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Article by Rev.Dr.I.J.W.Oakley, first published in Irish Baptist magazine, Sept. 1986
The life and work of the preacher involves a two-way
relationship. First and foremost he is related to the Lord who has called him
and entrusted to him the ministry of His Word. This remains fundamental and it
must determine the nature and purpose of every other relationship.
In addition the preacher has a
very personal relationship with the people to whom he ministers. He is never to
be regarded as an actor performing before an audience who are merely onlookers
but as a father who is in close contact with members of his family. The preacher
and his congregation belong to each other for they are bound together by the
closest of bonds.
In this delicate but potentially very fruitful relationship each party reacts to and influences the other. This element of mutual response is particularly evident during the preaching of the sermon and the preacher needs constantly to be sensitive to it. Ideally the preacher and his congregation should grow together as each plays a very important part in the spiritual development of the other. In the vertical relationship with God the preacher is required to be faithful and in the horizontal relationship with his people he is called to show loving concern. In their turn, the people by their spiritual state and responsiveness contribute to his own effectiveness in the work of the Gospel.
One theme which is frequently preached on at induction
services – and rightly so – is the importance of the new pastor being
faithful to the Word of God. He is not at liberty to deviate from God’s
revelation and so he must preach authoritatively what God has said and not what
men like to hear. As a commissioned herald and an ambassador he must not be
apologetic or diffident about his message. In days when many pulpits give an
uncertain sound and soft pedal unpalatable truths, he must make sure that he
himself preaches the whole counsel of God emphasizing, among other things,
repentance as well as faith, divine judgment on sin as well as salvation for the
penitent, the costliness of discipleship as well as the blessings of a quiet
trust. In preaching with courage and authority, the pastor will join the
succession of faithful men in the Old Testament and New Testament and in the
history of the Christian church, who have won outstanding victories for God.
But the newly inducted pastor
often discovers that it is one thing to hear and approve of these familiar
truths but quite another to put them into practice. Even within the most
orthodox circles he may soon find that despite loud protestations of loyalty to
Scripture, not everyone in his congregation gives a ready welcome to every part
of its basic teaching. Those who like a good, doctrinal sermon are not always
anxious to face up to the ethical implications of their theology in every day
living and in public life. In the face of spoken disapproval or a sullen silence
which itself speaks volumes, the preacher is tempted to resort to general truths
without particular application and to smooth over the unpopular truths by making
insipid comments which have relevance to nobody.
The fear of man can come in
various forms – the opinions of influential members of the congregation, the
feelings of fellow preachers or perhaps even the traditional outlook and values
of the denomination to which a man belongs. It brings with it the ever-present
danger of seeking popularity at the expense of truth and of putting the praise
of men before the approval of God. It can have a paralyzing effect on a man’s
ministry and often proves to be the last victory which the preacher gains. But
not until it is gained is that ministry likely to be an instrument of blessing
to others.
Napoleon had a habit of saying
“To conquer we must replace” and it is only as the fear of man is replaced
by a greater fear – that of God Himself – that it can be overcome.
A.N.Martin helpfully describes the fear of God as an attitude in which one
regards the smile of God as his greatest delight and hence his primary aim, and
the frown of God as the greatest thing to be dreaded and avoided. This
definition is well illustrated in the words of John Welsh, the son-in-law of the
Scottish reformer, John Knox, “What! – that I should regard or fear the face
of any man when I remember and assure myself that I am standing before that
sacred and Glorious Majesty whose word in His very sight I am preaching to His
servants and creatures!”
Yet it must never be forgotten
that faithful and courageous preaching is never to be confused with boorishness
and abusiveness, misrepresentation of opponents or character assassination. The
faithful preacher will still minister in charity and humility (2 Timothy
2:24,25), and be clothed with the meekness and gentleness of Christ (2
Corinthians 10:1).
And he must also be careful lest
in seeking the speck of sawdust in another’s eye he is blind to the plank in
his own (Matthew 7:3-5).
Finally it is worth noting that there is a world of difference between being authoritative and being dictatorial. “The authoritative” says J.H.Jowett “carries an atmosphere as well as a message; it has grace as well as truth. The dictatorial may have the form of truth but it lacks the fragrance of the King’s garden … If we are only dictatorial we shall speak with severity; if we are authoritative we shall speak with medicated severity and men and women will begin to expose their poisoned wounds to our healing ministry.”
No man will ever accomplish very much as a preacher or a
pastor unless he has a hearty love for his work and for those to whom he
ministers. He will not just love preaching; he will love people. A man will feel
a special delight and privilege in belonging to his own congregation and this
will be clearly reflected in his joyful reunion with them after he has been
preaching elsewhere or on return from holiday.
This special love for his own
people will profoundly influence every aspect of his ministry – particularly
his pastoral work and the spirit and content of his preaching. It soon becomes
evident when the pastor’s supreme concern is for his people’s good and not
for his personal advantage. Love will drive him to hard work, perseverance and
patience. For his people’s sake he will endure many inconveniences and
self-denials as he gladly spends and is spent for them. He will visit them, know
the circumstances in which they have to live their lives, and seek to enter into
their trials and perplexities. He will be indeed the servant of all (though he
will never forget that he has only one master). Even at times when a word of
admonition has to be given from the pulpit or on a personal level it will be
spoken in a spirit of true love which seeks the highest good of the hearers. As
McCheyne once said, “The man who loves you the most is the man who tells you
the most truth about yourself.”
Only when the preacher regularly
visits and personally knows his people will his preaching ever be really helpful
and relevant. It will be free from being merely academic and theoretical and
will deal with real problems and actual needs. In advocating the value of
personal visitation for young ministers, Andrew Bonar asserted, “It would cure
some of them of their vague intellectual preaching and bring them back to the
simple Gospel”. Far too much preaching is in reality answering questions which
nobody is asking and so – to use the old phrase – “it scratches where it
does not itch.” It is worth adding at this point how advantageous it is for
men to enter the Christian ministry after they have spent a number of years in
secular employment. In such employment they gain an experience of their fellow
human beings and of life in general which greatly enriches their ministry.
Love will also teach the pastor
the importance of seeking to be helpful to every member of the congregation and
not just to those whose support and commendation he is especially tempted to
covet. F.B.Meyer once confessed how as a young preacher much of his sermon
preparation was directed to winning the plaudits of a leading member of his
congregation. After a service this man had the habit of standing at the bottom
of the pulpit stairs and greeting him with the words, “That was a splendid
effort this morning”. This flattery proved to be a fatal snare to Meyer until
one day he realized the enormity of his conduct in using the pulpit to minister
to his own vanity and self-congratulation.
Love for the congregation will
also cause the preacher to sound frequently from the pulpit the note of comfort
and encouragement. While in faithfulness to the Lord there will be times when he
must disturb the comfortable, there will be many other occasions when he must
also comfort the disturbed. These days in which we live bring immense problems
to many people and few of us realize the enormous pressures under which others
have to live. It is crucial therefore that the people of God are regularly
reminded of their true source of support and consolation as they face all that
life brings to them. Many a preacher, especially if as a young man he was
inclined to wield very freely the big stick, in looking back over his ministry
has been heard to say that if he had his time over again he would comfort his
people more. Joseph Parker constantly urged preachers to preach to broken hearts
while R.W.Dale insisted that men do not merely long for consolation but they
really need it. J.H.Jowett, from whom these quotations are derived, also remarks
how impressed he was by the statement of a distinguished scholar who regularly
attended his church. On one occasion he said to Jowett “Your best work in the
pulpit has been to put heart into men for the coming week.”
Love and concern for his people
should also constrain the preacher to communicate his message as effectively and
as clearly as possible to his hearers. This seems to be repeatedly forgotten and
it is a subject which deserves some elaboration. So many preachers do not appear
to realize just how much they fail – in the words of Richard Baxter – “to
make plain the truth …. And drive all home … to screw the truth into their
minds and work Christ into their affections” … and to do all this in
language “most suitable to the capacities of our hearers”. The bewilderment
of some hearers as they come out of a service is betrayed even in their
compliments. “He was very deep today”, comments Spurgeon, is often another
way of saying “I did not understand a word!” From our experience most of us
can probably sympathize with the patient in the mental hospital chapel who is
alleged in the story to have said after listening to the chaplain for some time,
“There but for the grace of God go I!”
Many preachers will insist on
using terminology and jargon which mean absolutely nothing to those who were not
brought up in their circles or who lack the background of Biblical knowledge
which they are fortunate enough to possess. There are two groups of people in
particular who regularly succeed in making themselves incomprehensible. Firstly
there are those evangelicals who “fling at their people great slabs of
religious phraseology derived from a bygone age and who leave their people with
the task of retranslation into terms of their own experience”. A story from
W.E.Sangster illustrates the point:- “In the long years I lived in air raid
shelters, I recall overhearing one night a good woman, much addicted to pious
phrasing, speaking to a tramp for the good of his soul. The conversation had
been proceeding some little time when it fell upon my startled ear. Fragments of
her speech floated over the blast wall. She was saying ‘You know it must be
“Yea” and “Amen” to all the promises of God…’ ‘I suspect that you
are still living under the old dispensation …’ ‘I wish you could
experience a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit …’ ‘You do realize
don’t you that all your righteousness is as filthy rags..?’ The tramp took
little part in the conversation. When finally she left him murmuring something
about ‘interceding for him at the throne of grace’ he found himself again
and just said as she went (not in jeering, but vaguely aware that she meant to
be kind), ‘Okey dokey’. I felt that two worlds had met in those two people
– and they had not intersected.” How often in our evangelical churches it
has to be said that two worlds meet but they do not intersect! This is not a
plea that preachers should abandon vital aspects of Biblical teaching or neglect
central Christian truths because people find them difficult to understand. But
it is a plea that preachers should take the trouble to explain Biblical terms
simply and clearly and to illustrate them so that their meaning may be grasped.
The second group who regularly
fail to communicate meaningfully with their congregation come from the ranks of
academics – and not least those who have received a theological training!
William Barclay in one of his books goes into much detail outlining the
considerable gifts and achievements of one of his former church members whom he
describes as highly cultured, highly skilled and highly intelligent. He was
taken to several meetings of a little group of theologians who gathered to hear
papers by members of the group and to discuss them. While he politely said he
enjoyed being there and on occasion tried to make a contribution, most of the
time he had to admit he had no idea what it was all about. Barclay comments
“Nothing could better show the gap between the professional theologian and
philosopher and the intelligent thinking articulate layman. And too often the
preacher loses the battle for intelligibility.”
During the course of his
training a theological student picks up from lectures and textbooks a
specialized vocabulary and certain ways of expressing ideas which within his
circle need to be known and used. But so often when he becomes a preacher he
forgets that they sound almost like a foreign language to the man in the pew.
The answer, however, is not for theological training to be written off as
useless, but for the preacher to take the trouble to communicate the very
valuable material he has acquired in words and phraseology which can be
understood by his hearers
In describing his father’s
effectiveness as a preacher, Sangster’s son explains how he learned this
difficult lesson in the following way. “My mother played an important part in
these services. She had to hear the sermons read aloud every Saturday morning.
Any word or phrase or idea which was not immediately clear to her was struck
out. At least once my father grew impatient with her slowness of understanding.
‘Will,’ he was told, ‘you may know what you are talking about but I
don’t’. ‘Oh! That’s the worst of these pigeon brains’. ‘Yes, but
remember, those will be the brains you will be preaching to tomorrow night!’
He gave in.”
The preacher who is really concerned for his congregation will make every endeavour to ensure that they understand what he is talking about. This will mean sitting where they sit and listening through their ears.
The members of a congregation
have more to do with helping their pastor to be a good preacher and to exercise
an effective ministry than they sometimes realize. The encouragement and loyalty
of a supportive congregation can be of enormous benefit to a man whose work is
so often beset by disappointment and heartbreak. Every church member ought to
ponder the words of Spurgeon when he says “Our work is no doubt greatly
affected for good or evil by the condition of the congregation, the condition of
the church and the condition of the deacons!”
The first and most elementary
way in which church members can encourage their pastor is to be in their places
at the stated hours of worship on a Sunday if this is at all possible. Some have
legitimate and very understandable reasons why they cannot be at both Sunday
services, but nowadays many others are quite content to be just “oncers”.
Having paid their duty visit to church in the morning, they seem to have no
conscience about neglecting the evening service either to hear some notable
preacher elsewhere – going around “skimming the cream” as someone once put
it – or else just staying at home. It must never be forgotten that it is the
church and not the pastor who fixed the hours of worship. It expects him to be
present and so has he not the right to expect the church also to be present and
to keep the times of the services which the members themselves have decreed? Woe
betide the pastor who dared to do what some of his people do and take the
evening off. It would mean a special church meeting within days and many an
informal one within hours!
Then the spirit and attitude of
the congregation inevitably affect the preacher and the way in which he conducts
the service and preaches the Word. There is no more difficult task in the world
than trying to minister to a cold, critical and listless congregation. On the
other hand there is nothing like a warm, prayerful, spiritually minded and
expectant congregation for stimulating a man to give of his very best as he
conducts divine worship.
It is also worth remembering how
much we can put heart into a preacher by expressing our gratitude to him when
his ministry has been of particular help or challenge to us. Sometimes we tell
everyone but the person who ought to hear. This is not a suggestion that empty
flattery should be heaped continually on the preacher; only fools are deceived
by that sort of thing. But let us bear in mind that it greatly encourages the
one who has spent many hours in hard work in the study and in prayer, to know
that the Lord has been pleased to use him. With the word of encouragement goes
also the place for constructive criticism. No preacher worth his salt will ever
resent helpful suggestions about how he can be more effective in the pulpit from
those whom he knows have his best interests at heart.
Finally, let us never underestimate the crucial importance of consistent living and strong unity within a church fellowship for the sake of its testimony to the outside world as well as the spiritual good of its own members. “A holy people who are living what you preach, make the best platform for a pleader for Christ.”
