The Pastor and the Home (Part III)

As his the head of the house is the father of his family, so the pastor, the head of the local church, is the father of his people. He is not primarily an orator, whatever his speaking ability ; he is not first of all a states­man, though he may be gifted with sagacity ; he is not above all things a financier, though his managing ability may be in demand. He is first of all the father of his people. (1 Thess. 2 I ; I Tim. 5 ; "Acts of the Apostles," pp. 359-370).

A father is understanding and sympathetic and compassionate toward his children, as God our Father is toward us, His children. He answers with ministry their call for help, he is burdened with their sorrows, he rejoices in their joys. He studies their natures and their needs, he seeks to supply their deficiencies, he notes and employs their abilities. He dif­fuses among them, by his own life, the love of God, and brings them into harmonious co-opera­tion through the inspiration of a great purpose and the unifying influence of the Holy Spirit.

A true pastor is not content to preach homilies and dispense abstract advice. He studies minds and comes to know the well­springs of action. He classifies his studies of the different age periods, that he may suit his ministry to the child, to the youth, and to the adult. He does not expect the reactions of age in the adolescent, or the behavior of the man in the cbild. He learns to suit his conver­sation and his instruction to the individual and the group according to their age, their education, their social background, their spiri­tual state. He seeks to become ever more adept in the means of attracting and holding different types and classes of men and women, by studying their interests and learning to engage in them. He learns the great art of storytelling, which Jesus employed for the delight and instruction of children and youth. He studies the principles and activities of Christian recreation, that he may, in mingling with the youth, show his appreciation of their needs, yet save them from dissipation and rivalry.

He becomes the confidant of his people. In him the child finds an intelligent and understanding friend, because he knows the work­ings of the child mind, appreciates the viewpoints of the yet immature, but developing, intellect, and masters the art of instructing affil inspiring the little man or woman to be. In this he may not have all the )ivisdom of Jesus, but he is the student of Him who said, "Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto Me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

In the field of the adolescent, the pastor finds great and unique opportunity for service. He must study the science of this transmutation from childhood to maturity, must come to appreciate God's purpose in making a lengthy transition period instead of effecting the trans­formation overnight, and must then find means to make use of that probational time to effect the educational, social, and spiritual changes which will result in worthy manhood and womanhood. He has to understand adolescent psychology, and become skillful in applying his knowledge to leadership of the youth. He must become the counselor of parents in their perplexity and need in this critical time, and he must train efficient leaders among the youth to be his helpers.

As young men and young women approach the age of marriage, to whom besides their parents should they most naturally turn for counsel and instruction ? To whom but their pastor ? The counsel he has to give them should not consist of mere platitudes. They will quickly detect the emptiness of such talk, for they have need of vital knowledge as they enter upon the mysteries and the duties of married life and consequent parenthood. Many of them realize this need, and they seek for and welcome instruction and counsel based upon sound knowledge and wisdom gained from experience.

Prenuptial Counsel and Instruction

There are many sources in the world today that offer prenuptial counsel and instruction. Some of it is wise, some of it is very foolish, and some is vicious. The pastor should be competent to differentiate between the good, the indifferent, and the evil, and to advise ac­cordingly. And he must not only be able to recommend others' counsel ; he must have formed for himself a body of knowledge and a philosophy of behavior which, exemplified and re-enforced by his life, shall mightily influ­ence the ideals and the conduct of his youthful members.

Here is the most delicate and responsible role that the pastor has to fill in all his ministry. For "it is the nicest work ever assumed by men and women to deal with youthful minds."—"Testimonies," Vol. III, p. 131. The adolescent is critically observant ; he holds a high standard of conduct for his elders, even though he may excuse his own delinquencies—and rightly, for his elders, and especially his spiritual leaders, are set to be his exemplars. Some of the youth are high-minded as to their own conduct, and they especially are due to be given the most perfect pattern of life by their superiors. Terrible tragedies have been en­acted in youthful lives by the moral failure of some minister or teacher or parent. And be­fore the judgment throne of God, surely no crime can register higher than the crime of destroying youthful faith in righteousness and probity.

Faults are the obverse side of virtues. We sin by excess or flaw in the exercise of some natural and normal trait. In nothing so much as in love, the primal power, is this manifest. Love must be under control. It is a virtue to love little children, to love youth and maiden, to love beautiful womanhood and noble man­hood. But waiting at the gates of pure love is always the tempter and deceiver, who will pick the unguarded moment to deflect it into impropriety, indiscretion, and impurity.

Youth's Intimate Counselor

We are not to be afraid of life or of love, for such fear engenders asceticism and that coldness of demeanor which repels and de­stroys. But our constant prayer is to be, "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me." The science of human and conjugal love is to be well mas­tered by the Christian worker, and at the same time the approaches of his soul are to be guarded by the assumption and maintenance of the legitimate conjugal state of marriage and parenthood wherein his prime affections are to be engrossed. Then, and then only, will he be fitted to be the intimate counselor of youth, the father of his people.

In the affairs of his married parishioners the pastor has some of his most trying and difficult experiences. There come to him many cases of unhappy marriage relations. Some of them may, by wise counsel and ministry, be happily resolved, and it is one of the great­est joys of ministry to be the agent of recon­ciliation and understanding love between hus­band and wife. Other cases are bedded deep in differences of temperament, training, and habits, and their solution is much more difficult. Some are close upon the brink of separation and divorce, and only a miracle can save them. But miracles are the specialty of God our Father. Nothing is impossible with Him. He can convert souls, change life habits, supply love where it is lacking, and bring safety and success where only defeat and wreckage seemed in prospect.

It takes deep soul searchings and wrest­lings on the part of the minister of Christ to reach thus deeply into lives and to administer the saving power of Christ. But can he refuse? Sometimes the revelations of marital infeli­cities, of infidelities, of misuse and abuse and sickening crime, horrify his soul. There are some ministers who turn away in disgust from such revelations and from such sin-scarred souls. They themselves have never so sinned. They may never even have imagined such iniquity, and they experience a natural revul­sion from the sight and the thought of this putrid mass. But the immaculate Christ is not turned away. He knows the secret history of every soul, the blackest as well as the whitest. We are all sinners before Him, and who can measure the degree of sin and infamy in the sight of God?

Remember what Jesus said to those who thought themselves holy as compared to those they abhorred; "The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you." The true minister of Christ will see himself as the chief of sinners and, having been rescued from the greatest depths of sin he intimately knows, he will be fitted to be the glad bearer of salva­tion to the repentant sinner, no matter how deep that sinner has sunk. Can any have sinned more deeply than Magdalene, out of whom was cast a devil of lechery, six times to re-enter and repossess? Yet never was she abandoned by the Saviour, who the seventh time cast out forever the destroyer of her soul, and earned in her the most devoted of His disciples! But the pastor who would succeed in this ministry must know that he must study life and the science of life giving, and that "this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting."

Among the most delightful experiences of the well-equipped pastor is his guidance of parents in child training. In dealing with children, we are in the company of the purest, most innocent, most impressionable, most promising of all the recipients of our labors. This is primarily the field of labor of the parent, and to the God-fearing, intelligent, skillful, faithful parent, comes, in the end of his service, the purest, most soul-satisfying joy which the human heart can receive and bear. When his children, rightly taught, carefully trained, earnestly guarded against evil, and impressed with the image of the divine, come to the fullness of their manhood and woman­hood, giving themselves to God and His serv­ice in the serving of men—ah, they who have that reward for their labors enter into the joy of their Lord.

And the pastor who has helped and counseled and guided these parents even in part, is a sharer in their joy. No other converts of his can equal the near perfection of these souls, who from their earliest years have kept the companionship of Jesus, and like Him, have grown in wisdom as in stature, and in favor with God and man.

But this service requires no slight science. It demands study, thought, devotion, earnest labor, closeness of communion with God. Yet it is the pastor's duty and his inestimable privilege. The feeling of many pastors of incapability to assume this role is due in part to the unfortunate fact that pastoral training among us as yet does not include study and preparation in social and home life and prob­lems. May that lack soon be remedied in our schools !