sermon on the Mount.
Ministerial association is essential to these conditions. It is not time wasted for ministers to meet and exchange views and cultivate personal attachments. They will learn from one another and inspire one another. It will harmonize their pulpit ministrations and justify their association.
Churches watch ministers in their relation to other churches than their own. Proselytism is one inexcusable fault in ministers. Were it right to win members from one church to another, it would add nothing to the Kingdom.
It is ecclesiastical gambling, one gains, another loses; nothing is added. Besides this, it disgusts intelligence not to say piety. The minister who enters another’s flock and wins members is a thief and a robber. If members change, for reasons of their own, it is their matter and no blame attaches to the minister.
It is the minister’s business to look after the lost and all know there are many of them. His work is to save sinners; membership is secondary. This remark is made because it is one of the hard lessons to learn and harder to practice. In revival results it is difficult for the minister to be willing for converts to go to another church, but let him grow in that direction. The difficulty is not in winning members, but in holding and developing them.
Consideration for other churches, in planning for one’s own, should enter into the equation of relation to them. It would be discourteous to hold some great social or musical affair in the midst of a revival in another church, in the same community. As far as possible all plans outside of regular services should include other churches. Churches should be neighborly institutions. Even social courtesy would call off a dance next to a home darkened by a death.
Churches are really in a position to set standards of social courtesy and to do it in such genuine fashion as to teach great lessons by great kindnesses. Ministers should keep in touch with other churches and set an example worthy of imitation. The minister can do much good by visits 1 to services in other churches. Congregations appreciate it more than ministers imagine.
While modern opinion feels that ministers are not held in the same respect as in former days, yet that view is not sustained by facts any more t’han that religion is declining, because people do not shout in meeting. Intelligence reduces noise and distance. Ministers are closer to the people now, but not less regarded, if their lives represent real ministerial worth and fraternity. A visit to a funeral, a special service, a marriage, any meeting is almost a personal visit to the individual members. The church is ignorant of herself and this multiplies the spiritual reasons for such visits and intercourse. The minister is more than an individual and must do most of his service in a public capacity.
Exchange of pulpits, where church polity does not bar the way, has value in this matter of enlightenment and fortification. Business associations look to the common good and churches need this for progress. Any man or institution that lives within itself becomes casehardened. Even crabs throw off their shells to grow larger; and the chick comes out of the shell to grow in the barnyard. We might introduee interchurch lines as well as interurban lines. The ocean flows toward the rivers and the rivers toward the tides; a stagnant sea would mean a dead sea; and a stagnant river would mean a river of death; flowing together they enrich the valleys and give health to continents. “When a minister turns a good current into another church that church meets it with a purifying tide and good feeling. Never extend ministerial courtesy for popularity: do it because it is Christian. The minister is related to the community as well as to churches. The community is the largest body near by him. There is nothing so keen-eyed and so heartless as the public. It never nails its victims to the cross with tack hammers. It wields a sledge hammer with the arm of a Hercules and drives great spikes through its victim. But the gentleness of giant strength is the tenderest of all. There is no water so gentle and so graceful in its movements as the thin wavelets of the mighty ocean as they smoothe the tiny grains of sand on the white strand. A baby may paddle in the gentle waters. The sun would consume the world as your stove the paper you throw into it; yet his beams touch the tiniest flower with a gentleness that dries up the dewdrop in its bright face and fills its life with sweetness. The big fireman lifts the babe from the burning house with hands that might grace an angel; though with those same strong arms he seizes the resisting burglar and leads him to prison. That huge thing we call “the public” passes judgment on ministers and judges Christianity by them. The public reads papers, men, current events. The public does not read the Bible. Ministers, Sunday-school teachers, invalids, and decrepits read the Bible. The public reads the “living epistles read and known by all men.” The ministers are the pages read most thoroughly and most often. Here is the minister’s largest opportunity. He is the latest edition of Christianity. He circulates in society. They discuss him around the fireside, in the political meeting, in the saloon. He is not simply a clergyman, he is a man of God. The minister cannot preach to the community from his pulpit. Many people never enter church. He cannot visit every home, the task is beyond any one person. How shall he reach the community? By a life that contains all the essential elements of Christian manhood. Is he lazy? The community knows it. Does the ledger show him in debt? Every body knows it. Is he socially indiscreet? It is the community gossip’s feast. Does he neglect the poor and ignorant? The air is full of it. No matter what he is, or what he is not; he is known and many estimate the gospel and the church by him. Here is a field large enough for all his power of influence. He need not know more about any one thing than anybody else, but he should know about more things than any other person in the community. His life must interpret his teaching, and his experience must touch God and humanity, not a few people.
Jesus saved but one man in Gadara, but He touched the whole community. The minister may visit the sick, bury the dead, and help the destitute outside of his parish, with the same sympathy and willingness as he ministers to those in his own congregation.
Respond to all calls of real need and do it in the name of Jesus Christ, and not in the interest of your own church. The minister does not have to own property, do business, hold office, or belong to lodges to fill his true relation to the community. He is called to the task of living before the community all the virtues and graces that can cleanse the heart, purify politics, make honest business, expel evils from society, and cultivate a sensitive conscience. He deals with individuals; but his largest work is for the community. A negative view of his relation to the community will more clearly express his value. Eliminate the minister entirely from the community; let him fail in honesty, virtue, industry, or humility, and see what remains. He is a moral force, a spiritual personality, a divinely chosen teacher, a living example in the community. Every working man ought to do better work, every ’home ought to be happier, every business house ought to be more honest, every neighbor ought to be more neighborly, every life ought to be 1 purer, because the minister lives and moves and preaches in the community. His value is not in what he has, what he does, or what he says, but in what he is. A live horse has a value all his own. A dead horse does a damage all his own. The minister need not get rich himself, but the community ought to be richer because he is in it.