Embracing Authenticity and Joy in Ministry

First and foremost let me say let him give himself no ministerial heirs, but avoid everything which is stilted, official, fussy, and pretentious. The son of man is a noble title; it was given to Ezekiel and to a greater than he. Let not the ambassador of heaven be other than a son of man. In fact, let him remember that the more simple and unaffected he is, the more closely will he resemble that child man, the holy child Jesus. [00:21:50]

I am persuaded that one reason why our working men so universally keep clear of ministers is because they abort their artificial and unmanly ways. If they saw us in the pulpit and out of it acting like real men, and speaking naturally like honest men, they would come around us. Baxter's remark still holds good: the want of a familiar tone and expression is a great fault in most of our deliveries and that which we should be very careful to amend. [00:43:40]

Still a minister wherever he is is a minister and should recollect that he is on duty. A policeman or a soldier may be off duty, but a minister never is. Even in our recreations we should still pursue the great object of our lives, for we are called to be diligent in season and out of season. [00:52:48]

A minister should be like a certain chamber which I saw at Bewley in the New Forest in which a cobweb is never seen. It is a large lumber room and is never swept, yet no spider ever defiles it with the emblems of neglect. It is roofed with chestnut, and for some reason I know not what, spiders will not come near that wood by the year together. [01:02:39]

The Christian minister out of the pulpit should be a sociable man. He is not sent into the world to be a hermit or a monk of La Trap. It is not his vocation to stand on a pillar all day above his fellow men, like that hair brain Simon Styletes of olden time. You are not to warble from the top of a tree like an invisible nightingale, but to be a man among men. [01:17:59]

I love a minister whose face invites me to make him my friend, a man upon whose doorstep you read salve, welcome, and feel that there is no need of that Pompeian warning cave canaan, beware of the dog. Give me the man around whom the children come light flies around a honey pot; they are first class judges of a good man. [01:36:48]

A man must have a great heart if he would have a great congregation. His heart should be as capacious as those noble harbours along our coast which contain sea room for a fleet. When a man has a large loving heart, men go to him as ships to a haven, and feel at peace when they have anchored under the lee of his friendship. [01:48:23]

I commend cheerfulness to all who would win souls, not levity and frothiness, but a genial happy spirit. There are more flies caught with honey than with vinegar, and there will be more souls led to heaven by a man who wears heaven in his face than by one who bears Tartarus in his looks. [02:22:48]

Try to turn the conversation to profitable use. Be sociable and cheerful and all that, but labor to accomplish something. Why should you sow the wind or plow a rock? Consider yourself after all as being very much responsible for the conversation which goes on where you are. [02:56:39]

And lastly, with all his amiability, the minister should be firm for his principles and bold to avow and defend them in all companies. When a fair opportunity occurs or he has managed to create one, let him not be slow to make use of it. Strong in his principles, earnest in his tone, and affectionate in heart, let him speak out like a man and thank God for the privilege. [04:23:12]

Wisely used, our common conversation may be a potent means for good. Trains of thought may be started by a single sentence which may lead to the conversion of persons whom our sermons have never reached. The method of button holding people or bringing the truth before them individually has been greatly successful. [04:38:40]

Be it ours to sow not only in the honest and good soil but on the rock and on the highway, and at the last great day to reap a glad harvest. May the bread which we cast upon the waters in odd times and strange occasions be found again after many days. Amen. [05:48:00]