The Ministry. And Its Responsibility
I feel that I have come to the most important and the most difficult chapter of my book. It was a real disappointment to me to find that the Conference had separated without a special appeal to the ministers. I cannot but think that it would have carried great weight, and roused much thought and prayer. Under a deep sense of my insufficiency for the task of speaking to my brethren, I will try to give expression to what the message is that the subject of this book brings to the minister.
The first thought is, the heavy responsibility that rests upon the minister. All that we have heard of the failure of the Church, and of the low state of the spiritual life which is the cause of that failure, is first of all an appeal to the ministry. It comes with the question, Why it is that things are so, and what is to be done to remedy it? In the Report the responsibility is laid upon the ministry. Listen to some of its sentences.
“As far as the interest of the Church in missions is concerned, the minister holds the key to the situation.” “In the work of the home ministry is found the secret of the real condition existing in the Church.” “Invariably a missionary pastor makes a missionary church.” “We cannot but regard this phase of our subject as one of the most important, if not the most important, entrusted to this Commission to investigate. There is no doubt that in order to arouse the Church to a sense of its opportunity and privilege the clergy must be reached, and their enthusiastic co-operation secured.” “On ministers, more than on all others, devolves the duty of educating the Church to its missionary calling, and supplying to the people the enthusiasm which will make the Church equal in spiritual power to the present world situation.”
Are we prepared to admit and accept this tremendous responsibility? To confess our share in the Church’s failure and to yield ourselves, by the grace of God, at every sacrifice, to fulfil our task?
In answer to the question, How is it possible that the majority of ministers should never have realised what their duty is, or, when it was put before them, had not the power and the courage to fulfil it? the Report reminds us of the share which the Church as a whole has in the blame. She has never, through her Theological Colleges, trained her young students to an insight into this part of their high calling. She has tried to encourage the ministers and the members who are interested in the work, to exercise all their influence, but has never spoken out, clear and strong, the truth that every minister and every member is to live and labour that Christ may be made known to every living creature, and so trained her ministers accordingly.
But this extenuation does not relieve us from the responsibility that God has put upon us, and which He would have taught us, had we known what it is to live in the continual prayer for His teaching. But here comes another great defect of our theological training — how little we were taught that in the true ministry prayer is the first and essential thing. It was not that our Professors did not sometimes remind us of the need of prayer. But it was taken for granted that we knew how to pray, and did pray. Not long ago I was told of two brethren who were talking on the subject, mourning that in their student time they had not been taught to acquire the secret of prayer, when one said: “It is not that the subject was not mentioned, but it was not impressed upon us that prayer is the first secret of success in the ministry.” The student life is naturally carried forward into the ministry, and we find it, oh, so hard, to acquire the habit of truly effectual prayer, amidst all the study and work that occupies our time.
And yet, it is just in this matter of prayer that the responsibility lies upon us so heavily. The Conference Report tells us, time after time, that if we are to take our part, and to train our people in yielding themselves to Christ’s claim, we must above all learn to pray. “How to multiply the number of Christians who, with clear, unshakable faith in the character of God, will wield this force of intercession — that is the supreme question of Foreign Missions. Every other consideration is secondary to that of wielding the forces of prayer.” “The primary need is not the multiplication of prayer meetings, but that individual Christians should learn to pray. Every endeavour must be made to propagate the spirit and habit of prayer among all Christian workers.”
What a responsibility resting on the minister in the matter of his own intercession, and in his training of His people to take part in it!
I have spoken of the lack in our training, as theological students, of the enthusiasm for missions, and the power of intercession. I feel as if I must mention something that goes still deeper. We have more than once heard in this book that the Conference traces the lack of interest in missions and of devotion in prayer, to the feeble vitality, to the low spiritual life prevailing in the Church. And it is just this that many a minister never learns at College, that the power to pray, and the power to teach others to pray, is entirely dependent on the depth of the spiritual life. Did not our Lord Jesus say, “If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you “? Many a man has resolved to pray more, and has failed, because he did not know this secret, that the average Christian life is not sufficient to give power with God in prayer. It needs self-denial, a turning away from the world, and the sacrifice of what may appear legitimate to others, — it needs a heart given up to God, and longing to be led by the Holy Spirit, if we are to claim all the wonderful promises in God’s Word connected with prayer.
Listen once again to a passage from the Report: “The superhuman must be emphasised as never before since the days of the Early Church. Christians need a fuller, more constant, and more commanding realisation of the personal presence of Christ.” That means there must be the experience of a closer daily fellowship with Him than is ordinarily thought possible. “Conferences have been held, at which the work of world evangelisation has received careful consideration, but there has been alarming neglect to face the great central problem, namely, how to translate into actual experience the Word of Christ, ‘He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit, for apart from Me ye can do nothing.’ “” The missionary problem of to-day is not primarily a financial problem, but it is how to ensure a vitality equal to the imperial expansion of the missionary programme.
The only hope of this is for Christians to avail themselves of the more abundant life through Christ.” Everything returns to the question asked at the commencement of the Report on the Home Base: “Has the Church sufficient vitality for the tremendous task to which it is called?” That sufficient vitality is what the ministers first of all need, if they are to lead the Church to it. On the ministers rests the responsibility of lifting the Church up out of her feeble vitality into the abundant life that there is in Christ Jesus.
What a responsibility! “Who is sufficient for these things?” “Our sufficiency is of God, Who also hath made us sufficient as ministers of the Spirit.” God never lays responsibility on His servant without the assurance of sufficient grace for all that He expects him to be. Let this thought turn the sense of responsibility into prayer. And let all that the Conference has taught us about the absolute necessity and the limitless possibilities of prayer, just lead us to cast ourselves upon God in the confidence that He will fit us for the place that we are being called upon to take in the world conquest.
You remember the instance I gave in Chapter XVI., “The Valley of Decision,” of the decision of two young students to give an hour each day to prayer. What think you? Would it be too much for you to ask God for grace to spend half an hour, every day, in addition to your ordinary time, just to learn from Him the art of prayer and intercession, and in that school to get the needful training for that power of prayer which will lead you into the abundant life of Christ as never before? That will fit you for the great work of lifting up the Church into the same place of power and blessing. In the faith of God’s promise I pray you, be not afraid, but go down into the Valley of Decision. Let it be your firm resolve to spend that half-hour with God in special prayer for your own need and the need of His Church in connection with the new consecration to the service of His Kingdom to which we are called. By the grace of God the decision for that half-hour may be a decision for a life of new devotion to God and His will. The hesitation and self-reproach for unfaithfulness in the morning brings, unconsciously, a cloud all the day. The decision, at any cost, to do God’s will in the morning hour, casts us upon Christ, and makes the will strong for all the day. And the decision for the day may give courage for the next day, and lead us on to a walk with God day by day.
What a responsibility resting upon the ministers in this question of the feeble spiritual life in the Church, and in the prayer to God to lift her out of her low estate into the sunlight of His love.