Why Should You Be a Minister?
In this series of articles addressed to young preachers I shall draw chiefly from ray own personal experience and observations during the last forty-six years. Superlatively happy years have they been to me; for I have often said that no monarch’s throne and no presidential chair is so exalted as a pulpit in which a living preacher presents a living Christ to dying souls. Every minister who reads these columns, and is worthy of his high calling, will doubtless echo the same sentiment. But a vast number of young Christians among our readers are raising the question, Ought I to enter the ministry? Let me say a few frank words to those who are debating with themselves this vitally important question.
That the demand in our country for effective ministers is far in excess of the present supply is very evident. Our population increases more rapidly than the supply of preachers; and of those who have entered the ministry, a considerable proportion have evidently mistaken their calling. No mistake can be more lamentable than this; sometimes it is made from a false estimate of one’s self, and sometimes from the urgent persuasions of indiscreet friends. But if there are some in the sacred ministry who ought not to be there, I feel quite sure that there are many more outside of the ministry who ought to be there. The legal, medical, editorial, engineering, and some other professions, are overcrowded. The only occupation in America that is not overdone is the occupation of serving Jesus Christ and saving souls. I do not undervalue the consecrated labor of laymen; I do not affirm that a Christian cannot serve his Master effectively in any other sphere than that of the ministry; but I do affirm that the ambition for worldly gains and worldly honors is drawing some of the church’s best blood into their greedy outlets. All this is undeniably true; yet, whenever a young man comes to me for advice in regard to entering the ministry, I generally put him through a course of pretty close questions.
In the first place, my good brother, have you any natural gift of speech? The chief business of a preacher is to speak; and if, from either physical or mental deficiency, you have no ability to address an audience, then you will be as useless as a bell without any clapper. Great orators are few, and it is not necessary that you should be one; mere fluency of utterance with nothing to utter will make you only a “tinkling cymbal”; and yet a certain degree of fluent speech is indispensable if you ever expect to command any auditors. Test yourself in the Christian Endeavor meetings or elsewhere, and find out whether you can say a good thing in such a way as to make people listen to you. If, after several fair and honest trials, you completely fail, then you may conclude that God did not make you for a preacher. Serve him in some other way; but do not let a pious intention deceive you into a profession for which you are not fitted.
Second, have you the physical health to endure the strain that the duties of the ministry will lay upon you? Some preachers, like Richard Baxter, Robert Hall, and Dr. Pay son, of Portland, have wrought a glorious work in spite of the bodily infirmities that overtook them; but it is not safe for any young man to undertake the ministry if he is an invalid, or even likely to become one. Next to a heart full of love to Christ, and a clear brain, you will need good lungs and good legs; the first, in order to preach; and the other, in order to go about among your flock. If you are too frail to endure the strain of study and public speaking, if your nerves are rickety and your stomach hopelessly dyspeptic, then you will enter upon your work heavily handicapped. At a later time I will offer some hints to ministers on the preservation of health; but do not start out with no health to preserve.
Third, have you the mental furniture to equip you for the ministry of the gospel! Genius is not essential, unless it be “a genius of godliness.” Pulpit geniuses are rare; and, if God intended to save the world by them, he would have created more of them. Some of the most thoroughly useful, effective, and blessed ministers I know of have been, or are, men of very moderate intellectual powers. No two pastors in New York led more of their congregations to Jesus Christ than did the late Dr. B. and Dr. N.; yet neither of them ever uttered a brilliant thing. They both had eminent piety, warm, loving hearts, and an abundance of good common sense. This last quality is indispensable. If you have not learning, you can by hard study acquire it; if you have not a strong constitution, you may by wise regimen strengthen it; if you have not money to pay for your education, you may earn it; but if you have not good common sense, then (as a quaint old preacher said) “may God pity you, for you cannot get that anywhere.”
Fourth, are you fervently and honestly praying for heavenly direction and carefully watching the leadings of Providence? When God calls a man to the ministry, he is apt to let the man know it. I believe in answers to honest prayer, and I believe in the leadings of the Holy Spirit; and if yon believe in them also, and will keep your eyes open and heart humble and docile, yon will be likely to get some clear indications as to your duty. During the first eighteen months after I graduated from college — months mostly spent in teaching — I was balancing between the law and the ministry. Many of my relatives urged me to become a lawyer, as my father and grandfather had been; but my godly mother had dedicated me to the ministry from infancy, and her counsels all leaned toward the pulpit. One winter afternoon I rode off five miles to a prayer-meeting in a neighboring village. It was held in the parlor of a private house. I arose and spoke for ten minutes; and, when the meeting was over, a person said to me, “Your talk did me good.” On my way home the thought flashed into my mind, “If ten minutes’ talk to-day helped one soul, why not preach all the time?” That one thought decided me on the spot. Our lives turn on small pivots; and, if you will let God lead you, the path will open before your footsteps.
Finally, let me say that no young man ought to enter the ministry unless he feels an intense and invincible longing for the work, — a desire so strong that he will gladly submit to any hardships and privations in order to carry out his holy purpose. When Dr. John Todd, the author of the “Student’s Manual,” set out for his education for the ministry, he walked all the way to college, and slept on the ground out-of-doors for lack of money to pay for his lodgings. If you do not feel in your very bones, “Woe is me if I cannot preach the gospel!” then let it alone. God is not calling you to a work that an archangel might covet. You will need all your zeal, all your
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faith, and all your staying power, to carry you through; for the life of a faithful, courageous, and consecrated minister is not a swing in a hammock. It is the happiest life on earth, if you enter upon it with a pure, unselfish motive, and pursue it, not for your own glory, but for the glory of your Master. Go to that all-wise and loving Master, my young brother, and ask him the question that Saul of Tarsus asked, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do f” Whatever he saith unto your conscience, do it.