bible – The Lloyd C Douglas Page

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 5c: Failures and Their Causes

From Lloyd C. Douglas, “Wanted – A Congregation; Fifth Phase – Making Worship Worshipful,” in the 9/9/1920 issue of The Christian Century.

“Regarded specifically, it is true that many churches have been unable to present a very attractive portrait of his life and love who spoke of a social commonwealth of souls in that gripping phrase – ‘The Kingdom.’ Possibly such failures may be traced to a large number of causes. At least three of these causes stand out rather prominently. One type of failure may easily be accounted for on the ground of an overemphasis upon some minor point of doctrine which has been permitted to grow so huge as to drain the very life of the cultus that produced it – like a monstrous sarcoma. It may have gone in for feet-washing as a necessary and important ceremonial rite, for example. At first, this performance may have had some real symbolic beauty – though the imagination of the writer is far too sluggish to understand what beauty could ever have been thus expressed to the occidental mind; he merely assumes that such may have been the case, at first. But once the ceremony had lost its pristine spontaneity, it must have become a heavy load to carry. The sect could not relax its grip upon its burden, however. What it had written, it had written! Presently, so far as that body of believers is concerned, there is nothing much to Christianity except to get one’s feet washed, and so large a volume of effort is required for the persistence of this rite that there is very little energy left for the main task. It is the old case of the tail wagging the dog. It is also like the steamboat of Lincoln’s story that had a ten-foot boiler and a twelve-foot whistle. Every time it whistled, it stopped. I fancy that the sacrament of feet-washing is now nearly enough passe to be safely mentioned as a case in point to cover a great many similar pathological conditions still present with us. Such deflections from the main task of the church account for part of her present discomfiture.

“A second type of failure may be explained on the ground of an untrained and ineffective leadership in the pulpit. No church can get on very well or for a very long time which willfully does violence to human intelligence. To endure, a church must be able to command the respect of thoughtful people. But this is a truism requiring no argument; at least not in this presence.

“The third and by far the most prevalent type of failure may be accounted for on the ground that the churches of this order have almost completely ignored the ‘incurably’ religious passion in men’s hearts for a beautiful, reverential, dignified and consistent means of church worship.”

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

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 5b: The Disappointed

by Ronald R Johnson

[The following is from the last installment of the series, “Wanted – A Congregation!” which Lloyd Douglas published in the Christian Century during the summer of 1920. This final essay is entitled, “Fifth Phase: Making Worship Worshipful,” and it was in the September 9th issue. Douglas has just finished telling the story of an American tourist – one of the new rich – who goes to an art museum in Europe and is disappointed with what he sees there. The old verger tells him his disappointment says more about him than it does about the old works of art. Douglas continues:]

“There seems to be a general rumor to the effect that Christianity, as expressed by the church, is failing to please this generation. Almost everybody, both within and without the church, is either announcing blatantly his firm belief that the church confronts a crisis or waggles his head solemnly when somebody else asserts it. Some people view the situation with alarm. Others, unable to add a cubit to their own spiritual stature, are glad enough to think that the norm and standard of the soul has been lowered, and poorly conceal their satisfaction over the general chatter relative to the failure of the church to maintain her grip upon the mind and heart of our age.

“Prominent among the doleful, who are sincerely disturbed over this matter, are many members of our own profession. We have permitted ourselves to be stampeded by all this idle chatter. Really – it is mere impudence for our country, whose most permanent works still reek of green lumber, hot rivets, wet plaster, fresh paint, and perspiration, to grow hysterically concerned about the fate of an institution that was ancient and venerable more than a millennium before civilization was apprised of the fact that this continent was in existence!

“The church has quite passed out of the experimental stage. She does not happen to be on trial. The spectators are, however; and when they presume to express their fear that she may not survive the temporary flurry of our present restlessness, they but advertise the vasty depths of their unplumbed ignorance of history, and the almost incredible lengths to which naive bumptiousness can aspire in a land of unbridled and unsupervised gabble. So much for the church – generally considered and spelled in caps.”

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

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 4l: Is That Moment of Silence Possible?

by Ronald R Johnson

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. Douglas explains why it is necessary for latecomers not to be admitted during the ritualistic part of the service.]

“It is entirely unnecessary that there should be a steady tramp, tramp, tramp down the aisles during this impressive moment. The public does not value Christianity the more highly for being permitted to treat a church service with less respect than it is obliged to manifest in a playhouse. Therein lies one of the chief difficulties with the Protestant churches of America. They have consistently believed and practiced a series of logical fallacies with reference to the public mind.

“They have lacked the wisdom to understand that people are not especially attracted to any institution which they are permitted to treat disrespectfully. Not infrequently during the organ prelude, ‘dear old Brother Smithers’ snuggles up beside ‘dear old Major Welickedem’ and chatters audibly, to the annoyance of everybody within a range of fifty yards. Where else but in a Protestant church would such an absolutely unnecessary disturbance be tolerated? Not in the theater, surely. Nor at a concert. And why must the church put up with such annoyances? Oh, because it has consistently permitted almost any sort of a nuisance to nullify whatever opportunities were presented for an orderly, inspirational service of worship! But – someone exclaims – what is one to do? One must go to dear old Brother Smithers and tell him to cut it out. It can be said gently, tactfully, purringly – but it should be said. If the dear old fellow becomes incensed and withdraws to some other church, it will be a great deal better for his own soul than if he stayed where he was and habitually made a nuisance of himself. For, in church Number Two, he will not talk during the service, remembering what had happened at Number One.

“There must be no crying babies, shrieking all through the otherwise impressive moments of the service! Nowhere else but in a Protestant church would such an annoyance be permitted for a moment! What shall we do? We must tell the young mother that she is to be excused from her church duties until her baby is old enough to be placed in the church kindergarten where all small children are to be during the church service.

“You wonder why some of the finest, most earnest, most philanthropic people in your town are not in church on Sundays? Provide a service that appeals to the heart and is uninterrupted by petty annoyances which destroy every possibility for a reverential worship, and let it be known that you mean to have such a service every Sunday – and you may notice a change!

“No, sir; when the time comes in the service where silence is the order, close the doors, shut off the tramp of the tardy and the chatter of the thoughtless, and have silence!

“If some belated brother and his wife become offended because they are obliged to wait a few minutes in the vestibule, that is sufficient proof that the church, with its old way of doing things, hasn’t done very much for their souls, and it is high time something was tried! And if they get so angry they resolve never to come back, and go away and tell it all over the lot that they went to their dear old church, where their dear old fathers and mothers had been wont to come straggling down the aisle almost any time between ten-forty-three and eleven-thirty-five, and, bless you, weren’t permitted to go to their own seat just because their fool preacher had suddenly developed a crazy notion that the doors were to be closed through the opening service – well – what of that? Is that going to put the church out of business? Indeed, it is the very choicest advertising. No church would be able to purchase or devise a finer publicity medium than about half a dozen loquacious ex-members who had gone forth to spread the report that their church had gone in for a strict practice of reverence. Such a campaign is sure to bring out a select lot of splendid souls who will come next Sunday to see if, perchance, there is that something in your service for which they had sought, eagerly and in vain.”

[In my next post, I’ll tell you about Douglas’s fifth and final article in the series, “Wanted – A Congregation.”]

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 4k: A Consistent Ritual

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 explaining to his wife how he intends to improve the order of worship.]

“‘Now,’ said Blue, ‘the ritualistic service of worship begins. I don’t believe that we had better fumble around in the back of the book anymore for a responsive reading. We’ll print it in the bulletin, and let it make up in power whatever it lacks in former length. Anyway, these ‘readings’ in the back of the book weren’t built correctly. Most of them are too long, and too full of local color about the Jews.’

“The preacher smiled as he repeated a few of these passages for the edification of his wife. ‘What good does it do a crowd of able-bodied citizens of the United States in 1920 to stand up and read together about brotherhood being “like the precious oil upon the head; like the dew of Hermon,” or that purely parochial remark of an ancient people, “Before Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, stir up thy might.” And what possible benefit can accrue to anybody by reading aloud so misleading a passage as, “For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled”? And so many of them have a curious trick of ending on an awkward phrase like, “Yes, the work of our hands, establish Thou it” – leaving one with the uncomfortable feeling of having come off and forgotten something, until the next event of the service mercifully blots the dissonance out of mind. No; we will not go to the back of the hymnal anymore – at least not until we can do so with better effect than is now in sight.

“‘After that first hymn, there is going to be a moment of silence – an impressive silence! The auditorium doors will be closed. The ushers will seat no more latecomers until the ritualistic service is concluded. The service isn’t operated for the sole purpose of accommodating the tardy anyway. If they will come late, they can do exactly as at the orchestral concert or the theater – wait until there is an intermission.’

Wanted: A Congregation, Part 4h: Psychological Considerations

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 taking a critical look at his order of worship and finding many things he doesn’t like, especially his tendency to announce the hymn over and over again, even though it’s listed in the bulletin…]

“Then there would ensue an awkward pause, during which the organist was guessing whether Brother Blue had said everything that was in his mind at that moment. Having finally determined that the preacher had said it all, the organ would pipe out a puny little combination of ‘solicional’ and ‘violin diapason’ wherewith to introduce the hymn, playing the entire score of it in this feeble manner until, by the time the congregation was actually turned loose to sing, it didn’t want to. There is a peculiar psychology back of this. When the minister has begged the congregation to sing, the man in the pew is reluctant to make the adventure. He fears his neighbor may think that he is going to cut loose and show these people that he, for one, is some singer. Again, when the organ introduces the hymn with a frail little prelude, everybody is afraid to begin, for fear there will be no support.

“But, just now, the thing that filled D. Preston Blue’s mind with misgivings was the thought that he had been talking too much during his ‘service of worship.’ When he had come to the point of announcing the responsive reading of the psalm, he always said something like this: ‘Shall we not now turn to selection one hundred and six, in the back of the hymnal, page one hundred and twenty, and read responsively?’ Then came another of those blighting delays, while people hunted for the page. Blue was conscious of the awkwardness of such moments, and his only remedy for them was to fill them up with talk – mere superfluous chatter. He would keep on repeating, dully, while they searched, ‘Selection one hundred and six – on the one hundred and twentieth page – in the back of the hymnal.’ Oh, how could he have been so exasperatingly stupid? Every time there arose the merest ghost of a chance for the congregation to have a little of blessed silence, here was Blue chattering like a magpie!

“Thus did he review, with burning cheeks, the specific defects in that cold and pulseless ‘order of service,’ searching for the cause of its failure; when, suddenly, the real secret of its hopelessness and dullness stood out, clear-cut as a cameo, and he shouted to Mrs. Blue, ‘I’ve got it! I know what ails Broad Street Church! She’s a-been gettin’ too much gas and not enough spark!'”

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

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

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. 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 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 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.”]