Preaching – Page 2 – The Lloyd C Douglas Page

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

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. 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…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 1b: Pitiless Self-Search

by Ronald R Johnson

“PITILESS SELF-SEARCH

“Instead of planning a series of sad sermons on the decline of faith as exhibited by this generation, wherewith to increase the depression of the remnant that is still left to him, this perplexed brother could do no better thing than attempt a critical examination of his case, in the solitude of his own study. Let him take stock of his own resources. He should ask himself whether he is entirely convinced that the public needs what he has to offer. If he is assured of that, let him ask himself if he really has it in him to hold and interest a crowd were he to contrive the means to find access to a crowd. If confident of that, he should investigate the possible or probable reasons for his failure to achieve a satisfactory hearing.

“Perhaps the public does not know what it is missing by its refusal to listen when he talks. Do not smile. This is not intended as an ironical slap at our discouraged friend. Many a potentially excellent preacher is hacking away, Sunday by Sunday, at a heart-breaking task who, with a little encouragement in the form of a large and alert audience, would surprise himself and his best friends by the sudden release of a volume of unsuspected pulpit power! In many cases, these latent geniuses lack a proper hearing simply because they are undeveloped. They are undeveloped because they are unknown. The problem, for them, would be fully solved if only they were able to sense the tug of that strong undertow which accompanies the tidal wave of magnetism flowing from a densely packed crowd.

“It is the purpose of this writing to suggest a few of the processes by which a preacher who really thinks he has a message may win an audience of sufficient size to waken his slumbering genius. Stated with the utmost brevity, and in a phrase that will doubtless pull the very house down about our ears — what this man’s pulpit needs is advertisement! The public must be let into the secret that here is a preacher who claims the right to attention.”

[To be continued in my next post…]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 1a: What Ails the Pulpit?

by Ronald R Johnson

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing excerpts from a series of articles Douglas published in The Christian Century in the summer/fall of 1920 under the heading, “Wanted—A Congregation!” (The Christian Century holds the copyright to these essays.) The first of these articles appeared in the August 5, 1920, issue. After a brief introduction in which he mentions John Spargo (and by so doing, reminds readers why Douglas’s name is familiar to them — because he participated in that debate), he launches into his subject:

“WHAT AILS THE PULPIT?

“Every denomination is learning, through its leaders, that the problem of recruiting its ministry is fast becoming acute. The obvious reason for this failure to entice a sufficient number of capable young men to espouse our profession, resides in the fact that there is too much restlessness in our ranks to warrant an ambitious youth in risking his future with an institution whose present employees seem so discontented. If the youth is still unconvinced that this is the case, after reading in the secular press and the religious journals that ministers, in increasing numbers, are trading their pulpits for secretaryships in philanthropic organizations, he need only attend any one of the host of churches where the pulpit is dolefully lamenting the godlessness of this generation and its indifference to Christian duties.

“When the influence of the pulpit grows feeble, and its drawing power enervated, what is the trouble? Is the generation so much to blame? Why should we not look this matter squarely in the face? Who are the dissatisfied preachers? Are they men who habitually face large congregations on Sundays? No; they are men who have lost interest in their pulpits because they are unable to gain a satisfactory hearing. This is a very real problem, and if there is any way to solve it, let the remedy be brought forward without delay.

“No preacher can be expected to invest his finest energies in the preparation of his sermons unless he has an audience in his mind’s eye while he works. If, on Tuesday morning as he settles to his task of planning next Sunday morning’s discourse, he is able only to visualize a congregation of one hundred and fifty people scattered lonesomely over an auditorium built to accommodate six hundred, that fact alone is sufficient to benumb his creative faculties and throttle whatever genius there is within him.

“If he knew to a moral certainty, as he begins to lay out the blueprints for that sermon, that he was to deliver it to a crowded church — to face a compact, alert, shoulder-to-shoulder congregation filling every available seat in the auditorium — he would attack his job with the fine enthusiasm of an artist engaged upon his magnum opus. What he needs to fire his genius is the consciousness of a strong demand for his message. He needs the lift, and drive, and tug of a crowd! His problem is simple enough. Wanted — a congregation!

“Now, this suggestion is going to be riddled to frazzled tatters. I think I can hear the clickity-clack-clack now, of vehement typewriters tapping out the good old warning to beware the seductive temptation to attract crowds. We shall be reminded yet again that the unworthy brother who pats his vanity because he has contrived to pack his church by the bizarre announcement of some sensational theme should indulge himself a sackcloth-and-ashes hour of penitence in which he recalls that a large multitude of people can be collected by a pair of incompatible dogs in the street, or a clown with a monkey on a strap.

“Of course, this is very depressing, and quite enough to make any man thoroughly ashamed of himself who preaches on Sundays in a packed church. To ease his discomfort, however, he can remember that when the crowds that thronged about the Lord grew so congested that the people actually trampled upon one another, the speaker is not reported as having been ashamed. The tug that they made at his great heart was almost more than he could bear, as he viewed with compassion that multitude which reminded him, more than anything else, of sheep — a shepherdless sheep.

“Whoever is ambitious to follow in the footsteps of the Man of Galilee should never speak contemptuously of a crowd! Doubtless there are charlatans to whom a warning might be beneficial. Undeniably there are quacks whose brief vogue has been worn unworthily. But — if a church with a consistency justifying the upkeep of a public auditorium seating six hundred people is unable to draw more than twenty-five percent of that number to the major event of the week, there is something the matter; and the manager of the institution may well inquire of himself whether it is in his power to remedy [the situation].”

[To be continued in my next post…]