J.F. Cowan: The comforting thought for every timid leader of a prayer-meeting, whether of the adult membership of the church or the young people, is, "Though I am a weak leader I have a mighty message. I am only the messenger. People may despise the messenger, but they will respect the message, and be glad for it."
Yet the messenger, too, is important; on his faithfulness hangs everything. If the postman neglects to deliver your letter to-day, you may be gone to-morrow. The faithfulness of the messenger is the only thing in him that we criticize. You don't mind that the messenger boy uses false syntax, but that he brings promptly the telegram from your sick one. The importance of the message overshadows everything else.
The leader of either of the church prayer-meetings may always have a message so important that it will command respect, no matter how poor an opinion the messenger may have of himself. Are we declining to lead because we lack faith in ourselves? Have we faith in the word of God and its power over the lives of men? That is the real question.
Dr. Willis C. Noble, of China, says that no mission has ever failed, even though the missionaries have been driven away, if they left the Bible with a people that could read it. Two Turks recently came to a missionary in Armenia, professing Christ. They had never been taught Christianity by a living teacher, but had found a Bible among the plunder they had stolen from an Armenian village, and had read the Book, and been convicted of sin and led into the Way. Instances like this might be multiplied many hundredfold.
So powerful may be the message, that the weakest lay leader may hide his own personality behind it. A hunchback dwarf, because of the sovereign he represents, is honored as the ambassador of a mighty king. No man or woman who happens to be leader is the central figure in the prayer-meeting, but the glorious Christ to whom the leader calls attention. Let us glance at some reasons why we should keep in mind the fact that the prayer-meeting message, and not the messenger or leader, is the important thing:
1. Self-consciousness is one of the worst weaknesses with which a Christian has to contend. It keeps him thinking about himself when he should be thinking about his message. Usually, painful self-consciousness is a compound of egotism and nervous sensitiveness. The adversary uses it to silence testimony or prayer. He whispers, "Perhaps some one will notice the fit of your clothes while you are standing," or, "Your voice is not in good form," or, "Are you sure that all your verbs and nominatives agree?" In a young people's meeting a leader was so tortured by self-consciousness that he found himself wishing through it all that his cuffs were an inch shorter, and he never desisted from trying to push them up.
Such self-consciousness is a success-killer in anything. It is one of the greatest social torments. A young girl wrote "Pansy," telling her how frightened and awkward she was in social gatherings. The answer was, "Next time you are in company watch the most self-possessed person in the room, and you will discover that she is not thinking of herself, but how to put others at their ease; finding something for that bashful young man to do, or drawing out that shrinking wall-flower."
That is the secret of curing the self-consciousness that has given many of us wretched half hours; and cure it we must if we would be our best in the social, business, and political worlds, as well as in the church. The cure is, in the prayer-meeting, simply to remember that we are there for service, and not for show; that we have a message that will cheer and comfort others; that the glad and glorious gospel of Christ always awakens responses in human hearts.
It will help us always to think of the prayer-meeting as a school of prayer, and not an exhibition of finished performances. If we approach it with the request of the disciples on our lips, "Lord, teach us to pray," there will be less shrinking from taking part, for not much is expected of learners.
2. It should be an inspiring thought to a lay leader that he does not stand alone in holding forth the message for the evening. The prayer-meeting topic used in his church may be used also by every other church in his denomination. The topics that guide the prayers and testimonies of the young people's prayer-meeting have been selected by a committee of churchmen prominent in more than one continent - editors, bishops, college presidents, and leading ministers and laymen - and every detail, even to the exact wording of the topic, has been carefully and prayerfully studied. When the leader of the young people's meeting arises to take charge of the meeting, he may remember that more than sixty thousand other leaders will hold forth the same message. There should come to leaders of both the church prayer-meetings a wonderful inspiration and stimulus from this sense of being in unison with a great movement.
Each leader may think, "I am the captain of one company in a great army. I must lead my company well. The Great Captain is looking on. He shall not see me falter." Napoleon said that his battles were won by his captains. No Christian denomination is mounting to heights of spiritual victories to-day higher than its prayer-meeting captains are planting the standards of spiritual devotions.
3. Every leader may assure himself, "Some one in the meeting will need my message." If you can be sure that God has given you a message, you may be just as sure that He has sent someone hungry to get that message. You may not see the hungry one; you may never know that anyone was helped, but someone will be passing through a crisis, and your message will be just the message needed. I recall how one Sunday I omitted the usual word of prayer in opening my Friendly class, for those passing through trials or in special need of divine help. Every one looked so happy, and I was in a hurry, and so I cut the prayer out. Afterwards I learned to my sorrow that two of my pupils were heavy-hearted because they had just committed a relative to an asylum. You will never know, until the day on which all secrets are revealed, what a comfort your poor leading of the prayer-meeting, or your participation in it, has been to some aching heart.
The above has been written in the hope that it may encourage some to consent to make their activities felt in this neglected ministry, lay leadership in the prayer-meetings of the church, particularly the meetings for adult members. I believe there awaits a great blessing for the church when its business men, its secular teachers, its writers and public speakers, its professional men, its gifted women, and its members rich in a knowledge of the Word, and taught of the Spirit, whatever their culture or social positions, shall be willing to lay their varied gifts on the altar of this service, and make it what the church prayer-meeting was intended to be, a people's praise and prayer service.
By John F. Cowan, New York, 1906
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By John F. Cowan, New York, 1906
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