The Importance and Advantages of Personal Work

In our study of the various forms of Christian

activity, we begin with "Personal Work," that

hand-to-hand dealing with men, women and children.

We begin with it because it is the simplest form

of Christian work, the kind that every one can do.

It is also the most effective method of winning

lost souls. The Apostle Peter was brought to Jesus

by the hand-to-hand work of his brother Andrew.

Andrew first found Christ himself, then he went to

Peter quietly and told him of his great find, and

thus he led Peter to the Savior he himself had

found. I do not know that Andrew ever preached a

sermon; if he did it is not recorded; but he did a

great day's work when he led his brother Peter to

Jesus. Peter preached a sermon that led to the

conversion of 3,000 people, but where would

Peter's great sermon have been if Andrew had not

first led him to Christ by quiet personal work?

Mr. Edward Kimball, a Boston business man, led D.

L. Moody, the young Boston shoe clerk, to the

Savior. Where would all Mr. Moody's wonderful work

for Christ have been if he himself had not been

led to the Savior by the faithful personal work of

his Sunday school teacher? I believe in preaching.

It is a great privilege to preach the Gospel, but

this world can be reached and evangelized far more

quickly and thoroughly by personal work than by

public preaching. Indeed, it can be reached and

evangelized only by personal work. When the whole

church of Jesus Christ shall rouse to its

responsibility and privilege in this matter, and

every individual Christian become a personal

worker, the evangelization of the world will be

close at hand. When the membership of any local

church shall rouse to its responsibility and

privilege in this matter, and each {10} member

become a personal worker in the power of the Holy

Spirit, a great revival will be close at hand for

the community in which that church is located.

Personal work is a work that wins but little

applause from men, but it accomplishes great

things for God.

There are many who think personal work beneath

their dignity and their gifts. A blind woman once

came to me and said, "Do you think that my

blindness will hinder me from working for the

Master?" "Not at all; it may be a great help to

you, for others seeing your blindness will come

and speak to you, and then you will have an

opportunity of giving your testimony for Christ,

and of leading them to the Savior." "Oh, that is

not what I want," she replied. "It seems to me a

waste of time when one might be speaking to five

or six hundred at once, just to be speaking to an

individual." I answered that our Lord and Savior

Jesus Christ was able to speak to more than five

thousand at once, and yet He never thought

personal work beneath His dignity or His gifts.

Indeed, it was the work the Savior loved to do. We

have more instances of our Savior's personal work

recorded in the Gospels that of His preaching. The

one who is above personal work is above his

Master.

ITS ADVANTAGES.

Let us look at the advantages of personal work.

1. ALL CAN DO IT. In an average congregation there

are not more than four or five who can preach to

edification. It would be a great pity, too, should

all attempt to become preachers; it would be a

great blessing if all would become personal

workers. Any child of God can do personal work,

and all can learn to do effective personal work.

The mother who is confined at home by multiplicity

of home duties can still do personal work, first

of all with her own children, and then with the

servants in the home, with the butcher, the

grocer, the tramp who calls at the door, in fact,

with everybody who comes within reach. I once knew

a mother very gifted in the matter of bringing her

own children up in the nurture and admonition of

the Lord, who lamented that she could not do some

work for Christ. I watched this woman carefully,

and found that almost every one who came to the

house in any capacity was spoken to about the

Savior, and she was, in point of fact, doing {11}

more for Christ in the way of direct evangelistic

work than most pastors.

Even the one shut up at home by sickness can do

personal work. As friends come to the sick bed, a

word of testimony can be given for Christ, or even

an extended conversation can be held. A little

girl of twelve, the child of very poor parents,

lay dying in the city of Minneapolis. She let her

light shine for the Master, and spoke among others

to a godless physician, to whom, perhaps, no one

else had ever spoken about Christ. A poor girl in

New York City, who was rescued from the slums and

died a year or two afterwards, was used of God to

lead about one hundred men and women to Christ,

while lying upon her dying bed.

Even the servant girl can do effective personal

work. Lord Shaftesbury, the great English

philanthropist, was won to Christ in a godless

home by the effective work of a nurse girl.

Traveling men have unusually good opportunities

for doing personal work, as they travel on the

trains from town to town, as they stop in one

hotel after another and go from store to store. A

professional nurse once came into my Bible class

in Chicago, and at the close of the meeting

approached me and said: "I was led to Christ by

Mr.--- [a traveling man connected with a large

wholesale house]. I was in a hotel parlor, and

this gentleman saw me and walked across the parlor

and asked me if I was a Christian, and when I told

him I was not, he proceeded at once to show me the

way of life. I was so startled and impressed to

find a traveling man leading others to Christ that

I accepted Him as my Savior then and there. He

told me if I ever came to Chicago to come to your

Bible class." I have watched this woman for years

since, and she herself is a most devoted Christian

and effective worker.

How enormous and wonderful and glorious would be

the results if all Christians should begin to be

active personal workers to the extent of their

ability! Nothing else would do so much to promote

a revival in any community, and in the land at

large. Every Pastor should urge this duty upon his

people, train them for it, and see that they do

it.

2. IT CAN BE DONE ANYWHERE. There are but few

places where one can preach. There is no place

where one cannot do personal {12} work. How

often, as we pass factories, engine houses,

lodging houses and other places where crowds are

gathered, do we wish that we might get into them

and preach the Gospel, but generally this is

impossible, but it is altogether possible to go in

and do personal work. Furthermore, we can do

personal work on the street, whether street

meetings are allowed or not. We can do personal

work in the homes of the poor and in the homes of

the rich, in hospitals, workhouses, jails, station

houses, and all sorts of institutions -- in a

word, everywhere.

3. IT CAN BE DONE AT ANY TIME. The times when we

can have preaching services and Sunday schools are

quite limited. As a rule, in most communities, we

cannot have services more than two or three days

in the week, and only three or four hours in the

day, but personal work can be done seven days in

the week, and any time of day or night. Some of

the best personal work done in this country in the

last twenty years has been done on the streets at

midnight and after midnight. Those who love souls

have walked the streets looking for wanderers, and

have gone into dens of vice seeking the lost

sheep, and hundreds upon hundreds of them have

thus been found.

4. IT REACHES ALL CLASSES. There are large classes

of men that no other method will reach. There are

the shut-ins who cannot get out to church, the

street-car men, the policemen, railroad

conductors, sleeping-car men, firemen, the very

poor and the very rich. Some cannot and others

will not attend church or cottage meeting or

mission meeting, but personal work can reach them

all.

5. IT HITS THE MARK. Preaching is necessarily

general; personal work is direct and personal.

There is no mistaking who is meant, there is no

dodging the arrow, there is no possibility of

giving what is said away to some one else. Many

whom even so expert a Gospel preacher as Mr. Moody

has missed have been afterwards reached by

personal work.

6. IT MEETS THE DEFINITE NEED, AND EVERY NEED OF

THE PERSON DEALT WITH. Even when men are aroused

and convicted, and perhaps converted, by a sermon,

personal work is necessary to bring out into clear

light and into a satisfactory experience one whom

the sermon has thus aroused, convicted and

converted. {13}

7. IT AVAILS WHERE OTHER METHODS FAIL. One of my

best workers told me a few weeks ago that she had

attended church for years, and had wanted to

become a Christian. She had listened to some of

the best-known preachers, and still was unsaved,

but the very first inquiry meeting she went into

she was saved because some one came and dealt with

her personally.

8. IT PRODUCES VERY LARGE RESULTS. There is no

comparison whatever between what will be effected

by good preaching and what will be effected by

constant personal work. Take a church of one

hundred members; such a church under an excellent

pastor would be considered as doing an

exceptionally good work if on an average fifty

were added annually to this membership. But

suppose that that church was trained to do

personal work, and that fifty of the one hundred

members actually went at it. Certainly one a month

won to Christ by each one would not be a large

average. That would be six hundred a year instead

of the fifty mentioned above. A church of many

members, with the most powerful preaching

possible, that depends upon the minister alone to

win men to Christ by his preaching, would not

accomplish anything like what would be

accomplished by a church with a comparatively poor

preacher, where the membership generally were

personal workers.