[Months ago we asked Fordyce Detamore to write out some of the suggestions included in his talks at workers' meetings on how a minister can condense and organize his program so that he can have time for evangelism. In complying with our request he says, "I have unburdened my heart on these thoughts, but the trouble is to condense so much into the space of an article." We feel he has made a truly significant contribution.—Editors]
For what purpose are ministers ordained? To preach the Word and not to wait on tables. But there is a lot of table waiting expected today. How can he reduce this to a minimum so that he will find time to fulfill the primary task to which he was called?
There are two primary kinds of preaching: (a) edifying the saints, (b) warning the lost and leading souls to surrender. In our present emphasis the saints are being pretty well edified.
But how many of our ordained ministers are giving their time to the preaching of the last warning message to a doomed world? The ship is sinking, but are we manning the lifeboats? Or are we busy polishing the brass, scrubbing the deck, oiling machinery, building additions on the superstructure, or remodeling the whistle for louder sound? In a crisis only one thing matters, and that is to fill the lifeboats and save the perishing.
It is a tragedy that in the Advent Movement there is so little actual preaching to the lost world. These are days of large incomes and days of seeming peace, yet so little is being done to hasten the last entreaty of mercy to a world in despair. How, oh, how can we ever face God in the judgment when we have so neglected our opportunities?
It is not enough to say that we are "carrying the program" or that we are "middle-of-the-road men who keep a well-balanced program running in our churches." It is not enough that we be go-getters and that we break all records in promotion, soliciting, building. We must be witnesses to the saving gospel of our soon-coming Lord.
"But I just don't have time for evangelism in my crowded program," says many a young pastor. "What with pitching camp, and camp meeting [for the edifying of the saints largely today!], and junior camp, workers' meetings, committee meetings, board meetings, congresses, vacations, church and school building programs, attending the poor and the sick, conducting weddings and funerals, assisting at institutes, answering the telephone, caring for the mail, pastoring the flock, attending Sabbath school councils and young peoples' councils in the local churches, caring for church and church school business, studying for pastoral sermons as well as feeding one's own hungry, hurried soul, doing In-gathering and pushing all the other campaigns, getting out church bulletins, visiting other churches in the district—there just isn't any time left for evangelism!"
These are not rare words. These are utterances of desperate ministers all over the land. This is not an exaggerated picture of the seemingly frustrated. It is the factual picture of the pastor and district leader originally ordained to "preach the Word."
We just must do something about it. We can do a lot of condensing, rearranging or reorganizing and streamlining certain parts of our load, so that we can find time to give the message of grace to those perishing around us.
A Few Suggestions
Let me share with you a few concrete suggestions. These cannot be arranged in any ascending order of importance.
1. Promotion campaigns.—Do not neglect these, but do condense them. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." Get it over with, and then get back to the public meetings. Campaigns are important. But unfortunately they are taking far too much time. If they are condensed and organized well, they can be dispatched quickly. But too often these drag out indefinitely, till a large percentage of the year is spent in waiting on promotional tables.
Let your home missionary secretary build and arrange the goal devices for the church campaigns. He will be glad to do it. And instead of the pastor's being out getting tape, paints, electric switches, plywood, string, and thumbtacks, he will be out warning the world of the approaching end.
You know, we are in a strange situation today. More and more our ministers' lives are being geared to "waiting on tables" while we encourage our lay members to do the preaching of the Word—just the reverse of the arrangement in the book of Acts! Our laity should help preach the Word. But should we not harness our lay power to aid in the routine work of table waiting, so our preachers can do some soul winning too?
2. Church and school building programs.—Herein lies a snare that is apt to hold a minister for months and keep him from soul winning. And while a big and elaborate church is being built, time is running out and eternity is crowding down upon us.The Spirit of prophecy warns against our building elaborate and costly buildings, either for church worship or in connection with our sanitariums, colleges, academies, and other institutions. If this counsel were honored today, our ministers would not need to be spending so much time in raising money and supervising building. We would have more time for preaching the Word, for which we were ordained. And remember, my fellow minister, these magnificent buildings we are so proud of will soon be fuel for the fires of destruction in the last days. In too many places our fancy masonry cries out across the land, "Our Lord delayeth His coming!" Should not the churches we erect and the institutions we vote to expand, in the very simplicity of their construction, proclaim, "The Lord is coming soon"?
Wherever possible, capable laymen should head up the building committee, so that ministers will be freed for preaching, and visiting the interested ones.
3. Funerals.—I do not know how to reduce these, but I'll tell you one experience.We had driven ourselves (against our personal wishes and in spite of a crowded church program in a city of a million and a membership of more than four hundred) to begin a series of meetings. The devil kept telling us that we ought to know better than to shoulder such an unnecessary, extra load—evangelism—when we were already overcrowded with work.
And as though in proof of his point, we had six funerals the week before the opening, and I thought to myself, "Yes, Satan, you are right. With people dying like this I simply won't have time to hold meetings. You've had a lot more experience in evangelism than I have. But get out of the way! We are going ahead with meetings in spite of everything." And instead of six funerals a week, for the duration of the fourteen-week campaign not one member died. But sixty-four souls were born again! From that day (1936) to this I have never let Satan hinder my holding evangelistic meetings.
Our members will live longer spiritually if we keep up a perpetual evangelistic endeavor, and this experience about convinced me that they will last longer physically. Constant pastoral evangelism solves almost every other church problem!
5. Interviews and counsel periods.—Even this can be geared to a crowded evangelistic program. Have a set time (perhaps Wednesday afternoon and up to prayer meeting time, or Sunday forenoon) when you will be at the church study and available for counsel. On other days insist that people see you after the evangelistic meeting at night. (This will help to increase your attendance, and after an evangelistic sermon perhaps personal problems will have a tendency to sink into their proper perspective.) In these after-meeting interviews, when it is late, people do not stay so long.
Don't encourage people to come to your home to see you, because then they do the deciding as to when it is time to leave. Better go to their homes or see them at the church study or at the hall at night, and then you determine the termination point.
6. Telephone calls.—Occasionally tell in church that you like telephone calls when people come to the point quickly and then hang up. Let them know that you desire to conserve time, not for selfish reasons, but so you can visit, and help their friends and relatives to find this glorious message.With the marathon telephonists simply interject several brief questions on the point they are discussing until you get the conversation back on your own lips, and then bring it to a quick, pleasant (never cross!) climax: "Thank you so much for calling!"
For the perpetual telephone and visiting "annoyer" there is a pleasant cure. Assign this individual an important and difficult task, and every time he contacts you for a needless and time-consuming interview, just turn the tables and press him as to why he has not yet accomplished his task. Soon he will avoid you until the task is accomplished. Get a man to work, and he won't spend so much time talking. (I feel guilty today for not being out visiting. I'm spending too much time talking!)
Let your wife answer the telephone. She can weed out a lot of needless interruptions. But for your wife's sake, in tactful announcements at the church let your members know she is busy too. Not just with homework, but with a heavy load in evangelism: cutting stencils, transcribing dictation, sending out circular letters, et cetera. Some of our people have the erroneous idea that the minister's poor wife is the neglected soul at home, sorrowing out her heart in loneliness. Let them know that she is a busy mother and wife and a hardworking partner in all your evangelistic endeavors.
7. Entertaining.—Needless entertaining casts a heavy load on a minister's wife. She can be of far more value working by your side in soul winning than she can feeding well-fed saints physical food. (Are not the people whom the minister "must" entertain those who are already the best fed in the congregation?)
Not only is entertaining time consuming for you and your wife, but it is also expensive. Few pastors can really afford it. And if you invite people out, they'll surely ask you back, and that will take double the time. You can make four to six real evangelistic visits in the time it takes to eat and overeat as a guest at a member's home!
Jesus says if you want to feed someone, feed the poor. That will really be appreciated. Besides, they won't ask you back. So that will help to economize on your time.
Be careful also lest in socializing with a few chosen leaders or intimate friends in the church, you actually weaken your influence in the hearts of the church as a whole.
Be a friend to all but with none be too intimate. It saves time—time that can be utilized for evangelism and visitation.
8. Church repairs.—"Oh, Pastor _______ I'm so glad I caught you. I was just by the church and the downspout is broken and rain is pouring into the basement."
That is definitely not the pastor's responsibility—waiting on tables and downspouts. Educate your members to call the deacons for all such emergencies. If they fail to get action there, let them call the elder. In public announcements let the responsibility of deacons, deaconesses, and elders be known, and tell your members that they must turn to these leaders in matters involving all physical appointments around the church and church school buildings. When they know your program is crowded with visiting their interested friends and relatives, and leading the lost to Christ, they will want to help wait on tables.
9. Board meetings, committee meetings, and church councils.—The best time to assemble these groups is after your evening meeting at the hall. It will do the hearts of all good to be in attendance, and a lot of things they had planned to say, they won't say after their hearts have been stirred. And they won't talk so long because it is getting late! A large part of what is said on board and committee meetings would be better unsaid anyway. The Lord counsels us that our ministers spend too much time in committee meetings. That was true when it was first written, and it is just as true today.
We need fewer committee meetings and more evangelistic meetings, fewer board meetings and more cottage meetings. The sooner that revolution takes place, the sooner the work will be done.
Visiting
10. Pastoral versus evangelistic visiting. —Don't neglect the flock. But don't pamper them either. The incoming pastor should visit every church member's home. This can easily be accomplished in two months' time. Say you set aside four days a week for visiting. You can easily make fifty visits in four days. (Even seventy visits can be made in a crowded week.) In eight weeks that would be four hundred homes, and you still have three days a week for other church work and your day of relaxation. Make three lists for future visiting:
a. Shut-ins. These unfortunate members should be visited once a month. They are always home, and you can easily visit as many as fifteen to twenty in a day.
b. Discouraged and slipping. Perhaps one fourth or one fifth of your membership will fall into this class. Make a careful list and call on them regularly, till you have built them up.
c. New interests, colporteur interests, backsliders, Bible school interests, and relatives of members. Gather these names and addresses from members during your initial pastoral calls. Do not visit these until you have completed the above calls. When meetings begin, this group of names can be visited during the first days or weeks of the campaign. This list is the most valuable group of prospective names you can gather.
Send them a circular letter with a handbill inviting them to the meetings. Foster these names carefully, and your meetings are sure to see some harvest.
A caution. When you plan a full day of visiting, don't let trivial things throw you off the track. Give yourself an assignment of thirty-five to seventy visits to be made that week, and hold yourself to it.
Don't stop in the midst of a busy and important day of visiting to go and settle some petty quarrel between two members. Maybe if you let them stew awhile, they will appreciate your aid more. Almost everything can wait for a day without worsening (they say there is no such word, but there should be).
Group your visiting. Don't mix all kinds of problems in a day of visiting. One day visit the shut-ins. Another day visit those who are being considered for disfellowshiping. Another day visit the needy. Other days visit backsliders and interests of all types. You will enjoy your visiting more that way, do better work, and get it done quicker.
11. Petty distractions.—After you have divided up the regular church work among church leaders and members, there will still remain many annoying, time-consuming details. To care for miscellaneous problems and responsibilities, ask the nominating committee to choose other church assistants:
a. Reception secretary. She is to look after all special affairs such as showers, welcomes, farewells, wreaths, et cetera, and is charged with the responsibility of seeing that rich and poor are treated alike.
b. Social committee. A live church should have live socials. But they must be held on a high plane, carefully planned, and efficiently executed. The minister should not become involved in such details, important though they be. Let the nominating committee choose reliable social leaders who will efficiently shoulder this responsibility. The pastor's wife might well be a member of this group.
c. Business clerk. Finally there are the odds and ends of all varieties that press upon the life of the preacher, consuming his time and keeping him from his God-assigned work.
"So glad I caught you in. Are you busy? I was wondering if you could find a member who is a carpenter and send him over to my place. I'm sure some of our members need the work." . . . "I called to see if we have any dentists_________ " Then follows a lengthy portrayal of the toothache of the preceding night, which is minor compared with the pastor's fast-developing headache. . . . "Could you come and take some things over to the Dorcas? I was touched by your appeal Sabbath and have these things ready. As I have no car I thought you could stop by for them." . . . "Am writing to see if you could make reservations for us at a suitable motel, as we will be passing through there May 28, going West." (They took the northern route and forgot to cancel the reservations you so gladly made for them.) . . . "Say, could you tell me Mrs. _________ 's telephone number? I could have looked it up but knew you'd have it on the tip of your tongue." (Good she doesn't know what I actually do have on the tip of my tongue!)
So our nominating committee chose a business clerk with a telephone, and what a blessing she was. We announced that all such calls should go directly to her. She prepared a mimeographed list of doctors, carpenters, nurses, room renters, and baby sitters. She cared for all routine business affairs, and thus left the pastor free from more table waiting, so he could preach the Word.
12. The weekly schedule.—You will enjoy life more, get more done, and live longer, I believe, if you will divide up your week: certain types of things to be cared for on certain days.
For example, one forenoon will be reserved for answering mail, writing radio talks, writing articles like this, preparing advertising for future meetings—in other words, desk work.
All routine chores may be allowed to collect until Friday afternoon: getting a haircut, going to the market with or for your wife, going to the bank, mailing parcels, looking at the new-model cars that came out earlier in the week.
(I believe many ministers would have far more time for visiting if they would get a low-priced second car for the wife. Some of our ministers are spending a lot of time taking the children to school, picking them up, and taking them to piano lessons. A second car really helps, provided it is cheap, good, and efficient.)
Another half day will be spent at the church study for interviews and counseling.
Every day the minister will need at least two hours in the morning to get his own soul ready to face the world another day. And when a new sermon is about to be born, a half day extra will surely be required.
In a long series a minister will be preaching three to five nights a week and will be visiting three or five days a week. In a short campaign he will be preaching every night for three weeks, and during that intensive period he will have to let many things ride until later. But he will find time for his meetings and visiting when he gives them first claim on his time, as God has already indicated he should. I believe as we pledge ourselves to this task God will open up ways to give us time. Other matters will fall into their proper perspective.
13. Time to relax.—In a crowded, intensive program of work, promotion, preaching, soliciting, visiting, et cetera, a minister will most surely break if he does not force himself to take time off to do nothing—nothing except what he feels like doing: gardening, boating, swimming, hiking, et cetera. But do include your wife and children in your hobby. They have a right to some of your time too. And how much closer it ties a family to know that they can have one day a week together, to spend as they most enjoy.
Not only will your nerves be less tense but you will get more done the rest of the week. You will save your children to you and to the truth, and you will lengthen your days and keep acquainted with your best partner in evangelism—your wife. The heavier your load and the more crowded your schedule, the more imperative it is that you take a day a week off regularly. In the short campaigns you may have to wait for relaxation until the campaign is over.
Finally, I appeal to you to let nothing, absolutely nothing, keep you, as a minister, from preaching the Word, not merely for the edification of the saints but especially to warn a doomed and dying world of a soon-coming Saviour before it is too late.
"I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence" (Isa. 62:6).
