DO IT YOURSELF
The "Do It Yourself" fever is currently gripping the country. It is a fatal formula when applied to the minister's relationship to his congregation. For the minister to shoulder the myriad responsibilities of church programing is to convert the church into a vast infirmary.
Few things are more pathetic than to visit a church where the minister handles every little detail, while capable people sit in the pews. Not a few church problems stem from the pastor's Herculean attempt to carry the church on his shoulders.
While it is true that every congregation is divided into two classes—those who like to help to get things done, and those who will encourage you to go ahead and do it—most church members will gladly serve if given an opportunity. When you are ill, brother pastor, it will probably surprise you to discover your own nonindispensability.
E. E. C.
THE MINISTER'S EDUCATION
Elbert Hubbard said it: "Education is a conquest, not a bequest. It cannot be given; it must be achieved." Every minister or teacher who has made a real contribution to the work of God is one who has worked long and unfalteringly to qualify himself for the efficient discharge of his appointed task. On the other hand, some ministers today are mediocre in their preaching and in results of their preaching simply because they have no desire, or are not willing, to pay the price of the higher training they need.
But is it not the guidance of the Holy Spirit, rather than education, that is essential? True, the first and greatest and the one indispensable qualification of a minister is that he be filled and controlled by the Spirit of God. Education can never take the place of the power of God in a minister's preaching and in his life. But if a man is truly under the guidance of the Spirit, will he not be divinely led to feel his need of all the education possible? And will he not be willing to bend every effort to obtain the training he needs? The servant of the Lord wrote:
"If placed under the control of His Spirit, the more thoroughly the intellect is cultivated, the more effectively it can be used in the service of God. The Lord desires us to obtain all the education possible, with the object in view of imparting our knowledge to others. . . . We should not let slip even one opportunity of qualifying ourselves intellectually to work for God."—Christ's Object Lessons, pp. 333, 334.
Wrote Percy Bysshe Shelley: "The more we study, the more we discover our ignorance." There is a healthy and desirable result of systematic study, with its ever-beckoning heights of attainment, that will always keep us humble. One thing I have much admired in great men, well-educated men: they are humble because they know how little they know. Conscious of that fact, we will keep studying the rest of our lives. Old age may bring its physical limitations, but may each of us keep mentally and spiritually alert to the last breath.
How happy we are that the General Conference, following the clear lines of instruction given through the Lord's servant, has made possible our Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, in Washington, D.C. In this institution we find consecrated instructors, many of them outstanding specialists in their fields even in the eyes of scholars of the world. We ought to thank God for this institution brought into being for one purpose—that our ministers and teachers might acquire under the best possible conditions the higher education needed in the finishing of the work. Every minister ought to avail himself, when and if possible, of the opportunities offered by this noble institution.
But what of the motive for this advanced study? Here is where we need to think deeply and honestly. Is the underlying motive a desire to leave the ministry, with its first-hand contact with souls, in order to obtain a position of greater prestige and wider recognition? Or is the motive for study a deep, burning desire to serve more efficiently as a winner of souls, to obtain a masterly skill in shepherding the flock? A man who is truly educated, and truly converted, will not be looking for higher position or power or influence, but will be most humble and ready to be spent for the cause to which he has been called.
Should the man who has received his Ph.D. or his B.D. conclude that he is now too good and too valuable a man to return to pastoral ministry or evangelism? The pastor is continually a representative of Christ in the church and in the community. The evangelist is ever on the firing line, meeting all types of people and accountable for the favorable and unfavorable impressions the people form of Seventh-day Adventists. Should not pastors and evangelists, in the very nature of their work, be so far as possible the very cream of the products of our educational system, in addition to first being filled with the Spirit of God? Evangelism—public and personal—is the greatest work in the world, and of the most far-reaching influence. It needs great men.
Does true higher education lead a man to endeavor to demonstrate his superiority to others, to look disdainfully upon those whose training is not equal to his? On the contrary, he will be an instrument humbly, unobtrusively lifting those that have a lesser knowledge and experience.
Let us work and pray together, availing ourselves of the opportunities provided at our Seminary. But may each worker seek knowledge with only one purpose in mind—that the coming of our Lord and Saviour may be hastened!
W. S.