Lloyd C Douglas – The Lloyd C Douglas Page

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 3g: Helping the Minister

A page from Lloyd C. Douglas, “Wanted—A Congregation, Third Phase—The Sermon Sample,” in the August 26, 1920, issue of The Christian Century.

[The following is an excerpt from the third installment of Lloyd Douglas’s series about the fictitious minister, Rev. D. Preston Blue in the Christian Century during summer/fall 1920. The series was called, “Wanted – A Congregation!”and the third installment, dated 8/26/1920, was titled, “The Sermon Sample.” Douglas has been talking about printing up attractive cards inviting non-members to an upcoming sermon series.]

“Now, the psychology back of this card business is somewhat as follows: When the Browns get a package of ten cards, attractively made and stamped, all ready for mailing, together with a little note from the minister asking them to sign these cards and address them to their non-church-going friends, they find themselves provided with the tools for accomplishing something definite for the church. Almost any man dislikes to see a good stamp wasted. Anyhow, he thinks he can do this much for Mr. Blue. So, the Browns make up a list, at the dinner table, of all the people who are to receive these cards. While discussing the names of such persons, it is quite natural that their own interest in the preacher’s proposition will be deepened. Surely after inviting the Smiths, Joneses, Whites, Greens, and all the rest of them to come to church on this significant occasion of the beginning of the minister’s series, they, themselves, will be sure to attend. All things considered, Blue has hit upon an idea not half bad.

“The cost of the adventure was a mere nothing, when it is compared to the actual working capacity of the scheme. Counting the mimeographed note of Mr. Blue to his members, asking them to make use of the enclosed cards, the postage, the cards, and the clerical work, he has tied up about $21.50 [in 1920s dollars]. If that amount does not come in on October third in the increased cash collection, Blue can feel that somewhere along the line he foozled his own scheme. Need it be said that his note accompanying the cards should do no Dearly Beloveding or begging; neither should it be a long-winded explanation how to use these cards. He may assume that his people possess a rudimentary intelligence, at least. His note might run as follows:

My friends:

You will know exactly what to do with these cards. I hope you will like the idea. Let me suggest that you do it now – while you are thinking about the matter. I know you will be glad of this opportunity to do some practical boosting for Broad Street church, in addition to the good word you always have for her.

Cordially, ___

“Some preachers would write a letter after this manner:

Beloved brethren:

You will find enclosed a package of ten printed cards bearing announcements of a series of special sermons which are to begin on Sunday morning, October third. You will find that they are stamped and ready for mailing. (Etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.) (Ten more lines of explanations.)

“The trouble with this letter is that after the reader has gone into it to the extent of fifty words and has found no information that he had not previously arrived at from looking at the cards – which are sure to attract his attention before he reads the note, if they are made properly – he decides that there is nothing in the note that he doesn’t know, and tosses it aside. Rather than a flat, dull note, Mr. Blue had better send the cards out alone and let them tell their own story to the people who are to relay them to their friends.”

[To be continued in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 3f: Leading the Way

by Ronald R Johnson

[The following is an excerpt from the third installment of Lloyd Douglas’s series about the fictitious minister, Rev. D. Preston Blue in the Christian Century during summer/fall 1920. The series was called, “Wanted – A Congregation!” The third installment, dated 8/26/1920, was titled, “The Sermon Sample.”]

“We have seen the minister’s process of enlisting his congregation’s interest in his new aspiration to develop an inspiring crowd. He has sworn them in to the task of doing their utmost to get their friends out to church on the particular date he has announced. But, as he recalls their pitifully ineffective efforts to perform such service in the past, he decides that they should be shown the way. He resolves to suggest a process to them.

“He goes to his printer with a card in mind – a card 6 x 3-1/4 – to be placed in their hands for distribution. Wait a minute! One knows exactly what you are going to say – that Blue is wasting his money – that the people will make no use of these cards at all. Just hold up a minute, please! Blue has some ideas that may be new.

“The reason that most of the ‘envelope stuff’ that the minister usually issues for advertising purposes is a mere waste of time, money, and effort may be accounted for on the ground that the printing is cheap – looks cheap – and the text dull and trite. One cannot afford to be economical in this business. Oh, what stupid cards many preachers circulate among their people – cards composed with no care whatsoever – mostly in the nature of a sad note beginning, ‘Dearly Beloved’ and closing with ‘Faithfully yours.’ No – that is a waste of good money. All the people who will read a card beginning ‘Dearly Beloved’ will get to church without any assistance.

“Blue is going to preach on ‘Shipwrecks.’ Isn’t it the most simple thing in the world for him to inquire of the printer whether he owns a ‘cut’ of a ship? Well – the printer doesn’t happen to have one; but he does own a big catalog of a type foundry; perhaps if Mr. Blue will look through that book, he may happen upon the very thing he has in mind.

“This book is a great revelation to the Rev. D. Preston Blue. He had never known there was such a thing. Here he has access to all manner of little cuts – ships, dynamos, dredges, fire apparatus, trees – of all kinds and sizes – flowers, birds, patriotic eagles, doves of peace, bluebirds ‘for happiness.’ Why – just to sit and study that book for an hour is good for enough material to stock a dozen sermons. Blue tells the printer to order him enough of the tiny cuts to make a border (36 pt.) all around the card, and two cuts of ships (inch) for marginal decoration. He leaves copy for the card, as follows:

SHIPWRECKS

A SERIES OF OCTOBER SUNDAY MORNING SERMONS

At the Broad Street Church

By Rev. D. Preston Blue

October third – ‘THE TITANIC’

October tenth – ‘THE EASTLAND’

October seventeenth – ‘THE IBERNIA’

A cordial invitation is extended to you by ______.

“There are one hundred active families in Broad Street church. That is – if one is not too punctilious about fine shadings of such words as ‘active.’ Blue has decided that he will make up enough of these cards to supply every family with five, except about twenty homes which may be trusted to make good use of so many as ten each. He proposes to mail one hundred cards himself to ‘prospectives’ and out-of-town friends who are on his mailing list – former members of the church removed to other places, occasional benefactors to the work of Broad Street church. All told, Blue needs 700 cards. He orders them printed in two colors – an orange border, with blue for the composition and marginal cuts. Cuts never cost very much, if ordered out of the regular stock.”

Douglas wasn’t making this up. Here is the card he used for a series of sermons he preached at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor, adjacent to the University of Michigan, in January 1916:

An invitation card used by the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor for a January 1916 series. In Douglas’s 1917 Scrapbook, Lloyd C Douglas Papers, Box 5, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.

[Douglas will continue his comments in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 3e: Shipwrecks

by Ronald R Johnson

“[Blue] had decided that he was going to make a strong bid for a crowd on Sunday morning, October third. This was to be the official opening of his campaign for a large congregation. Possibly this will be a good time to begin his contemplated series on ‘Shipwrecks.’ He commences to lay out his plans. The process takes many, many hours of hard labor. It requires as much thought as an architect puts into the blueprints for a new house. When he has mulled it all over, his private memorandum reads somewhat as follows:

October third – ‘The Titanic’ – unsinkable boat – not provided with lifeboats – lifeboats unnecessary because ship unsinkable – provided with palm gardens, gymnasium, swimming pool, elevators, etc. Sinks on her first voyage. Not prepared for an emergency. The Titanic kind of a life – modernly popular – pleasure-seeking, but unequipped with moral safeguards, faith, trust.

October tenth – ‘The Eastland’ – excursion boat – no ballast – wrecked at the wharf – never able to start with her human cargo. Like indulged youth that never has its chance at life – wrecked before it reaches the open water.

October seventeenth – ‘The Ibernia’ – destroyed by fire – coal ignites in the bunkers – proper that the coal should be burned – but not in the bunkers. Appetites, passions, ambitions of high value if made to function under required conditions – a menace if ‘burned in the bunkers.’

“Now, the problem of advertising this series of sermons in the papers is so simple that it needs no comment. Mr. Blue can buy enough space on Saturday in The Morning Star to give the public an advance notion of his themes, exactly after the manner of the ‘butcher boy’ in the train who presents each passenger with a few salted peanuts and comes around later to sell a bagful. Blue must not give his cause away by telling too much. Any active imagination can work this all out for Mr. Blue, should the latter be in doubt.”

[To be continued in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 3d: Launching the Sermon

by Ronald R Johnson

“Blue has resolved to begin no more sermons with the remark, ‘According to Usher,’ – so-and-so is this-that-or-some-other-thing. He has promised himself that he will never start another sermon with, ‘Scientists tell us that’ – whatever-it-is-that-they-tell-us. He has vowed himself a solemn pledge that he will never dig around again in a volume of canned stories for some tale wherewith to anaesthetize the saints. Never again will he spin a marine yarn about a shipwreck unless he is able to give the actual data. He is done with all disasters at sea that begin, ‘The story is told of a vessel foundered on the reef.’ No more will he attempt to point out a moral by telling a story of ‘a young man who broke his mother’s heart by his dissipation.’ No, sir; if he is going to deal with such a situation, he must make it glow with life and color, as did the Parable of the Prodigal – until, when he is well into it, his congregation knows that young fellow so well that they could almost draw a picture of him sitting among the hogs, ragged and ruined.

“Blue’s new trouble is to decide which is the very best of ten illustrations of a single point, instead of mooning over his dusty old books searching for some incident that may or may not have occurred back in 1842. Indeed, he is becoming so embarrassed with homiletic riches that he can’t pack everything into one sermon that properly belongs there. This leads him into the business of preaching most of his sermons in ‘series.’ It may take him three or four weeks to get through with one idea. For example, take the matter of shipwrecks. What causes shipwrecks? He had thought of preaching about it. He can do a sketchy job of outlining these causes in a single sermon, but he knows that there is material here for several sermons. He resolves to preach a series of sermons on ‘Shipwrecks.'”

[To be continued in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 3c: Automobiling and Religion

by Ronald R Johnson

“Since pretty nearly everybody in Centerville is interested in automobiles, Blue, after a long trip in his little car during his vacation, decides that he can do no better than preach a sermon on ‘The Courtesies of the Road,’ which he announces as of special interest to every man who drives a car. He has been in the ditch and has been dragged out at the end of a stranger’s rope. If he can’t find an illustration in that worthy to be mentioned in connection with the story of the Good Samaritan, he is a preacher who has no right to run a car! ‘Let your light so shine that men might see your good works,’ muses Blue as he waits, blinded by some discourteous fellow’s glare, fearful to go on lest he slip off the road. Indeed, as he figures on the possibilities of this theme, his little car becomes alive with illustrations – flat tires, flooded carburetor, defective ignition, overcharged battery, burned-out brakes! Blue begins to understand why all Palestine had followed him about who had made homiletic capital of everything he saw along the road – men building houses, children at play, farmers plowing, women baking, fishermen casting nets, fruit growers mulching a fig tree, camels being unloaded to pass a narrow gate, merchants driving bargains, threshers wielding flails, masons laying brick. Surely, if it did not undignify the Great Preacher to light up his sermons with illustrations about brooms, crumbs, chaff, pennies, dogs, birds, grass, yeast, mustard-seed, and manure, he, Blue, could at least afford to keep his eyes open for the significance of the little, homely facts in common experience.

“If this mention of Blue’s new interest in sermonic materials seems to be slightly off the subject of his great desire to recruit a large congregation, one may justify the digression on the ground that no amount of advertising is going to help Mr. Blue’s pulpit unless the preacher is prepared to interest his audience when he gets it. He recalls with humiliation the ingenuously brutal remark of his own small daughter who, when asked why she didn’t want to go to church, replied, ‘Oh, church is nothing but a lot of old men sleeping, and nice old ladies waving fans!’ That had been a pretty hard jolt – doubly shocking because of its strict adherence to the truth!”

[To be continued in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 3b: Samples of Sermons

by Ronald R Johnson

“Our friend Blue is becoming more and more convinced every day that the way to call the public’s attention to the alluring attractiveness of the gospel is to come before the people occasionally with an interesting sample of it. He has been practicing on the composition of sermon abstracts for the Monday papers. They are so readable that people are coming to look at them, now, with eagerness. Already there is an appreciable increase in his congregation due to the publicity his pulpit is receiving from this quarter. His little homilies in the papers deal with some one fact of common interest, introduced with a simple illustration chosen from people’s everyday experience.

“Moreover, he has decided that if this is a good method to pursue in print, it is no less correct in the pulpit. He discovers, with some chagrin, that he has been consistently ‘overshooting.’ His sermons have been made up of abstractions – true and edifying, but bromidic. Noting, now, the way the eyes of his auditors light up when he leads a sermon with some practical illustration, Blue has begun to cultivate a ‘homiletic mood.’ No event, however trivial, gets by him these days without giving a good account of itself as a possible illustration of some spiritual verity. The woman with the apple puts him on the track of a brilliant idea about concentrating people’s attention on a single concept and making that one concept so attractive that it needs no argument. Indeed, Blue is going about now with his eyes and ears open. He snaps the electric switch beside his study door and gets no light. What is the matter? Is the trouble in the lamp or up in the attic inside the fuse box, or down on Tenth Street at the powerhouse? Clearly it is not at the powerhouse, for the neighbor’s lamps are brightly burning. And while he hunts for the cause of the annoyance, he is evolving a perfectly corking illustration which he means to use as the lead to a sermon on ‘The Darkened Room.’ Nothing in the Bible to fit it? What is the matter with the Parable of the Virgins?

“Of course, he does not rush to his pulpit with this matter until he has had time to think it all through carefully. He goes down to the powerhouse and talks to the manager, explaining exactly why he wants to know all the causes of defective lamps, interrupted power, broken wires, and burned-out fuses. Incidentally, while learning something useful, he makes a new friendship.”

[To be continued in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 3a: Knowing the Value of Your Message

by Ronald R Johnson

Title page of Lloyd C. Douglas, “Wanted—A Congregation, Third Phase—The Sermon Sample,” in the August 26, 1920, issue of The Christian Century.

[The following is from the third installment in Lloyd Douglas’s series, “Wanted—A Congregation!” in the summer and fall of 1920. This installment, dated 8/26/1920, is titled, “Third Phase—The Sermon Sample.” The series is about the Reverend D. Preston Blue, who is on a campaign to enlarge his audience.]

“Late one afternoon when the Blues were sitting out on their front porch talking things over, a woman sauntered up the steps peeling an apple. She smiled pleasantly but said nothing; not even ‘how-de-do’ – just smiled and peeled. Neither did the Blues disturb the silence, so fascinated were they by the performance of the woman who was skinning the rind off that apple with a curiously shaped knife that turned work into play. After a moment, Mrs. Blue exclaimed: ‘Oh – do tell me where I can get a knife like that!’ ‘You may have this one,’ replied the woman, quietly – ‘for thirty-five cents.’ She took the money, left the knife, and, enroute to the gate, picked up two bags which she had parked behind a rosebush – a large bag and a small one. Said Mr. Blue as the gate clicked behind her, ‘The small bag is full of knives, and the large bag is full of apples – and the woman is full of wisdom.’

“Now it happens that this man, who is no other than our good friend, Rev. D. Preston Blue of the consuming ambition to preach to a large congregation, has been giving himself recently to a serious study of psychology – especially in its relation to the processes by which a demand may be created in the public mind for a thing of high value. For several minutes he was thoughtful after the agent had left, and then he said, half to himself, ‘That woman has a good head. She didn’t come up with a whole bagful of knives to make a long speech about their meritorious attributes. She didn’t muddle us with a lot of knives and arguments; she simply exhibited one knife – in operation.’

“‘Yes,’ responded Mrs. Blue, who guessed what was in her husband’s mind, ‘and she didn’t tell us what a good, kind man he was who owned the factory, or what kind of wood the handle is made of, or that she herself is selling them to support eleven starving children.’

“‘Exactly!’ approved D. Preston, nodding his head vigorously. ‘She knew the value of her merchandise and just let it sell itself by a demonstration.'”

[To be continued in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 2j: Jesus An Intuitive Psychologist

by Ronald R Johnson

Excerpt from Lloyd C. Douglas, “Wanted—A Congregation, Second Phase—Preacher and Newspaper,” Christian Century, August 19, 1920.

[This is from Part 2 of Lloyd C. Douglas, “Wanted – A Congregation!” This second installment was in the August 19, 1920, issue of The Christian Century. It was entitled, “Second Phase – Preacher and Newspaper.” He is talking about a minister who wants to enlarge his audience and is writing an abstract of his sermon for the local newspaper.]

“Again, the preacher may have been talking about ‘The Uses of Adversity.’ This is always an attractive line of homiletic thought. In his newspaper account of what he said, let the lead suggest some such thought as the following:

Because he had the good fortune to plane all the fingers off of his left hand in his father’s mill, one of the most brilliant lawyers of this country was able to put his energies to work where they would do the most good. The accident ruined him for the life of a mechanic; but he hadn’t been intended for a mechanic. Instead of sitting down to nurse his lumps, he got up and trained what he had left – his brains.

“Anybody in search of incidents similar to this will be bewildered over the wealth of materials at his disposal. They are all well worth telling. They have put more punch and renewed courage into the minds and hearts of the mentally, morally, and physically crippled than can be estimated in words or figures. The public may be depended upon to read all about the old lady who made candy; accidentally scorched the sugar; was on the point of pouring it out; hit upon a happy thought; poured the mess full of peanuts; made her fortune; lived happily ever after. Not very dignified? Well, how about this one? ‘In a city there was a judge who feared nobody, and a widow came to him, saying, “Avenge me of my adversary!” And he did not, for a while; afterward he decided, “I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.”‘

“Indeed, this one is so good that a preacher could lead his sermon extract with it today – after this long lapse of time – and be sure of attention. Let all these good brothers who are trying to follow the Galilean Teacher pay careful heed to his processes of gaining and sustaining public interest. As an intuitive psychologist who ‘knew what was in man,’ he not only spoke authoritatively to the people of his own generation, but has furnished an example of the most effective methods by which life may be touched on its most sensitive nerves.

“Now that D. Preston Blue has had his first palatable taste of printer’s ink and has noticed the increased interest which the public is taking in his pulpit, he resolves to go a step further in the use of printed matter to recruit the crowd he means to have in his church, not once but every Sunday, rain or shine. Of that matter – its general scheme, the detail of its construction, the cost, the process of distribution, etc., a succeeding paper will endeavor to treat. D. Preston Blue has chopped up the piano box for kindling wood. He has resolved to find a crowd in Centerville.”

[In my next post, I’ll tell you about the third installment in the series, “Wanted – A Congregation!”]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 2i: Putting the Graveyard in the Foreground

by Ronald R Johnson

“Or again, suppose the preacher has been talking about ‘the things for which we are remembered’ – not a half bad topic, by the way; though of course one would never think of announcing it in that fashion. Searching his notes for the ‘lead,’ the minister does not top his sermon abstract with a dissertation upon the graveyard; the tombstone toward which our footsteps are inevitably hastening; and the long grass growing in God’s Acre where that which is mortal of us will eventually rest while other people go on just as if nothing had happened, forgetting the departed pilgrim except for the two or three little things that he had chanced to do – deeds destined to live forever. No! And again, No! You cannot bait anybody to read a sermon that sets out in a hearse and ambles along to the cemetery. The public is obliged to make that trip often enough to satisfy all curiosity it has on the subject. If the preacher will talk about death, let him view it as a glorious beginning of something rather than discourse upon its less promising aspects. People do not relish a sermon that smacks of the undertaker’s suave instructions to the pallbearers, ‘Handles all down, please. Face the car, as I do. That’s very good – thank you. Take the third and fourth carriages, if you will. Very greatly obliged, I’m sure.’

“No; this preacher hunts for the one striking fact that had brightened the eyes of his audience, and he leads his sermon on ‘the things for which we are remembered’ somewhat after the following manner:

It was the worst road in Scotland. The supervisor told John Louden MacAdam that if he did not mend that road which made his estate almost impassable, he would be fined.

John Louden’s dignity was damaged. He had neglected that road because he was busy with more important matters. He was writing a monumental history of the MacAdam family.

But, required to repair his road, he decided to make one that would cast open shame upon all the roads of his neighbors who had made complaint.

He had all the clay hauled off the highway and the excavation filled with crushed stone and gravel. It was a good road.

Then he went back to his history of the MacAdams and spent the rest of his life celebrating their great deeds; but nobody remembered any other MacAdam but John Louden, and he is remembered not because he wrote a five-foot shelf of histories, but because he invented the macadamized road.

“The reader will go on and try to find out what all this leads to, it may be supposed. The preacher should have no trouble in coaxing him along into the next paragraph which deals with the little deeds rendered incidentally and the kindly words spoken casually – but saturated with that which makes for immortality.”

[To be continued in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 2h: Newspaper Style

by Ronald R Johnson

[This is from Part 2 of Lloyd C. Douglas, “Wanted – A Congregation!” This second installment was in the August 19, 1920, issue of The Christian Century. It was entitled, “Second Phase – Preacher and Newspaper.” I am continuing where I left off in my most recent post. He is talking about a minister who wants to enlarge his audience but was taught nothing at seminary about reaching the surrounding community through the local newspaper.]

“If he is of an extremely practical sort in estimating his assets, this preacher can console himself with the thought that whenever he wishes to do so he can use the column of The Morning Star as if he were the editor himself. This is not a negligible consideration to any man who wishes to give his pulpit some publicity. All he lacks now is the ability to use this space in such a manner that the reader will shout, ‘Fine! We must go around and hear this man Blue!’ – instead of muttering, ‘What rot these preachers get off in their churches! What bewildering stupidity!’

“Speaking generally, if the preacher who has been given an opportunity to preach to the public through the newspaper does not contrive to grip his readers with the first line, he had better save his typewriter ribbon. However, in his anxiety to lead his copy with something clever to attract attention, he must not forget that he is not selling shaving soap, or advertising a circus, but attempting to spread the good news of salvation. To spread that good news, it is necessary that he shall be honest with his constituency. To be honest does not mean, necessarily, that he must be dull. Possibly a few illustrations will help here.

“The preacher has talked about the importance of living up to one’s best self – a not infrequent theme among us. Of course, no attempt is made here to phrase the subject for announcement. Any man who would advertise that he was going to preach on ‘Living Up to One’s Best Self’ has really accomplished nothing but a deepening conviction on the part of the public that he has nothing to unload of interest to a populace sated with good advice.

“Whatever he may call the sermon, however, for purposes of arousing interest, this is his thesis – ‘living up to one’s best self.’ He thinks it is good enough to be given to the general public through the press. As he glances over his notes prefatory to composing the abstract, he searches for the one striking incident, anecdote, or ‘human interest fact’ most likely to reach out and grab the casual reader. When his sermon appears in print, next morning, it does not lead with a stiff procession of platitudes, marching along in single file with their chins in the air and their skirts carefully clutched to avoid the mud, but with the simple statement of a concrete fact.

“A study of newspaper style will show that a proper name, in the first line, is not uncommon. The mention of dollars and cents is always attractive to the reader. It interests him to learn that somebody has made some money. He is not much less interested in learning how somebody else lost some money. In the present instance, the sermon abstract begins as follows:

Wedgwood could not afford to lose the $40.00 which he had been offered for the vase. He was just starting in the pottery business and needed the money. But the vase was imperfect, and he ordered it broken and thrown upon the scrap-pile; for he vowed that no man could ever buy a ‘Second’ at his shop. He was going to make no ‘seconds.’ It looked like poor business at first; but Josiah Wedgwood became the most famous potter in the world.

“Now, after that, the preacher can say almost anything he likes about the importance of living up to one’s best self and expect to retain the interest of a considerable percent of his readers. Is there anything claptrap about that? Is it any more undignified to begin with ‘A certain man had two sons; and the elder of them said to his father,’ etc.? Indeed, isn’t this about the same process? Is the preacher to be more dignified than his Master? Is the servant greater than his lord?”

[To be continued in my next post…]