This Business of Preaching

What the church needs today is not merely more men in its pulpits, but bet­ter men, better preachers. It needs messengers of God, not merely servants of men; it needs the living incarnated Word, not merely the professional repetition of truth.

By CARLYLE B. HAYNES, President, Michigan Conference

What the church needs today is not merely more men in its pulpits, but bet­ter men, better preachers. It needs messengers of God, not merely servants of men; it needs the living incarnated Word, not merely the professional repetition of truth. The very noblest gifts, the highest talents, the richest equipment, the best training, is not too much for the minister of Christ.

And of the utmost importance, the church must have men who regard preaching, as the loftiest and most difficult art, who have the highest conceptions of its importance and dig­nity, who are not lazy or insincere or super­ficial, but who will drive themselves and hold themselves to the realization of all its possi­bilities.

The preacher who is to speak ably and well in public must labor hard at this business. Some few men may find it easy to speak in public, but no man finds it easy to speak well in public. There are, of course, occasions and circumstances which may rouse the mind into high action, and the result may be surprising displays of eloquence without much effort at preparation. But life is not made up of oc­casions of extraordinary excitement.

Every man who is determined to become an efficient and successful preacher must bid fare­well to easy indulgence, resist all temptation to mental sloth, and make a covenant with labor as his portion and pleasure under the sun.

The business of choosing, and adapting, and arranging, and analyzing subjects of dis­course; of comparing, correcting, polishing, and applying discourse itself ; of so living and disciplining the heart as to keep one's self in the necessary mood and tone of mind for the enunciation and delivery of discourse—such is work not to be otherwise done by any man than by laborious and indefatigable application and persistence.

By CARLYLE B. HAYNES, President, Michigan Conference

October 1939

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