Consecration! Ability! Training! What more appreciative word could be spoken of a minister than that he have a proper combination of these three vital qualities? Consecration and ability are coveted blessings in the life and work of any minister. Their importance can scarcely be overestimated. But to meet the increasing demands of preaching and pastoral counseling requires a practical plan of training, suited to each worker, for his further development. The training or education of a minister does not stop with college or seminary days. What is learned there merely incites him to further and continued study. We say a practical plan, for each worker knows how Utopian study-plan ideas have caused him to determine again and again to try, only to grow weary and fail.
Unusual reports of men reading as high as a book a day, and studying many, many hours daily, should furnish encouragement for each worker to develop his study habits to the full, but he should in no sense become discouraged if he finds his own capacity limited to a somewhat lesser plan. Now, surely the purpose of this discussion is not to condone mental laziness or inactivity. Just the opposite is desired. We merely wish to state that there are differences among men. Not every worker will grow in study life to research proportions. That very seclusion necessary to produce monumental works and lasting memorials, may tend to unfit a man for free and helpful contact with the people and the understanding human touch while preaching directly to men.
A proper balance should be the goal of the average worker, whose business it is to stand between his people and their God. We feel that far more will be accomplished in lifting the intellectual standards of the minister, and inspiring lasting and genuine enthusiasm for continued and increasing study, by a frank discussion of these extremes.
Take the nonstudious, for example. The entire ministry suffers in the minds of the laymen when it becomes evident that certain workers seldom read for cultural and intellectual growth. The sad story of mind-stultification is betrayed in a variety of ways. His very conversation is limited, and what a travesty his poor attempts in the pulpit are. The tragedy of immature presentations, which are void of stimulating thought and spiritual message, is readily discernible by the men and women in the pew. It is worth noting that many laymen read, think, and grow in spiritual matters, as well as along lines of general culture, to an extent that would leave some workers' standards trailing far behind.
What some of these progressive men and women must think of our sermons or counsels is a question we would do well to ask ourselves. How discouraged they must sometimes become if, week after week, mere commonplace and superficial thoughts are presented in place of well-planned, message-filled sermons which actually help men to live victorious lives here, and which prepare them for the kingdom. The quicker we all learn that the worker is actually "transparent" when he is before his congregation of practical laymen, the better. This fact may not be the most worthy reason, or stimulus, for mental proficiency. We are not in a .contest with laymen. Rather, the sacred sense of ministerial responsibility, and not our shame, should send each one of us to his knees for a fresh sense of our duty to God in this matter.
In a recent revival campaign, conducted among a representative cross section of Seventh-day Adventists, over four hundred made their way to the altar in consecration as they earnestly sought for victory. It was the speaker's attempt, on that particular night, to make the call as specific as possible. Men who had been living consistent, growing lives were not called to the altar for reconsecration. Rather, the appeal was directed to the defeated, the discouraged, the helpless soul who needed to find the secret of victory.
When these people were alone with the evangelist in the aftermeeting, they were asked to place on a card the sin, tendency, weakness, or whatever it was, over which they were seeking victory. This plan emphasized their actually leaving the problem at the altar on a prayer list. They were assured that these requests for prayer would be treated in confidence and that no one aside from the worker in charge would identify the requests with the individual. Here is a list of some of the items that professed Seventh-day Adventist Christians placed on the altar that night. Unashamedly, and in a desire to experience release, they committed these items to the Lord. We believe this to be an indication of people's needs.
Coffee
Liquor
Smoking
Music
Movies
Gossip
Appetite
Wrong companions
Lack of faith
Deceitfulness
Comic strips
Worldly amusements
"Secret sin"
Stubbornness
Wrong reading
Temper
Impatience
Immorality
Diet
Evil thoughts and acts
Lack of love
Mental problems
Family troubles
Disposition
Doubt
Sabbathbreaking
Criticism
Backsliding
Envy
How to manage children Bad habits
Healing
Neglect of prayer life Patience
Selfishness
Fictitious literature
"Many things"
"Sin"
Future in life
Life companions
Wrong radio programs
Slang expressions
Unfaithfulness in tithe
Lack of consecration
The question for us, as workers, is this: Do we have a substantial background for safe, sound counsel, and clear, helpful guidance to meet and answer these practical needs? Have we been alone with God and with the volumes written by those who know Him best, long enough that this large and representative cross section of church members would find tangible help from our preaching and personal counsel? When the real test comes, and we stand before judgment-bound men and women in an evangelistic setting, do we find that the heart is sufficiently full and running over to explain the message clearly, to challenge thinking, and to move wills to action under the power of God?
If any one of us has been fearful about coming to grips with man's inner needs; if there has been a reticence to meet leaders in the religious world outside our own ranks; if there has been little success in molding opinion and carving out true converts for God, could not one chief reason be unpreparedness? God is going to do mighty things through the consecrated, able man who has trained himself for larger spheres of influence.
Here are a few suggestions. Make God's Word first in your plan of study. Determine to become men of the Book—not just in casual reading, but in serious, purposeful reading and connected study, aside from any immediate purpose of sermon preparation.
Then incorporate the Spirit of prophecy. No wide-awake worker who has given thought to artistry in the preparation of sermons would rely solely on a compilation of Spirit of prophecy references, no matter how stirring or pointed. But crisp, pertinent references and quotations should be the natural thing in our sermons. Far more important, however, are the breadth of understanding, the depth of inspiration, the maturity of concept of Bible truth, the understanding of personal problems, and the vision of God's over-all plan resulting from general Spirit of prophecy study. Nothing will save the worker from lack of balance more surely than this. He will know where to place his emphasis. His preaching will be coherent. When one point of the worker's compass is placed on the Bible and the Spirit of prophecy, centering everything in Christ, then the minister's work will be vital and coherent. And the other point of the compass will then take in as wide a sweep as it may.
Each year the Ministerial Association Council covers the field in search of the best in ministerial reading. Wide counsel is solicited and hundreds of volumes and authors are carefully examined. Several choice books are especially prepared by outstanding workers in the fields of their special endeavor. The result is the annual Ministerial Reading Course set, which has been so enthusiastically received, and which has proved such a blessing to our workers. The new books for 1949 are presented on pages 28, 29.
Aside from these principal volumes, much latitude is offered the worker in the selection of supplemental volumes from the highly recommended Elective list. Responsible brethren, who have found much good and little or no objection relative to our standards in certain books, have urged the inclusion in this elective group of the choicest volumes they have read. This comprehensive list enables one to choose reading along lines of his own special interest or urgent need.
Many have adopted the plan of consistently reading the regular set, and then choosing a sufficient number of volumes from the elective list to carry out their plan of reading a book a month, two books a month, or—in the case of not a few busy workers—even of reading a book a week. The Association presents this larger list —with concise descriptions—to the field in this issue, with the conviction that lasting profit will result.
