J.F. Cowan: Why should not a lay man or woman who is asked to lead a prayer-meeting be as glad of the chance as he would be to lead his ward in politics, or she would be to lead in the social circle? It is a chance to lead! Most people covet it, in other affairs.
1. Timidity may make some shrink from it. We ought to sympathize with and make excuses for people who are naturally timid and nervous; but is it kindness to encourage them to remain painfully diffident all their lives? If their nervousness about prominence in the prayer-meeting is like the sprained ankle that gets better on Saturday afternoon when it is time for the baseball game, and worse Sunday morning when it is time for church, ought not we to help them to look in the glass at themselves?
A timid person has two reasons for consenting to lead a meeting, where a naturally confident person has but one: it is not only doing a service for others, but it is doing a service for himself; it is a chance to overcome his timidity-an obstacle to success and happiness in everything. A timid person who is likely to be let off .easily because of his timidity, ought to wear this placard to warn mistaken friends
PLEASE DON'T BABY ME!
Young people are required to declaim in school, not because they can declaim so well, but because they do it so poorly. Ladies join Browning clubs, not because they can write such learned papers about Browning, and read them so gracefully, but because they know so little, and can perform so indifferently, that they feel they really must improve. Young men go into society, not because they can shine there, but because they want to rub off their awkwardness by cultivating the social graces at every opportunity.
So, when persons are asked to lead a prayer-meeting, who have never done so before, the fact that they have no experience and confidence only accentuates the need of beginning at once. The beginning may be hard, but he who is always shunning the hard things and picking out the easy ones will not succeed. The American spirit is to tackle hard things. Our contractors build bridges for Africa that the contractors of other nationalities declared were impossible within the time limits set. Our locomotive builders fill orders for India and Japan under the same conditions. Our military and sanitary officers undertake to capture impossible positions and clean up yellow fever germs. Our engineers are glad to assume the tasks of chaining the Mississippi, harnessing Niagara, irrigating the desert, or digging big ditches from ocean to ocean. Our schoolteachers flock to Cuba and the wilds of the Philippines. None of these blanch because the job is hard. That is not the American spirit. Why should we not take this American spirit, of which we are so proud, into our religious life? Why should we shrink from doing a thing for Christ simply because it is hard? One of the best motives with which to ply the layman who is wanted to lead the prayer-meeting is, "It will do you good to undertake something new and hard, and it will glorify your Master more than if it were something easy.
2. "I am not good enough to lead," is another excuse often given. Sometimes this plea represents real modesty: sometimes a worldly fear of being thought priggish. This is the test: If we really feel that we are not good enough, we shall want to become better as quickly as possible; and the surest way to become better is to take up the duty nearest at hand. Declining duty until we are better, is like staying away from the water until one has learned to swim. One who does not feel good enough, makes a far better leader than one who feels himself plenty good enough, with a margin to spare. Taking up the duty will be a new committal to Christ, and that in itself will make one better. The unfaithful soldier may redeem himself by seeking the post of danger. The only final argument is, "I am not good enough to lead, and I do not mean to try to become any better."
The Christian who shrinks from leading the prayer-meeting because he fears it may make him look like a prig, would never think of applying such reasoning to anything else. He would not decline a promotion to be head clerk or foreman, for fear he might be thought a prig. She would not ask that her name be not mentioned in the society paper, as a leader, for fear of being thought a prig. Consistency must condemn a fear of priggishness that applies to leadership in one thing, only, and not in other similar things.
3. There are a great many positive reasons why one ought to be as glad of a chance to lead in spiritual things as he is to lead in social and business affairs.
(1) It is an opportunity to pass blessings on to others. If some philanthropist should wire us, "I will remit $1,000 for the poor of your town if you will distribute it," who of us would not be glad of such a privilege? Leading a prayer-meeting puts one in just that relation to God and the people led-the leader becomes, in a sense, the distributor of the blessing God can give that meeting. If he succeeds as a leader, every one is inspired and helped. The eclat of doing a thing well is contagious, and because that duty was done happily, every duty becomes easier, for every one present.
(2) But if the leader fails, and stammers, and shows inexperience, every timid person present is encouraged to feel, "I could do as well as that myself." Bishop Simpson tells how, when a young man, he was about to give up the ministry in discouragement, when an old minister came to preach for him who did so much worse than he that he was encouraged to stick.
The poorest leader, in point of fluency and self-confidence, often has the best meeting, because every one sympathizes with him and tries to help him out. Some of the worst failures as leaders have been those who spoke so well that every one else kept still through sheer intimidation.
In the Christian Endeavour prayer-meetings held in the headquarters of the United Society, Tremont Temple, Boston, Dr. Francis E. Clark has been heard, often, to thank the office boy, or one of the stenographers, who led the meeting, for some thought that helped him. The weakest and youngest may bring help to the most mature Christians.
Bishop Lawrence, describing how tired, troubled mothers go to church and come home with new patience to bear with the willfulness of their children; how business men who have grown cynical and sordid get a fresh view of life, and come away seeing how faithfulness in their every-day duties helps to make the world better, exclaims, "Give that experience every week to all of the men of this city, for five minutes only, and think of the enormous inspiration that would be felt!" And those minutes may be the very ones in which you are trying to pass on to others the comfort and cheer that came to you in your study of the Bible message!
(3) A final reason for being glad of an opportunity to perform such a service is that it must please Christ. His way of helping men, when He was on earth, was through leaders. He chose twelve men, no better than their fellows, to be leaders. Suppose Peter had said, "I am not good enough"? Suppose Nathanael had been afraid of being thought a prig? Again, He sent out seventy leaders. Read again of the blessings that came through these. All through the history of the church Christ has been using leaders, in little circles, to be channels of blessing to those circles. That is still His plan. You are not asked to lead to please your pastor, or the church, or prayer-meeting committee, but to please Christ.
If the President of the United States were to ask you to give him the hospitality of your home for a day, while he was in your city distributing honors and rewards to brave soldiers, how honored you would feel! How you would preserve the chair in which he sat, and the table on which the medals were laid. Jesus Christ asks lay men and women to let Him use their voices, their minds, their personalities for an hour, that He may through them distribute inspiration and cheer and blessing to others. Could we grant the one request and deny the other?
But the President, actually coming to your town, and standing in your parlor - that would be so different; so real!
But Jesus Christ is to be actually in your meeting. He has promised, "Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in their midst." Isn't that real? Our King wants to use our leadership as the president would use our room, our table.
But the most stupendous thought that can come to one who hesitates to execute such a commission is the realization, "You can never tell what wonderful things God is going to do with that which we allow Him to use." The boy gave Jesus the five small barley loaves and the two little fishes, but see what they became in His hands! He can do as much, and more, with you, if you let Him. Florence Nightingale said, "If I could give you any information of my life, it would be to show how a woman of very ordinary ability has been led by God in strange and unaccustomed paths, to do in His service what He has done in her. And if I could tell you all, you would see how God has done all, and I have done nothing. I have worked hard, very hard; that is all, and I have never refused God anything."
Because we can never tell how much splendid history may be wrapped up in the smallest service God asks, we dare not refuse it. One tract handed out by a woman brought the late Dr. George C. Lorimer to Christ, and he led Russell H. Conwell.
As great things, and greater, lie in the lay leadership of the church prayer-meeting. One of the most urgent calls of the times is for more such leadership, and we believe that lay men and women will respond to this call.
By John F. Cowan, New York, 1906
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By John F. Cowan, New York, 1906
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