THERE is no denying the importance of the preacher and his function in the Church and the Kingdom. Whether the preacher realizes this or not, it is beyond question; if he does realize it, and acts up to this consciousness, the honour, dignity, and power of the pulpit will be upheld; if the preacher is not aware of his high calling, then disaster is bound to come as a natural result.

I once read an article which was originally given as an address to ministers on the subject of 'The Man at the Other End of the Sermon,' by Dr. E. Griffiths-Jones, Principal of the United College, Bradford. He begins his subject by saying that 'There is a man at both ends of the sermon. There is the man who preaches and the man who listens; the man in the pulpit and the man in the pew. The man at the other end of the sermon is the man who has to listen to it, who suffers under it, or who is redeemed by it -- the much-neglected but all-important man in the pew.' Our purpose is to let the man in the pew speak in order to give his impressions and opinions about the man in the pulpit. It would do all preachers good if they could only hear the candid and pointed remarks by the man at the other end of the sermon. If we could see ourselves and hear ourselves as others see and hear us, what revelations we would have !

If the preacher is important, so is the man in the pew. For the man in the pew is not only a receiver, subject to impressions on mind, heart, and soul; but he is one who is able to take the measure of things, weigh the preacher's message, and ascertain its real value. This is true, of course, when the listener thinks things out for himself; such a man is able to sift the preacher's utterance. In him you have what is called a 'sermon-taster.' But what about the other man in the pew who does not think for himself, never having acquired the art ? He is open to receive impressions only ; never questions in his mind anything the preacher says. The preacher's responsibility towards such a listener is very heavy. The preacher, then, as the man in the pew sees him, must be very interesting. If he could speak I wonder what he would say ? Would he approve of all he sees and hears from the pulpit ? Had he the privilege to speak to the preacher he would say something about his general attitude or bearing in the pulpit. He likes to see the preacher enter his pulpit realizing the importance of it, manifesting the spirit of reverence as he enters his place of authority, treating the preliminaries of the service in no light way, but from the first upholding the dignity of his high office. For the man in the pew is a man of business, or in some way during the week he has many calls upon his time, mind, nerves, and physical strength. He is in the pew with little or much knowledge of spiritual things ; but he does like to see in the pulpit a man who carries with him in his deportment those traits that impress him that he has a right to declare from the Book of Life the truths contained therein. First impressions go a very long way to enable the listener to decide whether or not he will open his life to the influence of the preacher and accept his message.

The man in the pew likes to see evidences of careful preparation. If there is anything a listener objects to, it is the failure of the man in the pulpit to perform his special function -- to speak out of a full heart and mind truths about the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. In such a sacred calling, for the man to be slipshod and easy-going irritates and spoils for the listener the hour of worship. He has come hungry for spiritual food and to hear about the Christian religion ; but when the preacher has failed to prepare, not only his message -- for that is only part of the service -- but the hour's worship to the smallest detail, the man in the pew has been denied his proper spiritual food which he has every right to expect. This is not always so, we are thankful to say ; but he does sometimes suffer because the preacher is not in heart and mind thoroughly prepared for his task.

From his point of vantage the man in the pew sometimes sees a self-conscious preacher in the pulpit. This is very distasteful to him. It interferes with the atmosphere which is conducive to real worship. It was Dr. Phillips Brooks who put 'next to the fundamental necessity of character the freedom from self-consciousness.' When self obtrudes, and the worshipper has more of the man than his message, then the main purpose of worship has been missed. Self-consciousness weakens the power of the preacher. The question, 'How can I preach to do most credit to myself ?' is most fatal to the man who occupies the pulpit. So when the man in the pew asks the preacher to free himself from self-consciousness he is really asking him to be more devoted to his holy task. Dr. Phillips Brooks said, 'Devotion is like the candle which, as Vasari tells us, Michael Angelo used to carry stuck on his forehead in a pasteboard cap, and which kept his own shadow from being cast upon his work while he was hewing out his statues.' The preacher must remember, as Bishop Chavasse has said, 'If we believe that we have our message, it will help our hearers, and we shall not think of ourselves. Self will be forgotten in the desire to benefit our people. Self-consciousness is cured by God-consciousness.'

The man in the pew would ask the man in the pulpit to 'avoid both exaggeration and excessive caution.' Such counsel is worth thinking about, for some preachers, and especially young preachers, are guilty of the former fault. All their superlatives are used until the essential words lose their real meaning. It is well to remember that if a preacher overstates the truth or magnifies a fact unduly his listeners will soon learn to discount his every statement. On the other hand, there are many who practise excessive caution until vital and important things are almost worthless by under-statements. This arises through the conscientious desire not to overstate a truth. It usually ends in such an understatement as fails to present the truth at all. As someone has put it, 'Instead of saying, "Those who commit mortal sin will go to hell unless they repent," they say, "I trust that I may be allowed to venture to suggest that if any one commits mortal sin -- if any sin can be characterized as mortal, a point which has been disputed among theologians for many centuries -- and if he fail to repent, it cannot be regarded as wholly certain that he will go to heaven." ' Excessive caution is the road to nowhere, either in preaching or in anything else.

Then we have further advice from the man who listens to the preacher. He would urge the preacher to specialize on his work as one who has to give scriptural teaching and Christian ethics. For, as an occupant of the pew, he needs above all things that the preacher should deal with the Scripture and its bearing on daily life. To him the one thing needful is for the gospel to be declared. He realizes that the first requisite of the preacher should be to know his Bible, and so to know it as to preach it with authority, 'handling aright the word of truth.' He must be an expert at the business. There are experts in all branches of life and thought to-day -- experts in housing, politics, economics, sociology, national and international relationships, &c., and the preacher should be the man who can speak with expert knowledge on the teaching of the Bible and religious life. This is what the man in the pew expects when he enters into public worship, and he longs to receive from the man in the pulpit that religious power and light which enable him to see his own life in its correct perspective. The task of the preacher is to know his Bible and the heart and mind of God in Jesus Christ, so that the supreme aim of all preaching may be attained -- that is, to win men to a definite and open allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ.

He would urge, furthermore, because he is conscious of the need of it, that what counts most in the supreme task of preaching is that the preacher should have a vital faith and experience of his own. His utterances ought not to be mere words, empty words having no relationship to his own personal life, like 'clouds without water.' For however beautiful and finely conceived ideas may be, or however full and complete the preacher's knowledge is, if these are not backed up by experience and are not spoken out of the heart and soul they count for very little. What does count is a life all aglow and throbbing with a joyful Christian experience. Possessing this consecrated personality, the preacher will be bold with the courage of conviction. By this the prophetic secret is understood, and the preacher recaptures the prophetic note.

Source: The Preacher´s Magazine, Vol. XXXVI, pp.405-408, The Epworth Press, London, Dec. 1925