Shipwrecks – The Lloyd C Douglas Page

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

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.]

“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 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…]