J.F. Cowan: "Yes" and "No," in answer to the above question. If the midweek service is to be simply a midweek lecture - a third preaching service - then of course the minister will always lead the service; in the main, the minister will be the service.
It is not the purpose here to discuss whether such a service is wisest. Each church must determine in the light of its own circumstances. What was said in the last chapter has its bearing, to be sure. But if the midweek service is to be a prayer-meeting, then it should be the people's meeting. The voices of the people should predominate. But should not the minister lead, even though the members participate? I think some strong reasons can be given for lay leadership.
1. It will be admitted, even by many ministers, that there is a possibility of having "too much minister" in what should be the people's service. There is danger that it will be a weak, half-tone reproduction of the Sunday services; too stiff and formal, smacking too strongly of the ministers library and homiletic magazine; not human enough. Dr. Gray, of The Interior, was wont to say, in his waggish way, that three ministers were enough to kill a prayer-meeting. He did not mean that they would talk it to death; most ministers have too much sense for that. But, given the finest sense of fitness, and the best of intentions, the average minister will be a minister, from force of habit, when he enters the church door. It is not a matter of too much talk, but of too much "ministerialishness," to coin a word that will need no further definition. Therefore, it is better, often, for another to lead the people's service.
2. There is no necessity that the minister should lead, in a far larger number of churches than one might at first think. Every vacation prayer-meeting brings to light some hitherto unsuspected lay talent for prayer-meeting leadership. Every such opportunity helps to make a new force in the church. The minister can do better work in developing leaders than he can in leading meetings. He is then a strategist, fitting men into subordinate positions, instead of trying to lead every regiment of the army himself; he is the man behind "the man behind the guns." The minister is the Oyama [Japanese leader during Russo-Japanese war of 1905] of his parish.
There are some occasions when the white plume of the chieftain should be seen in the van. There are the strategic meetings of the year that the minister should lead: the prayer-meeting that opens the fall activities after the summer vacation, the prayer-meeting before the special evangelistic meetings, the prayer-meeting at a time when the whole community is deeply moved by some great affliction, or some momentous public event, and every mind is receptive and alert for prophetic leadership on broad lines.
These are the mountain-peaks on which the master of strategy watches the whole field. Bud the routine fighting can be done by the genera and colonels, and captains who fill the valleys. That is their chance to grow into the next rank above them. Making leaders is greater than leading meetings.
Another gain is that, by putting others forward, the minister keeps his own personality fresh, and the edge of interest in his prayer-meeting leading unblunted, against such special opportunities as enable him to count for a regiment. The minister who keeps himself from becoming an "old song" in his prayer-meeting is a masterful leader.
But the most cheering view of the situation is this: the minister who would not always lead, is not always under the necessity of making leaders out of raw material, as the only alternative. The young people's society has been graduating hundreds of young men and women who are not afraid to lead prayer-meetings, and many of whom are admittedly a success in planning bright, spiritual meetings. For the sake of conserving the training work of these societies, if for none of the other reasons that will be mentioned, the minister should use in the church prayer-meeting the material for leaders trained in his young people's society. If he lets it go to waste for lack of use, he is like the general who should refuse to use as officers the men whom the country had educated at West Point. One of the most promising solutions of the problems of the church prayer-meeting and of the young people, lies in the direction of linking the younger members with the advanced work of the church through use of them in the church prayer-meeting.
3. A third advantage of lay leadership is the variety that it will introduce into the prayer-meeting. Monotony means stagnation, and stagnation is death. A new leader means a new personality, variety, interest, life. Because God has made no two men in the same mold, there will be a certain new-sidedness and charm about a new leader, even though his leading be crude. Crude life is better than faultless death. I do not mean that mere novelty and variety are a substitute for spirituality; but people who are kept awake and alert by variety are more likely to respond to the Spirit, other things being equal, than people who have been chloroformed by polished but trite platitudes.
4. The use of laymen as leaders takes from the platform end of the meeting the air - I almost said "taint" - of professionalism. A man who is not paid a salary to say a thing sometimes can say it with more force than if it comes from the lips of a professional. The prayer-meeting that smells too much of the seminary and lexicon is doomed. It must be "depulpitized" before it can be vitalized.
5. Lay leadership of the prayer-meeting helps to give outward expression to the spiritual gifts and inner life of the laymen. Most busy men have more spirituality than they are credited with. They need help from their minister to enable them to give outward expression to what they feel within. After the death of a young lawyer, a member of the Boston City Council, a collection of meditations that he had written was found in envelopes in his desk. They indicated a depth of religious sentiment that his most intimate friends had not suspected in him. Men of that class might be greatly developed in the outward expression of their lives by being made responsible for the conduct of the church prayer-meeting. There are hundreds of men in the churches; college graduates, trained in debating societies, members of clubs, accustomed to standing on their feet and speaking about other subjects, who could, with proper opportunities and persuasion, learn to stand on their feet and talk for Christ.
6. Finally, it may be suggested that this is preeminently the age of laymen's prominence in the church. Not a month passes without an announcement that some layman has been chosen for some church work heretofore reserved exclusively for ministers: it may be secretary of a missionary board, theological professor or lecturer, pastor's assistant, field secretary of young people's work, or evangelist. Lay talent is recognized in every other department of church work more than it is in the prayer-meeting, the layman's service, where you would expect to find lay leadership most advanced.
The minister has kept his finger on the prayer-meeting more closely than on any other service, except preaching, often just because he did not see a way to let go. But the bold contrast between the paucity of lay leadership here, and the frequency of it everywhere else, forces us to believe that the prayer-meeting must be the next field in which lay talent will become conspicuous.
I close this chapter with this saving clause, to avoid the charge of being radical and impractical: often there seems no alternative but for the minister to keep on leading the church prayer-meeting; but what seems to be true is not always true; the aim of this book is to help ministers to answer satisfactorily the question, "Is there a better way than for me to lead the prayer-meeting? If so, what is it?"
By John F. Cowan, New York, 1906
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By John F. Cowan, New York, 1906
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