If you feel as I do about certain things, you may want to get rid of your television set and cancel your subscription to the daily newspaper. If you are really serious about your mental development, you may actually have to do this. I might say here that I have never owned a television set and it has been more than thirteen years since I took a daily newspaper. This is a matter of personal choice with me; what you do is not something that I am responsible for.
If you have complete control over these things, so far as the use or waste of time is concerned, then you are on safe ground in having them. They certainly are not necessities. Anyone who has a radio on which he can get a good newscast, and who takes a weekly news magazine and reads it intelligently, will be as well informed as he needs to be about current news. He can listen to the newscasts while he is driving his car or eating his breakfast, and he can read the news magazine in one tenth the time he would probably spend on the newspaper. In addition, he will not be cluttering up his mind with a myriad of nonessentials.
Many people confuse the gathering of information with thinking. This is a complete fallacy, as is demonstrated by many people who know all the local gossip and never give birth to an original thought.
Organization and discipline demand method and yield efficiency.
There are some young men and women who have no method in doing their work. Though they are always busy, they can present but little results. They have erroneous ideas of work, and think that they are working hard, when if they had practiced method in their work, and applied themselves intelligently to what they had to do, they would have accomplished much more in a shorter time. By dallying over the less important matters, they find themselves hurried, perplexed, and confused when they are called upon to do those duties that are more essential.—Evangelism, p. 649.
Anyone who has watched a person who accomplishes a great deal will find that he has method in his work. His method may not be the same as the one you will want to follow, but he will have a method. Some like to rise early and do a great deal of their work early in the day. Others prefer to work later, or they may be forced to by the nature of their work. Either way, success seldom comes without good method. And method demands promptness.
Everything must be done according to a well-matured plan, and with system. God has entrusted His sacred work to men, and He asks that they shall do it carefully. Regularity in all things is essential. Never be late to an appointment. . . . Some workers need to give up the slow methods of work which prevail, and to learn to be prompt. Promptness is necessary as well as diligence. If we wish to accomplish the work according to the will of God, it must be done in an expeditious manner, but not without thought and care.—Ibid., pp. 640, 650
There are many reasons why promptness is essential. The worker who is always late is ever trying to catch up, and he becomes more and more frustrated and disorganized as he goes along. In fairness to others, whose lack of punctuality the worker would himself find exasperating, the worker should be on time. The minister who keeps a group of fifty people waiting five minutes for a meeting to begin has cost the group four hours and fifty minutes of their time. He has broken the commandment that says, "Thou shalt not steak"
Punctuality and system enable us to do more. Having a set time for study and educational reading preconditions the mind for work. Bad habits seem to attach themselves to us without intent or effort, but good habits may have to be cultivated. Good habits of study need cultivating, and having a set time for study helps to establish the habit of study. I happen to have had to do a good deal of writing for publication, and long ago I found that having a set time for going to work on a certain writing project helped me to get an assignment done.
There is no sin in doing a job the easy way; neither is any righteousness acquired through making an easy job hard. Years ago I took a business course, and one of my instructors used to say, "Learn to do it the easiest way. Remember, the boss doesn't care how tired you get. He is interested only in getting the job done." This was good advice, and largely true. Method will help you get the job done, with energy left for the next task.
In our conference when the workers get together there is often discussion as to how to report certain items called for on the workers' report blanks. In answer to questions about some of these items I have remarked that if a worker reports fifty baptisms a year, he need report nothing else. Of course I was not entirely serious in this remark. The conference treasurer might have some objection to such reporting. But what I was trying to get across is the idea that reporting is not what we are working for. The real object in our work is the salvation of souls, and the particular means used is not so important. Neither is the number of miles driven, calls made, nor Bible studies given.
Method and organization can help a man produce much more than otherwise.
Some years ago I read an account of the work of Reuben Youngdahl, pastor of the Mount Olivet Lutheran church in Minneapolis. He became pastor in 1938 when the church had a membership of 331. By 1950 there were 5,000 members in his church. The church was situated in a fast-growing suburb of Minneapolis, which accounted for some but not all of the growth, for one half the members added to the church were not previously Lutherans.
How did Youngdahl work?
Five nights a week from five to eight o'clock he made calls, with appointments made ahead of the calls by his secretary, who also mapped the calls so as to avoid back-tracking. It is stated that he called on most of the 1,350 families in his parish each year. Three evenings a week he and his wife entertained from thirty to fifty guests in their home, after eight o'clock.
Membership information was gained from city records of moves, from the Minneapolis Church Federation, from newspapers, and from cards turned in by church members who learned of new families moving into the suburb. Each new family in the area was then assigned to a member family for visitation and was invited to attend Mount Olivet. Each new family received a letter of welcome from the church. The area Welcome Wagon was furnished with promotional literature to give to new families.
Each Sunday every family attending church was asked to fill out an attendance card, and absentees were sent a we-missedyou card.
There are other details of this church's ministry that I shall not take space to detail, but the lesson is plain: Great churches do not grow by accident. But method, organization, and hard work can accomplish great results.
How can the mind be disciplined?
Every worker, or company of workers, should by persevering effort establish such rules and regulations as will lead to the formation of correct habits of thought and action. Such a training is necessary not only for the young men but for the older workers, in order that their ministry may be free from mistakes, and their sermons clear, accurate, and convincing.
Some minds are more like an old curiosity shop than anything else. Many odd bits and ends of truth have been picked up and stored away there; but they know not how to present thetis in a clear, connected manner. It is the relation that these ideas have to one another that gives them value.
Every idea and statement should be as closely united as the links in a chain. When a minister throws out a mass of matter before the people for them to pick up and arrange in order, his labors are lost; for there are few who will do it.—Ibid.; pp. 648, 649. (Italics supplied.)
I think that such study begins with getting information in depth and allowing time for that information to be digested and assimilated. In many cases sermons are not made; they grow in the subconscious, but they must have something to grow on. Information should be correlated and compared.
Let me illustrate. A few months ago I had occasion to make a restudy of the Book of Daniel. I reread the book and nearly all the commentary material that I could obtain on the book. When I began I thought there was little more I could learn about it after having preached from it literally scores of times. By the time I was through I had written a series of four articles and an entirely new sermon, and had arrived at an entirely original thought (to me). All the study I did was worth the latter, for I have few original thoughts.
This brings us to the question: How do you study? The human mind is reluctant to do hard work. Too frequently when we sit down to study, our minds immediately begin to look for ways to escape what is ahead of them. We think of a thousand things we ought to be doing other than studying. We think that perhaps we ought to read something we missed in the latest paper or magazine. We probably ought to make a telephone call.
Do not allow yourself to do any of these things. Force yourself to concentrate. If you must read, read your Bible. I have found that one of the best ways of forcing my mind to get to work is to start writing. Years of editorial and radio script writing have taught me that when I begin the mechanical art of putting words on paper, my mind generally begins to get into motion. The Greeks had a saying that "the beginning is half the thing." In study it is often more than half, and once one has really begun, he may find himself most reluctant to stop.
Have an agenda for the day. But having it and following it are two different things, especially for a pastor whose telephone is likely to ring at the most inconvenient time, with a genuine emergency at the other end of the line. But have an agenda, and follow it as well as you can. This will not only save you time but it will help you to discipline yourself to keep at your task. I find it helpful to carry a pocket "reminder," and often in the morning I jot down things that I must attend to when I get to the office. This is an exceedingly simple practice, but it is remarkably helpful. It is a convenient place to jot down ideas and sermon notes that often come at times when we are not at our desks studying. Ideas are worth their weight in gold to a minister, and we ought not let them get away from us.
I believe that our reading has a lot to do with our thinking. I think reading a good magazine is better than reading a newspaper, for it contains better organized material and is not so diffuse. I believe reading a good book is better than reading a magazine, for somewhat the same reasons. At the present time I am experimentally limiting myself to one magazine, apart from our denominational publications. The rest of my reading time I am spending on books, and I am convinced that I get more thought material from this program than from a large amount of miscellaneous material. I like to carry books with me wherever I go.
The question is not how much we read but what we read. I was surprised to learn recently that Spinoza owned but sixty books, and Kant three hundred. This should not have been surprising when we remember the extremely limited number of books that men like Lincoln had during their youth. The number they had was not as important as the quality of what they had, and what they did with it. Ernest Dimnet in his worth-while book The Art of Thinking, has this to say on the subject:
"Reading as practiced by most people, is but a method of not thinking. Let this go on for several years and the brain will become what is properly termed jellified."
Because reading furnishes the mind, we need to be careful what we read. Let me recommend that you begin with the Conflict of the Ages series—even if you have already read all five volumes. I like to read five pages a day, and then take time to think about what I have read. You can read all 3,603 pages in less than two years in this way, and all 4,812 pages of the Testimonies in a year and four months at ten pages a day. Keep notes and sermon ideas in the back of each volume.
The man who can present organized thoughts will be listened to with delight by his congregation.
