Baptisms - July 22nd, 2009
A baptismal service may be very beautiful, but also may be very grotesque. As in the matter of weddings, be prepared, Oswald, for anything.
There are large and weak-hearted ladies who may faint at the crucial moment. Go on and dunk ‘em; water will bring them back. There are those excitable souls who are prone to lose their heads and whoop, “Gosh, that water’s cold,” or some similar little comment.
We have heard of the colored minister who lost a large woman from his grasp, allowing her to sink out of sight in the river. He groped for her in the water and failed to find her. Undaunted he announced, “De Lawd giveth an’ de Lawd taketh away. Hand me another nig-gah!”
There are timid souls like the poor tonguetied boy who was “not exactly” and who saw a snake in the water as he went forward in the river to meet the preacher.
“Thee that nake?”
“Come on, it won’t hurt you.” (Stage whisper.)
“I thaid, thee that “nake?”
“Come on, I tell you, it won’t hurt you.” (More stage whispers.)
“Ain’t nobody can keep me in a river with a damn’ “nake!”   And back to the shore he went.
Expect anything, especially at the river baptisms.
There is one little point to think about when you baptize in a baptistry. That is: what to do if and when your baptismal suit springs a leak.
Several avenues of action are open to you. You can announce candidly that your suit has sprung a leak, that you are all wet, and that it is time to go home. If you baptize at the close of your sermon this would not be bad; but if, as many ministers do, you have the baptismal service first it will be slightly embarrassing to send the crowd away. Very nonchalantly you might announce that you have decided to preach from the baptistry and that you believe in doing things your own way and not always following a set plan. Call for your notes and to bear out your alibi, have them sing a song with the last verse first and the first verse last. Not only will you conceal the fact that you are all wet but you will get credit for great originality. The only alternative left is to come forth boldly and preach wet, which would no doubt be a novelty both to you and the congregation, who by this time will have learned to expect only dry sermons from you; and so they will be agreeably surprised for the once.
Some preachers keep the baptistry filled with water and ready for baptisms. I do not approve this method in your case, Ozzy, for I am afraid the baptistry would become a breeding place for mosquitos and so endanger the health of your congregation.
Calling is at once the bane and the blessing of the minister’s life.   In rain, in sleet, in heat, in mud, in darkness, sick or well, glad or somber, the minister must make calls.   With the physician the minister stands by the sick bed and with the undertaker, by the death bed. He must visit the widow, the orphan, the discouraged,  the spiritually hungry,  the troublemaker, the complainer, the seeker, the doubter, the domestic fighters, the hysterical, the frivolous, the hypocritical, the scoffer and the proud. All of these he must meet and deal with besides making those friendly social  calls among his congregation, expected by the people and enjoyed by the pastor as a normal part of his work. A pastor may go night and day, work conscientiously and well, instant to respond to the call of distress or sickness or despair; and yet there will be those complaining, dolorous individuals in every church who will proclaim, “We like our pastor well enough, he is a good preacher, but he doesn’t call.”   And, Oswald, have you noticed that  the complainers are always women?   I am old and full of years, but never yet, my boy, have I heard a man complaining because his pastor did not call. Why on earth should any woman expect a busy pastor, who needs his time for meditation and study to run to her house when there is no particular need for his services, merely to chat for a few minutes on inconsequential subjects, listen to trivial gossip, hear a deal of “yammering,” some confidential disclosures, and a great amount of slush? Yet, expected this sort of calling is, and it is one of the greatest bores of a pastor’s life. Read the rest of this entry »
You will find, Oswald, that the golden rule applies to ministers as well as to the rank and file of humanity. It is a sound principle upon which to base your treatment of your fellow-preachers as well as your fellow-men. But you will find that in the ministry it is often sadly neglected or forgotten. Men who are otherwise conscientious and scrupulous seem to have no compunction in their dealings with their predecessors and their successors in the work; otherwise rational, they will develop “quirks” of jealousy and presumption that would not be countenanced in any other profession, and that seem unbelievable to the humble layman who expects the minister to be Christ-like in all his dealings.
When the former pastor comes to town on a friendly little visit to people with whom he worked for years and whom he loves dearly, and comes in a spirit of good will and helpfulness to reinforce you and strengthen you all he can, sulk, Oswald, and ignore him. Some preachers do. Since you do not “run after” any one, it will be best to avoid him carefully. If he is in the service on Sunday, do not ask him to preach or sing; do not invite him to your home. Of course you are not jealous; you just feel he has enough to do at home without running into your territory. Read the rest of this entry »
(For Preachers’ Wives)
Dear God, I do not know about Eternity— Just where it is or how will Heaven be, But this I pray—of wood or cloud or stone— Oh, let me have a little corner for my own! I’ve moved into so many houses in these years, Have scrubbed so many boards and chandeliers, So many sinks and pantries, tubs and kitchen doors, So many halls and porches, walls and kitchen
floors; And when each room was home and clean and
sweet The process in some other house I must repeat. I’ve lengthened curtains; made them shorter by
the hour; I’ve planted seeds and could not watch them
flower; I’ve planned a room with rugs and drapes to be
a lovely blue, Then had to move it all into a room of scarlet
hue.
Dear God, I do not know about Eternity— Just how it looks or how will Heaven be, But may I have a corner for my own I pray, And, please, may I not move—oh, let me stay!
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Moving is either a form of torture invented by the devil to reduce a preacher to tears and madness or a test permitted by God to teach him patience, endurance, and the control of tongue and temper. Let the harp represent the musician; the pen, the writer; the gavel, the judge; the skull and cross-bones, the medic; the star, the detective; but oh, my dear Oswald, for the preacher the moving van!
Whether you play that delightful little game “fruit basket upset,” you know, Oswald, where everybody grabs a chair and the left one wails, or whether you belong to a more democratic organization that believes in each church picking its own, moving day, like God and the Judgment, is inevitable.
You will either be called upon to move just when your garden is coming on, after days of back-breaking labor, and you will have to leave the tender young carrots, the thriving tomato plants, the tiny new peas; or you will draw a time when the thermometer is 8 below zero. If the former is true, you never move into the new place to find a nice garden left by your predecessor; you usually pay the trash man a dollar to haul away six barrels of junk left behind by the dear man. You survey the trash and think longingly of small new onions and little radishes left behind. If the latter is true— mid-winter and beastly cold—you set your teeth and remember early Christians who were burned at the stake or fed to the lions.
The first step in moving is to systematically and thoroughly wreck the present living quarters. Put away in boxes all loose articles. There is no set rule for this. Your wife will always put the best glass and china in a box in the bottom of the van and the movers will place the piano upon it. Your most cherished picture will be discovered in a box with the ice-tongs, the electric iron, and the portable typewriter, while Aunt Aurora’s vase—which she gave you for a wedding present and you detest and findly hope will be broken—is found packed in pillows and blankets. Read the rest of this entry »
Getting a church is one thing, Oswald, but keeping it is another. When your first burst of oratory is over and you settle down to a steady pace, will you wear well?
What is your plan for the church? Is it a one-year plan, a ten-year plan, or a twenty-year plan? Or, planless, do you mean to drift with every gust of wind, going backward or in circles?
From the very beginning you will want to impress upon the folk that you have been places and have seen things. If you have been to Bermuda, casually refer to that trip in your sermons, taking many of your illustrations from your amazing experiences in that place. By skillfully interjecting Bermuda into your conversations and sermons, the impression will gradually get about that you are a man of the world.
Tell the people on the first Sunday that you are there, that when you have been with them six months you think that you can preach down to their level. The congregation will be sure to appreciate this. Read the rest of this entry »
A preacher without a church is like ham without eggs or Noah without the ark, or a sandwich without the filling, or a vest without a pair of pants. So the first step in becoming pastor of a church, Oswald, is to get the church.
Before coming to the decision that you must have a church, certain things will be true. You will have felt a call to preach from:
(1) God,
(2) Your family, (in your case, Emma Alice),
(3) Yourself.
Some, Oswald, are in the ministry by accident; some have it thrust upon them by fond mothers; and with others like the makings for hash, it just accumulates. From our own observation, Oswald, we advise that you do not preach unless God has called you to do so. Self-made men may make a success of it, but self-made preachers never do. The self-made preacher has the wrong perspective, the wrong motive, the wrong ambition, and the wrong sense of values. By his horn ye shall know him. His favorite verse is “Toot your own horn, or verily it shall not be tooted.” Read the rest of this entry »
You may try to persuade yourself that this is an ordinary book — in order that you may find comfort in the persuasion - but you cannot do so and be fair to facts.