Lloyd C Douglas – The Lloyd C Douglas Page

Wanted: A Congregation, 4g: “You’ve A-Flooded ‘Er!”

From Lloyd C. Douglas, “Wanted—A Congregation, Fourth Phase—The Service of Worship,” in The Christian Century, 9/2/1920.

[The following is from the fourth installment in Lloyd Douglas’s series, “Wanted—A Congregation!” in the summer and fall of 1920. This installment, dated 9/2/1920, is titled, “Fourth Phase—The Service of Worship.” The series is about the Reverend D. Preston Blue, who is on a campaign to enlarge his congregation. This episode takes place after he has begun to succeed in building his audience. While on vacation, he is painfully analyzing his typical worship service and seeing its faults.]

“Whatever pauses occurred in the service were not eloquent silences, portentous with meaning; they were only awkward delays which the congregation availed itself of as a suitable time to cough in concert, and thumb the hymnal, and wonder whether there’s enough in the tank to run to Blinkton this afternoon or had we better fill it before we start, and to speculate on whether her hat, the forecastle of which shuts off the view, was last season’s rosette upsidedown, or the 1918 model turned wrongsideout.

“Considered as a whole, the service lacked life. It was cloddish, sluggish, heavy; a worse burden than Solomon’s grasshopper. Moreover, as Blue invoiced the thing seriatim, he became conscious that most of its inspirational possibilities had been annulled through his own habit of getting in the way of every potential emotional thrill by the utterance of stupid commonplace. For example: he invariably insisted upon announcing the opening hymn with which the service began. True, it was printed on the bulletin in every member’s hand that the first hymn would be No. 145 – printed so plainly that the wayfaring man needed only to glance at it for the required directions. But Blue always announced it anyway. He would say, ‘Shall we not -‘ (Oh ‘shall we not?’ indeed! Out on all these wobbly-kneed shall-we-notters! What wretched psychology! The old prophets used to say, ‘Hear ye, O Israel!’ That was better!) Well – Blue would say, ‘Shall we not open our service of worship this morning by singing that grand old hymn of the church, number one hundred and forty-five, ‘O God, the Rock of Ages,’ to the tune of ‘Miriam’ which you will find on the left-hand page, the full text being on the right-hand page, however. Let us all join heartily in the singing of this hymn, the one hundred and forty-fifth.'”

[Douglas will explain why he thinks this is bad psychology in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 4f: Ashes on the Altar

by Ronald R Johnson

[The following is from the fourth installment in Lloyd Douglas’s series, “Wanted—A Congregation!” in the summer and fall of 1920. This installment, dated 9/2/1920, is titled, “Fourth Phase—The Service of Worship.” The series is about the Reverend D. Preston Blue, who is on a campaign to enlarge his congregation. This episode takes place after he has begun to succeed in building his audience. He and his wife are on vacation and he is taking stock of the recent improvements.]

“These self-searching queries had been giving our friend some painful hours tonight. He had become shamefully stricken with remorse – the kind that sends a dull ache into the throat and a stinging pain into the eyes. As Blue reviewed the so-called ‘service of worship’ customarily rendered in Broad Street Church, it galled him to reflect upon those cold, gray ashes that stood for an altar fire. It humiliated him to remember how lifeless, how perfunctory the thing really was – so exceedingly dull that even he himself thought of it, when and if he thought of it, as a mere something-necessarily-to-be-gone-through preliminary to the main event of the hour – his sermon! Why, some of his members had frankly accounted for their habitual tardiness at the Sunday morning service with the bland explanation, ‘Oh, all that we care for is the sermon anyway!’ – and Blue had been so short of sight as to feel complimented!

“Torn now with remorse, the preacher resolved to analyze that profitless, cold, and all but sacrilegious ‘order of worship’ – a piece of mummery that had become so trite and feeble that even he was heartily glad when the last wearisome yawn of it had been dutifully recited, and the book chucked back in the rack. Blue was under contract with his own soul to mend matters at that point, without further delay! This was the burden of his thoughts tonight. It was a very, very serious problem. It was not much wonder he didn’t hear the turtles, or see the moon, or chat with Mrs. Blue! He was under conviction of a blunder that was considerably more serious than a mere misdemeanor. He had failed at a vital point! So – he took up that ‘order of worship’ item by item and looked at it.

“In the first place, it was a service absolutely devoid of thrills! (I daresay such use of the word ‘thrills’ will entitle the writer to some more piously-phrased, albeit unsigned, communications from his brethren, warning him to flee the wrath to come.) Well – anyhow – whate’er the future may have in store for him who boswells* for D. Preston Blue, it was a service devoid of thrills! There wasn’t a single feature of it calculated to quicken a man’s respiration or grip his throat or stir his pulse. What little of solemn ritual there was in it possessed no current – just lazily ambled along on a level like the sleepy Yangtse-kiang for five hundred miles without a ripple. It reached no high spots; led up to no climaxes; pointed to no definite goal; and, having no destination in mind, it failed to arrive anywhere.”

(*”boswells” is a verb referring to Douglas’s role as narrator of Blue’s story, just as James Boswell famously narrated the story of Samuel Johnson.)

[Douglas’s article will continue in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 4e: Back to the Invoice

by Ronald R Johnson

[The following is from the fourth installment in Lloyd Douglas’s series, “Wanted—A Congregation!” in the summer and fall of 1920. This installment, dated 9/2/1920, is titled, “Fourth Phase—The Service of Worship.” The series is about the Reverend D. Preston Blue, who is on a campaign to enlarge his congregation. This episode takes place after he has begun to succeed in building his audience. He is on vacation with his wife, taking stock of the recent improvements.]

“Now, there comes a time in the experience of every minister who has been party to such a resurrection of the dead, when his new responsibility makes him very humble. He does not come by this sensation at first. Just the sheer wonder and delight of witnessing the miracle occupies his whole attention. His feeling of gratification knows no bounds. He had always wanted a live church and a magnetic congregation – and now he is getting it! Hallelujah!

“Every Sunday there are many more new faces before him, and he is spurred to his best efforts by their challenging expression of an appraisal that seems to be saying, ‘Well, we’ve heard about it, and here we are; wonder if it’s as good as advertised!’ Yes, there is that period to be gone through – a time of delirious excitement over the hitherto untasted joy of seeing the pulpit actually function.

“Then comes, with a shock, the almost terrifying sense of responsibility to do something more for these eager people than merely preach to them. D. Preston Blue had now arrived at that stage. As he sat gazing wide-eyed but unseeingly into the night, his heart was very heavy. He had wanted a congregation. His dream was going to come true. People would come to his church in increasing numbers. But why did people go to church? Why should they go? To hear a sermon? Was that all? Was there not another – indeed, a primary – function of the church that he, Blue, had almost completely ignored? Was he helping to satisfy that irresistible heart-hunger of the normal human soul for a closer contact with the Infinite? Was he doing anything to deepen the desire and increase the capacity of his people for worship? After all, wasn’t this the main business of the church – to offer a service of worship so reverential and inspirational that it would serve as a spiritual tonic to souls in desperation to escape the tyranny of material things, almost frantically eager to catch occasional glimpses of an intangible heart-kingdom where the youth of the spirit is renewed until it mounts up on eagle-wings?”

[Douglas’s essay will continue in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 4d: Resurgam!

by Ronald R Johnson

[The following is from the fourth installment in Lloyd Douglas’s series, “Wanted—A Congregation!” in the summer and fall of 1920. This installment, dated 9/2/1920, is titled, “Fourth Phase—The Service of Worship.” The series is about the Reverend D. Preston Blue, who is on a campaign to enlarge his congregation. This episode takes place after he has begun to succeed in building his audience. He’s on vacation with his wife, thinking back over how bad things were in his congregation until he turned things around.]

“Then came the rosy morning when D. Preston Blue resolved to ‘buck up’ and avail himself of the natural opportunities at his command to call Centerville’s attention to the message of his pulpit! Perhaps there was just a little bit of sporting blood still drifting, sluggishly, in his arteries; or, maybe some adventurous ancestor in him had whispered, ‘Come on, Preston, old boy, let’s run her nose right into the gale and see what comes of it!’ At all events, Blue had found himself. After careful investigation of certain psychologically-sound methods of dignified advertising, he had begun to experiment with these new processes of stirring the public’s curiosity. Already he had realized astounding results, and not half his scheme was in operation! Whatever anxiety and timidity he had felt about his new program at first was quickly dispelled. He knew that with the resumption of his work after vacation, he could fill Broad Street Church – galleries and all! When he had left town, his membership was buzzing with delight over the unexpected prosperity and interest that had developed in their church. It was exactly as if some new kind of fuel had been thrown into the furnaces of a central power plant; the dim lights had begun to grow brighter; there was a genial warmth in habitually cold radiators; erstwhile reluctant wheels were spinning merrily! Every department of the church had cheered up. The Sunday School superintendent, who had flatly declared in April that he wouldn’t take the job another year if they offered it to him on a golden platter garnished with orchids, had recently spent an evening at the parsonage outlining his program for the autumn with an enthusiasm that left Blue blinking with bewilderment. It was becoming easy to gain the consent of efficient people to serve as committee chairmen. Yes; the preacher knew, now, that Broadstreet was about to be a going concern.”

[Douglas’s essay will continue in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 4c: Invoicing the Stock

by Ronald R Johnson

[The following is from the fourth installment in Lloyd Douglas’s series, “Wanted—A Congregation!” in the summer and fall of 1920. This installment, dated 9/2/1920, is titled, “Fourth Phase—The Service of Worship.” The series is about the Reverend D. Preston Blue, who is on a campaign to enlarge his congregation. This episode takes place after he has begun to succeed in building his audience. He is vacationing in the woods with his wife, reminiscing about how serious his situation was before he caught his “second wind.”]

“One of the chief benefits of a preacher’s vacation is the opportunity it affords him to get far enough away from his job to look at it with telescopic vision. Its little details, which loom up so ominously at close range, fade so nearly out of the picture that they cease to clutter his view of the things that really matter. It is so easy for the preacher’s life to settle into mere humdrum, so easy for it to wear almost inescapably deep grooves in his circuit of daily duties and the weekly performance of conventional tasks, so easy to accept and follow certain ways of doing things without stopping to inquire into their adaptability to meet changing conditions.

“This season’s vacation was bringing a flood of new light into the mind of D. Preston Blue. In the past few months, he had got his second wind. He had taken a fresh grip on a ministry that had almost lost its earlier attractions. Indeed, he had fallen so low in spirit, just previous to his new resolution, that it was only economic necessity that held his flanges to the rails. Had his assets consisted of more than a little piece of overtaxed yellow clay environing a small house that needed a roof and a group of dilapidated farm buildings, plus a few thousands of life insurance which couldn’t be collected so long as he insisted upon remaining alive, there was a moment when he would have given it all up as a bad job and retired. His forty-fifth birthday had been spent in sackcloth. Here he was – forty-five – when he should be just entering upon the most active and useful period of his ministerial career, conscious that he not only hadn’t grown an inch or gained a pound as a preacher since thirty, but that he had actually slumped! He wasn’t the man he had been at thirty! Not only had he been unable to lengthen his tent-ropes – his interests were narrowing! Forty-five! – and still pursuing the petty round of more or less aimless and purposeless parochial visits, pushing door buttons four afternoons a week, for all the world like a policeman ringing up headquarters, every fifteen minutes, to let the sergeant know he was still on his beat; increasingly serving as an errand-boy and general roustabout for a score of church auxiliaries with long names, short memories, frequent meetings, and feeble achievements; preaching dull sermons on Sundays to a small group of drowsy people who occupied less than one-fourth the seating space in his church auditorium – forty-five and a failure! It shamed him to reflect that his only reason for staying on the job at all was not unlike the explanation the Unjust Steward gave for the doubtful transaction to which he resorted – he couldn’t dig, and he was ashamed to beg!”

[To be continued in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 4b: The Ancient Mariner

by Ronald R Johnson

[The following is from the fourth installment in Lloyd Douglas’s series, “Wanted—A Congregation!” in the summer and fall of 1920. This installment, dated 9/2/1920, is titled, “Fourth Phase—The Service of Worship.” The series is about the Reverend D. Preston Blue, who is on a campaign to enlarge his congregation. This episode takes place after he has begun to succeed in building his audience. He’s on a fishing trip, and he’s stranded on the lake, unable to get the engine of his boat to work.]

“Whereupon, old Nate Ruggles had chugged alongside in his funny little tub to inquire what ailed her – a query that had been gradually arising in the minister’s own mind for some time. He said exactly that; though this satirical delicacy was quite wasted on Nate, whose palate had never been trained to appreciate such lemon-flavored rhetorical dainties. The old man cackled in the self-assured treble of native wisdom aged seventy-eight, dragged his rheumatism over the rail, and fell to examining the object of Blue’s solicitude with judicial eye and confident fingers.

“Presently he reported on his findings. Dexterously shifting his quid to a position which made articulation possible, Nate remarked, sagely, ‘Parson, you’ve a-flooded ‘er with gasoline, and your batteries is a-runnin’ low. Yessir, them two things is wot ails ‘er. She’s a-been gettin’ too much gas, and not enough spark!’

“And now it was ten o’clock. The turtles were yawp-yap-yap-yap-yoodle-hooing down by the boathouse, but D. Preston Blue did not hear them. The three-quarter moon had flung a long bridge of gold across the lake, but Blue failed to observe it. His wife sat at his elbow, but he was only half-conscious of her presence. Since early twilight, the preacher had been at grips with a serious problem. Suddenly rousing from his apparent torpor, he exclaimed, ‘I’ve got it!’ ‘Yes?’ queried Mrs. Blue in a tone of mingled interest and amusement. ‘I am so glad you have, my dear. I have been horribly lonesome. So tell me what it is that you have got!’ And he told her. It took him nearly all night to tell her; for it was a long story.”

[To be continued in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 4a: The Service of Worship

by Ronald R Johnson

The title page from Lloyd Douglas’s series, “Wanted—A Congregation,” in the Christian Century, “Fourth Phase—The Service of Worship,” dated 9/2/1920.

“It was ten o’clock. Stiff in every joint but entirely oblivious to his physical discomfort, the Rev. D. Preston Blue sat on the verandah of the borrowed bungalow overlooking the water, his mind disturbed by very serious reflections. An old man had said something to him that afternoon which had haunted his thoughts for hours. Doubtless the old fellow’s quaint remark, and the incident producing it, possessed some sermonic value. And while questing a possible spiritual significance, our friend had discovered that the cryptic words were aimed directly at one Rev. D. Preston Blue, pastor of the Broad Street Church of Centerville. As the conviction deepened that the words, ‘Thou art the man!’ had been spoken, Blue looked less and less like a carefree man on vacation. He sat with pursed lips, corrugated brow, flexed muscles, and accelerated pulse….

“From two to four that afternoon, stalled in mid-lake, Blue had tinkered hopelessly with a cantankerous little motorboat – an invention closely resembling a violin solo in that, when it is good there are only a few better things, and when it is bad there is positively nothing worse. The preacher had unscrewed all the nuts and taps that would come off the engine, had wiped each one carefully on his trouser leg, and, having inspected them with the gravity of ignorance, had screwed them back on again. He had cranked until he reeled with vertigo and reeked of perspiration. His knuckles were bloody, his throat was parched, his temples throbbed, and his patience was gone.”

[To be continued in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 3i: Features of the Service

by Ronald R Johnson

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.” This is the conclusion of that third installment.]

“It is a monstrous pity that we leave it to the movie-shows to adapt music to the movement of the play, and go into our services with so little of planning to make the various features of our own event consistent and unified. But, of all that – the oversight of the choir, the building of an order of service, and the manipulation of every participant in the service, singers, ushers, deacons – there is no more time, in this article, to write.

“As I thumb these pages, I am conscious that the subject of winning a congregation has only been touched at the high spots. It is a long story. Any minister who is discouraged because he is preaching to a handful, needs only make a beginning in this business of increasing his congregation and it will soon become a matter of pride with him to preach to as many people as he can possibly reach with all the legitimate methods at his disposal. Once he gets the crowd coming, it is comparatively easy to retain his grip. When the news gains circulation that it is necessary to be at Broad Street church Sunday morning at ten-forty-five if one expects to be seated, our friend D. Preston Blue will be a workman having cause to feel ashamed if he does not continue at that gait indefinitely.”

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

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 3h: Preparation in Advance

by Ronald R Johnson

“The minister has this job of printing all made up at least two weeks before he is required to use it. He believes in planning things long enough in advance to be able to get a maximum of results. On Monday morning, September twenty-seventh, his consignment of mail is ready to go. And during that week, every time he thinks of these seven hundred cards in their quiet ministry of exciting new interest in the message of his pulpit, he attacks his sermon with fresh zeal.

“Not content with what he has done, he prints a 14 x 11 window card – fifty of them – which are posted in conspicuous places downtown on Friday afternoon preceding the important Sunday. As to the makeup of that card, he must be guided by the capacity of his printer, for he cannot afford to order special types or cuts for a card of that size unless this were the only medium of advertising he proposed to use. In that case, he might decide that the adventure was worth the additional cost. Fifty cards, in two colors, will add to his advertising bill about $4.50, figuring on mid-August 1920 prices.

“Blue ought to have a crowd on Sunday morning, October third. It is reasonably sure that he will have a crowd. Whether that crowd comes back on the next Sunday depends a very great deal on Mr. Blue – not altogether on Mr. Blue’s sermon, either, but on the skill with which Mr. Blue has planned that service, from the first chord on the organ to the beginning of the postlude. If he cannot persuade the choir director to render quartet and solo numbers with the ocean concept, it is surely not because such music is not to be had in abundance. If Mr. Blue does not announce seafaring hymns for that occasion, it is not because they are omitted from his hymnal. If he does not invite the people to read with him a psalm that has the tang of salt air in it, one may suspect that it is because he has been too careless to find one – for they are there. If the organist opens that service with a thin, puny little pee-wee prelude, it is because our friend Blue has not sufficiently jarred it into the brother that the theme of the day is ‘Shipwrecks’!”

[To be continued in my next post…]

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

by Ronald R Johnson

“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…]