D 03 -Any Special Call Ministers Ability To-Day
THE SPECIAL NEED FOR MINISTERS TO-DAY
3. A third question is, Is there any special need and call for ministers of superior ability to-day? There has been for several years and is now in nearly all denominations and theological seminaries a serious decline in the number of candidates for the ministry. The reasons for this fact are various. For one thing, the pulpit now has more competition even in Christian work than it had for merly. Young men once went to college for one of the three learned professions: law, medicine, and the ministry. Now they go with many professions and technical callings in view, and these alluring fields draw off some men from the ministry; and there are also allied lines of Christian work, such as Y. M. C. A. secretaryships, that call for educated men. The pulpit no longer stands out in solitary glory as the one place for trained Christian work. The meager support offered the ministry, the disinclination of churches to call, as settled pastors, ministers who are approaching advanced age, and the attractions of business are other causes furthering this decline. But there are yet deeper reasons operating at this point, and one of these is the decline of the pulpit itself. The Church is not now everywhere the central and supreme community institution that it once was. It has lost the support if not the respect of not a few people, even of some thoughtful and good people. The laboring men have come in considerable numbers to view it as a rich people’s club, if not an avowedly capitalistic institution. Many men have also come to look on it as a feminine, if not a child s, affair and not a man’s place. To them it does not seem worth while. Religious doubt and the materialism of the age are also causes tending to reduce the relative standing and power of the Church and pulpit. In view of all these conditions it is not surprising that many young men have grown shy of the Church and the ministry. They do not want to board what they may suspect is an antiquated and obsolete or a leaking and sinking ship, when they are ambitious “to sail be yond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars. “ On the other hand, the Church stands for a deep and permanent constitutional need in human nature and can no more be outgrown and left behind than can wheat fields and orchards. Religious doubt and faith fluctuate and the tide of faith now appears to be rising. The Church is being reconstructed in its teaching and work and spirit to meet the new conditions of the new age more directly and fully. Men’s Bible classes, brother hoods, and other forms of men’s work are drawing men back into the Church and making it a man’s institution as well as an institution for women and children. The religious needs and problems and perils of the world are just as great and urgent to-day as ever and even greater and more clamant. The world, as it still lies broken and bleeding by the Great War, now presents a supreme, religious crisis and call. Never has it been so pliant and plastic since the Reformation, and possibly it can be rebuilt and reshaped by the men of this generation as no other generation could have remolded it since the first century. It spells opportunity for the men of to-day. The pulpit appears to be rising to this opportunity and is bound to regain some if not all of its former leadership and power. The able preacher and masterful leader of to-day has a great call and a splendid opportunity to fulfill the ministry of a prophet. He proclaims and interprets and applies the gospel of Christ so as to prove it the power of God unto salvation. Other men have wounded and crushed the world with destructive agents of war: it is now his mission to heal it and restore it to peace and brotherhood by the grace of God. He is to rebuild the world into the Kingdom of God on earth. This is a challenge and a call to our ablest and choicest young men of vision and adventurous, heroic spirit. No other calling can so appeal to them as supremely worth while in this great time. No young man is choosing a small or discredited or declining cause in entering the Christian ministry to-day. The pulpit has great days behind it, but its greatest days are yet to come. It is right now the most strategic point and platform for a man to occupy and make himself count for most in the world. There is a special call for strong young men in the ministry at this time.
Young men should be glad they are alive in this great hour, when the plastic world is rounding into form and rolling through the shadows of the night into the better day; and no other man has such an opportunity to put and leave the impress of his hand upon it as the Christian minister.
These considerations have been presented in the hope that they will attract the attention of many of our ablest young men and be the means of leading them to dedicate them selves to the Christian ministry. It is a glorious calling and it is crowned with a glorious reward both in this present world and in that which is to come.