Preaching – The Lloyd C Douglas Page

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

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.”]

“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 2c: The Crowded Church

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.” I am continuing where I left off in my most recent post. The Reverend D. Preston Blue is excited thinking about increasing the size of his audience.]

“Moreover, Blue has learned upon inquiry that there is no room in the crowded church for such petty annoyances and puerile squabbles as customarily prey upon the frail vitals of the less prosperous. Little rackets which might do serious damage in a puny church are smothered, ignored, and forgotten in the crowd. Deacon Edgewise, peevish because his wishes have been disregarded in some minor manner, may announce to his fellow members of the Fifty-Percent-Efficient-Church that he is going to withdraw – he and his wife, man-servant and maid-servant, heirs and assigns, ox and ass, money, influence, prayers, and presence – thus creating sad havoc in Zion and necessitating the minister to undignify himself, his profession, and the cause he serves by trotting around to the Edgewise headquarters with his trusty molasses bucket. But if the Edgewises belong to a church habitually crowded, they will be somewhat cautious about ‘checking out’ in a moment of irritation, being fully aware that they will be missed about as seriously as a handful of clover blossoms plucked from a forty-acre meadow.

“All things considered, Blue believes that a crowd would mean the salvation of his church. He resolves to have one, if it is to be achieved by honest means. He lays out a definite campaign. We have seen his early efforts to line up the people who are already of his following. Now he has arrived at a decision to make his pulpit known to the general public. The most natural medium is the newspaper. He is going to avail himself of it. Only one condition holds him back. He hasn’t the faintest idea how to go about it.”

[To be continued in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 2b: Long Step Toward Happiness

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. Douglas is talking about a minister who has decided to stay with his current church and seek a wider audience there, rather than going elsewhere.]

“It is worth a great deal to our hero to have found out so much as that. Just to have stopped his continuous chatter about ‘the peculiar conditions which obtain in this town’; just to have ceased poring over the column of ‘Calls and Resignations’ in his weekly church paper, in quest of some utopia where the SRO sign would be hung on the church door Sunday mornings at 10:20; just to have left off petting his fatuous dream of Elsewhere — constitutes Mr. Blue’s first long step toward happiness in his ministry.

“This man has given himself to prayer and fasting over his problem. He knows now that there is just one thing in this world that he wants – a crowd! He is conscious of a message burning in his heart – a message so highly potential that if only he could face a large congregation with it, there could be no doubt in anybody’s mind about its value. He recalls the few times he has occupied a pew in a crowded church; the strangely magnetic quality of the audience; its tense attitude of expectancy; how the congregational singing of the hymns seemed to carry a rich overtone almost supernatural in its uplifting power; how vividly the Book poured out its inexhaustible treasures when read to that responsive crowd – a crowd that had been welded into one solid chunk so that it saw, heard, thought, and felt as with the eyes, ears, mind, and heart of one man!

“And the sermon! Inspired! Nothing less than that! Why, almost anybody could preach under such circumstances! The minister seemed fairly lifted up and borne along by the intense interest of his congregation whose size lent new significance to the belief that the gospel is, in very truth, the hope of the world! With such support, Blue knows that he, too, could preach. With the promise of such a congregation, Sunday after Sunday, he could hurl himself into his task of sermon preparation with all the zeal and abandon of a prophet.”

[To be continued in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 2a: Growing Where Planted

by Ronald R Johnson

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

“Weary of preaching listless sermons to a handful of Laodiceans, the minister whom we shall hereafter refer to as the Reverend D. Preston Blue [pronounced ‘Depressed and Blue’] has determined that he must find a congregation of sufficient size to stimulate his best homiletic efforts. It will require, he thinks, the encouragement of a crowd to vitalize him to the point where he, in turn, may energize his constituency.

“Mr. Blue does not pose as a walking monument to Wisdom, but he is canny enough to understand that by resigning his pulpit at Broad Street Church in Centerville to accept that of The People’s Church of Middlepoint, his problem will be altered only as to its locality. He has quite left off belief in the ancient fallacy that the grass is greener and more succulent on the other side of the fence. Blue suspects that if he cannot draw an audience of respectable size on Sundays in Centerville, neither will he be likely to create much excitement with his pulpit message in Middlepoint, seeing that conditions and people are strangely similar everywhere in their relation to a given individual.

“No; our friend has abandoned the idea that by giving his household furniture an expensive boxcar ride of three hundred miles he can develop some hitherto untested pulpit powers. There has been vouchsafed unto him the wisdom that if ever he is to command the attention of a larger congregation, he may make the adventure of recruiting the same here in Centerville quite as easily and with as much promise of success as anywhere else on earth.”

[To be continued in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 1f: Second Only to Blood

by Ronald R Johnson

From the first installment of Douglas’s series, “Wanted — A Congregation!” in the 8/5/1920 issue of The Christian Century.

[This is from Part 1 of Lloyd C. Douglas, “Wanted — A Congregation!” This first installment was in the August 5, 1920, issue of The Christian Century. I am continuing where I left off in my most recent post. He’s talking about a minister who has decided to enlarge his audience.]

“Our friend must be equally on guard now that he does not become so infatuated with the preparation of his sermon that he neglects the other important features of his campaign for a crowd. Much remains to be done. So far, he has lined up his active congregation. He has won the support of his ‘prospectives’ for this particular Sunday morning’s service. And he has a sermon under construction. This is only part of the process. The general public must be given to understand that there is an attraction in the gospel he preaches. How does one reach the public?

“Next to human blood, ink is the most redemptive chemical in the world. Let the preacher keep this in mind. More Americans form their opinions from the public press than by any other process. The minister who draws himself up haughtily, muttering his distaste of what he dubs ‘newspaper notoriety’ has boxed himself in from active contact with the people at the one place of all places where he is sure of access to them.

“The editor of the daily newspaper – (At this point, the editor of this paper is reaching for the axe. He says that no one man is permitted to monopolize all of the talk. Not if he can help it.)

“It still remains for us to discuss the further processes by which our anxious friend, the minister-without-a-congregation, is to recruit a crowd, and preach to it with a new kind of fervor, and thrill it to its fingertips, and touch it with the contagion of his faith until it wants to come back – again and again – provided he really has a message to deliver!

“No amount of campaigning, calling, writing, advertising, is going to result in a permanent gain unless he is able to deliver a message touched with the breath of the Holy Spirit.

“This is no wild dream that we are talking about. The best proof that this thing can be done is the fact that it has been done. Not always is it attended with the same degree of success: sometimes a hundred-fold, sometimes sixty, sometimes thirty. Most discouraged preachers will probably feel that is they could only multiply what they have at present by so little as thirty, it would be good business.”

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

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 1e: But the Sermon

by Ronald R Johnson

“All this time, while the minister is planning to gain access to a crowd on this strategic October third, he must never lose consciousness of the fact that he must make the most of that wonderful opportunity when it arrives. If he is a very, very poor psychologist, he will decide to say in his introduction, ‘It gives us a thrill of joy to see such a large congregation with us today. Customarily, this is a lonely place on Sunday. You might have been surprised at the echoes which caromed back and forth from these hallowed walls only last Lord’s Day,’ etc.

“Such a method of greeting his great opportunity would be very like the psychology practiced by the shop which announced, on a large placard placed beside the display of a modish gown: This is the only thing in the store worth looking at. We have put it out in front to bait you inside; but, in solemn truth, the rest of our stuff is awful.

“No mention need be made by the minister in his sermon that this is a red-letter day in his church. There is no reason why he should waste his time saying it, especially since it would be such a stupid remark to make – if he wishes to retain that crowd and draw a larger one. No, he must plan his sermon as if accustomed every Sunday to a throng that elbowed and pushed and jostled to get inside the front lobby.

“Again – let him not commit the indiscretion of scolding his crowd for failure to attend church services regularly. These people may possibly be induced to return another day if they are attracted to the message. They are not going to be attracted by abuse, either explicit or implied.

“That sermon ought, somehow and somewhere, to touch human life with hope, cheer, faith, optimism, and engender a longing to hear more of this gospel. It should be replete with incident. A whimsical phrase – even if smile-provoking – need not be tossed out of the sermon if it demands admission. It’s a very sick and sour gospel that will not permit the disciples to smile now and again.

“Day and night, that sermon is being built in our minister’s mind and heart. Every time he throws some fresh fuel on the fire of his campaign for a congregation, he hurries back to his study to work on that wonderful sermon. Early morning finds him gazing, unseeingly, out at his eastern window – his pulse pounding in his temples, his fingernails biting deeply into his palms – as he contemplates the message that has taken full possession of his soul. That message is going to be worthy of his office and his opportunity! As he considers it, he wonders how he could have won the consent of his own mind to preach so dully, so listlessly, so dispassionately, upon such themes.”

[To be continued in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 1d: Keep Your Eye on the Ball

by Ronald R Johnson

[This is from Part 1 of Lloyd C. Douglas, “Wanted — A Congregation!” This first installment was in the August 5, 1920, issue of The Christian Century. I am continuing where I left off in my most recent post. Douglas is talking about a minister who has decided to enlarge his audience.]

“At this point the minister is going to be tempted to spoil the whole scheme by listening to well-meaning counselors who feel that if a spoonful is helpful, the entire bottle should be taken at a gulp. He is going to be advised by the Sunday School superintendent that since October third is to be such a big day, it would be well to put on a general renaissance in that department also, on the specified date. The president of the Young People’s Society sees, in this scheme, a chance to ride through to a larger success in her department. All the auxiliary societies will want to use the campaign for a truck to haul their affairs into more prominence. To each and all, the minister will say, ‘No!’ And again, ‘No! Not by a jugful!’

“Here looms up another example of the wretched psychology that is practiced by churches. Consider the show window at the best store in town and be wise. Is it full to the very eaves with hats, caps, boots, shoes, furnishing goods, gowns, perambulators, parasols, and washtubs? It is not. The display is concentrated upon one or two or three concepts — and these concepts are very closely allied. The window dresser knows something about psychology. It is his business to study people’s mental attitudes.

“The minister has decided that he is going to have a crowded church on the morning of October third. Not the evening, but the morning. He must not wreck his scheme by permitting any other motive to get mixed into this process. The Sunday School superintendent is to be given to understand that his only relation to this campaign is to get behind it and boost. The Young People’s Society must keep out of the traffic. No other fact dare intrude itself here. The minister is going to have a crowd on the morning of Sunday, October third — and that’s all there is to it! No other causes need apply. Let us assume that the active membership of the congregation is lined up now and willing to do it honest best to make a success of this adventure. What next?”

[In response, Douglas assumes that his hypothetical minister has been compiling and organizing a list of prospective members, gleaned from conversations in the community. They now go to that list and identify names to contact for the upcoming sermon. (To be continued in my next post…)]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 1c: First at Jerusalem

by Ronald R Johnson

[This is from Part 1 of Lloyd C. Douglas, “Wanted — A Congregation!” This first installment was in the August 5, 1920, issue of The Christian Century. I am continuing where I left off in my most recent post. Douglas is talking about a minister who wants to enlarge his audience.]

“A very good place to begin this campaign of giving his gospel message a longer reach is among the faithful band that constitutes his present congregation. There is no reason why he should consider it a secret that his congregation is too small. Every member of it is quite as fully aware of that fact as he is himself. He need have no hesitancy about confiding to these good people his ambition to increase their number.

“What dreadfully poor psychologists some preachers are! How often they either candidly declare to their small congregations that ‘it is to be greatly regretted so few are out this morning,’ or hint the equivalent of that whine by some veiled allusion to the innumerable absentees, to the tune of a deep-fetched sigh. This is very poor advertising. The stranger who has put in an appearance for the first time that day surely has some justification for feeling that he was almost on the point of attaching himself to a lost cause.

“Let the minister leave off all his whimpering and endeavor to enlist the hopeful cooperation of his people in an attempt to secure a larger congregation. He will do well to take a solemn oath that never again will he commit the blunder of saying on Sunday morning, ‘If you only knew how depressing it is for a little handful to gather in this vasty place on Sunday evenings, you would come out and join us, surely!’ Yes — after an alluring advertisement like that — yes — surely (not). Where, oh where is his knowledge of human psychology who stands in his pulpit and begs his congregation to be more faithful in church attendance? No; one doesn’t get them that way.

“Our harassed friend is about to enter upon a campaign to recruit a congregation. He decides upon a favorable date for the opening of his bombardment. This date should be three or four weeks off, to give him time to plan the event with care. It should be a Sunday when natural conditions are friendly. Probably not on the twenty-second day of August.

“For the same reason that one should begin at Jerusalem before invading all Judea and Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth, it is better to launch this campaign in a little group of a half dozen trusted men around a lunch table. Let the whole matter be pushed out into the open. The preacher is tired of ambling along at his present gait. He knows he can preach if he can find enough people willing to listen. On October third, he is going to look for a crowd! They must help him to that crowd!

“Then — by personal letter, by personal call, by frequent conferences with selected groups of men and women, this minister should commit his sworn friends to the task of bringing as many people with them to church on Sunday morning, October third, as they can possibly influence.”

[To be continued in my next post…]