Thoughts on Gospel Ministry, Part 4

This is a continuation of Joseph John Dymond's letters to "The Friend" of London in 1892. Part 3 was here.

Letter IV.

“The office of Elder amongst us is of great importance, and when rightly filled, of great value.” – Christian Discipline.

It appears by the records quoted in the Book of Discipline (Church Government, chapter iii), that the first appointment of elders took place in the year 1727, a period in our history when there was evidently great need for the better regulation of ministry. The appointment of these Church officers has been continued down to our own day, but with a valuable modification introduced in 1876. Before that time the office of elder was retained for life except in certain cases of removal. In 1876 it was decided that thenceforth the appointments, like those to the office of overseer, should undergo revision every third year.

The writer’s experience on the subject of elders points to the following conclusions, viz. :–

1. That the functions of Eldership are of very great value, when exercised by properly qualified persons.
   
2. That the qualification is a spiritual gift, not a natural attainment; and
   
3. That the possession of the gift is comparatively rare.
   
4. Elders who lack the proper qualification may do more harm than good.
   

Grateful for the kindness occasionally shown him by Friends in that station, he has very often had to deplore the entire inability of many of them to understand the real position of a minister, or the exercised of mind through which he often has to pass. Hardly any, except those who have themselves passed through them, are competent to sympathise with the trials and dangers, from within and from without, which beset the path of the young minister. With the best intentions on the part of elders, the very fact of the existence of such officers combined with that of their almost absolute silence towards him on subjects connected with his service, has been the cause of some of the writer’s sorest discouragements. Had no such office existed in the Society, of course no help would have been expected from it. But to know that there were elders, and yet never hear a word from them, either good or bad, was to be doubly oppressed with the sense of a lonely responsibility.

At a week-day meeting, for instance, the preacher has been deeply exercised and humbled before God in the course of Gospel testimony or earnest prayer. Shortly afterward the congregation comes forth with that hushed demeanour which betokens serious impressions. An elder who has been present is encountered almost on the doorstep, and his only words to the minister are these, “Is there aught fresh at the office this morning?” The contrast between the heavenly aroma within the walls and the earthly hubbub without was sharp enough in itself, but to have it hastened and intensified by the one to whom the Church directed him to look for sympathy and support, was to receive discouraging evidence of the inability of even one of the kindest and personal friends to feel the throbbing pulses of the preacher’s heart.

Such and similar incidents, not solitary, but often repeated, tend to teach one that he has little or nothing to expect from the eldership, and to deepen the desire expressed at the conclusion of my last letter for the reinstitution of meetings for counsel chiefly confined to preachers themselves. Many other Friends in the ministry have assured me, that they have derived more help in the course of their lives from the counsels of brother ministers, than from Friends in the station of elder.

There seems to be, in the fact of being selected for the latter office, a remarkable tendency to close a man’s lips. On one occasion in the recollection of the writer, a Friend who, as a private individual had often had a kind word for a young minister, and whose brotherly hints had been greatly valued, actually remarked when chosen for the eldership, “I must take care what I say to thee now they have made me an Elder, for my words will have an official meaning!” This was not a mere pleasantry, but was really put in practice, and so the seal of the Church upon him spoiled a good elder. I am far from wishing eldership to be abolished; but I do long that more of the dear Friends in that station would set before themselves a higher and broader ideal; would regard their office less exclusively as one of censorship, and more as one of privileged co-operation in the work of the Gospel, and would remember that even the gifted minister does not become a mere spiritual automaton, but still has a human side to his nature; a human nature that reached out towards other human natures for countenance, for sympathy, and for help. Why should an elder be afraid to say sometimes to a preacher, “I think the Lord has been with thee in thy exercise today”? Is that venerable bogie, the fear of “exalting the creature” to be allowed to scare us apart for ever? What a rightly exercised minister longs to know, after he has been doing his best to deliver the message that seemed to him to be called for, is not whether he has pleased the ears of his audience, but whether he has reached their hearts; whether (in the words of the “Advices”) “the baptising power of the Spirit of Truth” has accompanied his words. How much more likely is it that an occasional needed word of counsel about the length of tone of a sermon, or about something that may have seemed lacking or redundant in it, would be well received if it came from one who was accustomed, when he could, to say an encouraging word.

I have said that I conceive the true qualification of an elder to be a spiritual gift. Christ has “received gifts for men.” He will bestow them in response to believing prayer.
Joseph John Dymond
Ilkley, June, 1892

Part 5 of this series is here.

Thoughts on Gospel Ministry, Part 3

This is a continuation of Joseph John Dymond's letters to "The Friend" of London in 1892. Part 2 was here.

Letter III.

“If we are to hold our place as a Christian Church in these days of intelligence and education, we must have a better regulated, more intelligent and judicious, as well as sanctified, ministry.” – From a private letter.

The above sentence briefly expresses a deliberate conviction, which has been forced upon the mind of the present writer by his observation, during a series of years, of the vocal service prevailing in meetings for worship, both in London and elsewhere. He is, of course, aware that the mode in which such meetings are often conducted at the time of the Yearly Meeting has long been a subject of concern to the Meeting on Ministry and Oversight; and that attempts have been made in many years past, by the issue of minutes of advice and by the appointment of committees, to regulate them. The discouraging fact is that the abuse of liberty still exists, and proves, by its existence, the inadequacy of our system to secure that order which is one of the first requisites of efficiency and decorum. Moreover, it must in candour be added that many of those who thus give evidence of want of discretion and self-restraint are themselves members of Meetings on Ministry and Oversight. Some allowance should doubtless be made for a certain amount of excitement almost inseparable from the gathering of large numbers from distant and, perhaps, isolated places, for a great religious festival; but the mode in which the excitement shows itself is probably a true index of tendencies existing all over the land.

Our theory concerning the ministry of the Gospel is unquestionably beautiful, true, and Scriptural. It is possible that in the endeavour to reduce it to practice we have imposed on ourselves some limitations which the authority of Holy Scripture does not necessarily require; but leaving that point open for possible future considerations, it may be here remarked that in the application of all theories having reference to human affairs, whether religious, political, or social, we find abundant cause to take account of the “earthen vessel.” All true theories work admirably in the hands of perfect instruments. It is because the instruments are so rarely perfect that our moral and social ideals so often fail in practice to be realized.

Very early in the history of our Society the tendency of our liberty of speech to lead to confusion was manifested. It was probably, to some extent, held in check by the personal influence of the first generation of leaders. At a later time disciplinary regulations were attempted, and Elders were appointed to keep watch on the ministry and exercise some amount of control over it. Measures of this kind proved so effectual, that in the latter half of the last century and the early years of the present one there were very few preachers to be found amongst the men of the Society; what service of this character remained was left chiefly to the women. The principle which asserted the possibility of worship without words became perverted almost into the worship of silence itself. The society dwindled in numbers, and the energies of its best members found their field of exercise in the promotion of moral reforms and in works of philanthropy, in place of the direct advocacy of evangelical religion.

My own earliest impressions of a Friends’ meeting are associated with the ministry of a venerable ancestor, one of whose favourite texts was a passage in the Song of Solomon ii. 7, “I charge you ... by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, til he please”; which he was accustomed to apply as a warning against breaking the silence of a meeting, except under a terrible sense of impending woe in case of disobedience. Another survival from the age of quietism must have been witnessd by many still living besides myself, when a deeply-concerned Friend was allowed to declare to the Yearly Meeting his conviction that “the only thing the ministry amongst us required was universal repression.” He “was happy to say that in the meeting to which he belonged they had had no ministry for above fifty years.”

But, happily, for the continued existence of our body, a great change has come over it in recent years. The establishment of First-day Schools, and the entry upon the work of home and foreign missions, have been attended by a fresh breaking forth of aggressive zeal in the propagation of the Gospel; and since the admission of many new members, drawn to us chiefly from the attenders of Adult and other First-day Schools, a large increase has taken place in the number of those who speak in our meetings for worship. Some of those, it may be, are as yet only imperfectly aware of our views as to the right call and qualification needed for Christian ministry. A guiding wisdom is needful in dealing with this new reaction; and the Church, with the assistance of Aquilas and Priscillas, must brace herself for the effort.

The remedies capable of being applied to the needs felt to exist amongst us at the present day may be divided into two categories, viz: –

• 1st. Those which may be adopted by the Church herself, in the way of arrangements and regulations.
  
• 2nd. Those which lie at the doors of the individual speakers themselves.
  

Taking up these in order in which they are stated, one is led to allude, with a fresh feeling of regret, to the change made in the year 1876, when the before-existing Meetings of Ministers and Elders received large additions, both to their constitution and their functions, and became “Meetings on Ministry and Oversight.” This regret was keenly felt at the time by the present writer, as one who had derived great help from the attendance of the meetings composed as they were before. They were occasions in which experienced ministers, with great tenderness , and under the sense of a blessed unity in the love and service of Christ, often gave wise and helpful counsel to their younger brethren. Offerings in the ministry from those whose names were not yet recorded on the list of approved ministers were passed under review, in a confidential and loving spirit; and when occasion seemed to call for it, individuals were deputed to procure interviews with some of these Friends, and to convey to them messages of counsel or encouragement as the case might require. With the wide enlargement of these meetings, and the provision of a number of printed directions for conducting them, all this was changed. The introduction of a large body of additional members, some of them young in religious experience, was found to be a hindrance to the confidential consideration of such delicate matters as those affecting the service of individual ministers; the drawing of heart to heart on the part of those interested in a common field of labour of the most solemn kind was rendered impossible; and, as a matter of fact, year after year passed by with hardly any allusion to the subject of ministry. This at any rate has been one effect of the change in the large Monthly Meeting to which the writer belongs.

The attendance of these meetings has now greatly fallen off, the usual number present being less than one-third of the membership; and a very common reason assigned for the non-attendance is that “there is nothing in them worth going for.” In that Monthly Meeting it was quite a usual thing, twenty or twenty-five years ago, to add two, three, or even four, names to the list of recorded ministers in the course of a year. Now, though the number of persons who more or less frequently take vocal part in meetings for worship has greatly increased, years pass by in which none are so recorded. This may be in part attributable to a disinclination, which it may be feared is increasing, to carry out the Society’s regulations with regard to the recording of ministers. Under the plea of avoiding the creation of a clerical caste, the democratic proclivities of the present age are thus manifesting themselves in our Church affairs, in apparent forgetfulness of the truth that wholesome government is essential to real liberty, and that a state of things in which everybody does only that which is right in his own eyes is not a state of freedom but of anarchy.

I may not pass from this portion of my subject without some allusions to the institution of Eldership; but that must be reserved for another letter. In the meantime, let me remark that if something like the restoration of the “Preacher’s Meetings,” which existed in the very early days of the Society, could be brought about, it would be to me a joyful realization of the desire of many years. I would add to the ministers themselves meeting on such occasions a few selected Friends, not preachers, who should be chosen not on the ground of age, or wealth, or social position, but on that of possessing spiritual qualifications for sympathising with and assisting ministers in their work. It is needless here to describe in detail what should be the duties of such meetings. They would be largely on the lines already alluded to, as in the writer’s experience, exercised formerly by the Meetings of Ministers and Elders, and would afford opportunity for united prayer, for considering the needs of the flock, and for taking counsel together in order to the furtherance and efficiency of the work of the Gospel amongst us.
Joseph John Dymond
Ilkley, June, 1892

Part 4 of this series is here.

Thoughts on Gospel Ministry, Part 2

This is a continuation of Joseph John Dymond's letters to "The Friend" of London in 1892. Part 1 was here.

Letter II.

“We rejoice that, without any provision for collegiate training, a living Gospel ministry is in the Lord’s goodness preserved amongst us. May it become more and more a ministry searching and awakening, exercised with a right understanding seasoned with grace, and made effectual to the winning of souls under the quickening, illuminating, and baptising power of the Holy Spirit. It is our prayer that it may ever spring direct from the fountain, and be kept pure in the simplicity which is Christ; and clear in its testimony to Him” (Yearly Meeting Epistle, 1892).

Such, in the cautious and stately language which is characteristic of these documents, is the message that comes down to us ministers from the recent annual assembly of our Church. It is in the spirit of that utterance that I desire to approach the solution of the inquiry suggested in my former letter – namely, whether preaching of the Word amongst us is fulfilling the end for which it has been called into being; and in doing so it may be permitted to me, as a private individual, to use somewhat greater plainness of speech. But at the outset I must disclaim any right or intention to judge against my brethren. My nature shrinks even now from the task I have undertaken, and I am conscious of no qualification for it, except the fact that the endeavor to discharge faithfully for more than thirty years the office of a Christian minister, concurrently with the claims of a busy professional career, has made me acquainted with many of the dangers, the perplexities, temptations, and errors to which such a calling is specially liable. If by allusion to some of the infirmities and failures by which my own course has been marked, I can be instrumental in helping any dear younger brother, called to the work as I was to my own amazement so long ago, it will be to me a joyful evening service, rendered to a cause that lies nearer than any other to my heart.

Most intimately associated as is the “testimony of Jesus” with our holiest aspirations and our supreme hopes, and great as is the responsibility resting upon us in the exercise of a calling fraught with possibilities of eternal moment for others, I cannot but feel it is upon tender if not upon holy ground that I am treading. But I have always found that where the Master leads it is safe for the disciple to follow; and if this be the service He appoints to one who is now debarred from taking much further active part in a public duty which has been the joy of a lifetime, I am more that content.

The very existence, then, of the paragraph above quoted from our Yearly Meeting’s Epistle is an answer to our question. That annual letter, as is well known, is intended to embody the leading exercise of the Meeting in considering the state of the Society. The exhortations it contains are understood to point to something needing a remedy.

If you ask any intelligent Friends from any of our 326 settled meetings whether the ministry they hear from week to week fully satisfies their spiritual needs, I venture to say that the great majority will answer in the negative. Many will have to tell you that they have no resident ministry at all. Others will reply that they have plenty of speaking, but very little true ministry of the Word. Some will have a mournful story to tell of weekly harangues in a stereotyped cadence or monotone, which have emptied the meeting-house of nearly all the thoughtful young people belonging to the congregation, driven elsewhere for the spiritual food and instruction they had looked for in vain from those of their own communion. There are others again that have ministers whom they love and honour, but who seem to have lost the power of discerning the point at which the anointing oil has ceased to flow, and who weary their hearers and dissipate the good impression of a real message, by long repetitions and inappropriate additions of their own

Verdicts like these from the lips of others are confirmed by one’s own observations. That there do exist man bright and blessed examples of an opposite kind, there is no disposition to deny. Let us be thankful for them, and accept them as a stimulus to strive after a like experience. But could anyone not habituated to such scenes have been present, for example, at some of the gatherings for public worship held in London last month, and have brought away the impression that what he had witnessed and listened to there had been truly to the ordering of the Lord? He would perhaps have heard an impressive Gospel address of twenty minutes or half-an-hour’s duration, full of helpful thoughts, carried home with solemnity to the hearts and consciences of the hearers, upon which it would have been delightful and profitable to dwell for a few minutes at least; but before the preacher’s last word had well ceased to sound, a piercing voice from another part of the room startles everybody, and puts an effectual stop to all meditation upon the former theme. And so on to the end of the meeting, speakers succeeding one another in eager succession, and with little coherence or sequence of ideas. Even a solemn concluding thanksgiving and prayer fails to bring the scene to a close; but well-meaning persons, apparently wholly wanting in the blessed faculty of self-restraint, continue to “relieve their minds” of some text or verse, or some sentiment that has occurred to them, until at last the Elders at the head of the meeting hastily avail themselves of a momentary silence to shake hands and break up the meeting. Is this in the beautiful Divine ordering? or is it the liberty of prophesying run out into anarchy? “God is not the Author of confusion, but of peace.”

If may be that the visitor has come into one of the meetings for worship to which the public have been specially invited. Certain approved ministers who have made themselves responsible to the appointed committee for the holding of the meeting are seated at the head. Before the congregation has fully settled down, a dear friend below, in a rapid, agitated voice, inaudible in the greater part of the large room, delivers himself of a string of Scripture passages, which have probably contained his own spiritual food during the day, and produces no result except surprise in the minds of the witnesses. After that the real worship begins; an earnest prayer for blessing, followed by a brief but solemn pause. Then one of the ministers whose names have been advertised rises and delivers his message. He has opened the way for someone else to follow in harmonious further development of his theme. But if there be one present conscious of a call to do so, he is too considerate to join in the hurry to “take the floor,” and another interposes – out of the true harmony – and so the service is marred. The congregation has been listening for a full hour and a half to a succession of addresses; the shades of evening are falling in the dim recesses of that half-filled room; but there is another speaker whose heart is astir within him, and who cannot stay it. A few sentences express a not inappropriate message, and then the dear man, surely under the guidance of his own impulses rather than under that of the highest authority, proceeds to deliver himself in a monotonous cadence, which makes the tendency to fall asleep almost irresistible, of a series of reflections upon the Yearly Meeting proceedings and so forth. This, in which the “Public” can feel no interest whatever, continues for half an hour. The service, which was marred before is now simply ruined; and the congregation, with a sigh of disappointment, and yet of relief, rises in the twilight and departs.

These are no fancy sketches. They are amongst the examples we present to the citizens of London in illustration of our theory on the subject of Gospel ministry. Is it likely that they will be moved by our teaching if these are its fruits?

The duty of the physician is first of all to diagnose the disease, and after that to seek for and apply the remedy. When this exceedingly unwelcome preliminary duty has been accomplished in the present case, it will be needful to inquire into the circumstances which have conduced to it, and the means of cure.
Joseph John Dymond
Ilkley, June, 1892

Part 3 of this series is here.

Thoughts on Gospel Ministry, Part 1

Ever since I read of it in John Rowntree's works, I have been looking for Joseph John Dymond's series of letters to "The Friend" entitled "Thoughts on Gospel Ministry". This is a series of letters written by JJD in the summer of 1892, and appears to be in response to the epistle of the London Yearly Meeting's Ministry & Oversight committee. I went looking for the letters at Guilford two years ago and came up empty - they had the London "The Friend", but not the complete 1892 set (this was after several hours of fruitless searching in which I discovered that there is also a Philadelphia "The Friend" which did NOT publish any letters by JJD in 1892). A few weeks ago, Gwen Erickson at Guilford told me that they have gotten the London "The Friend" on microfilm, so on my way to my School of the Spirit residency, I stopped off in Greensboro and made copies of the letters. I have transcribed them all, and am in the process of cleaning up typos and formatting. When I am done, I will post the PDF. In the meantime, I will post the letters here as I get them completed. Here is the first:

Letter I.

One of the most important and valuable functions of the Society of Friends is to bear witness openly to the world to the great principle of the freedom of the Christian ministry. By this expression the writer means, not merely the narrow advocacy of a ministry which costs nothing to anybody except to the minister himself who exercises it, but the broader assertion of the right of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself to call and qualify whom He will to testify of Him; and of the called disciple to yield to and exercise his gifts and calling, without any of those artificial distinctions between clergy and laity which have crept, in the course of ages, into the arrangements of the visible Christian Church.

It reads like a mere truism to say that this testimony to be effective must be a practical one. It will be in vain that we advocate a principle, unless we can shew that in our practice it fulfils the end for which it is intended. No religious organization could long exist without a personal ministry. It is a Divinely enunciated principle that “faith cometh by hearing.” “How shall (men) believe on Him of whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Rom x. 14-17). Since the great Pentecost of Acts ii., the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been the instrument employed for the gathering and maintenance of the Christian Church. It is so still.

One of the strongest evidences of the Divine origin, and therefore of the truth of Christianity, lies in its adaptation to the spiritual needs of mankind in all ages, and under all degrees and conditions of civilization. The world is marching on. Every successive generation is the inheritor of the wisdom and knowledge possessed by the generations that have preceded it. To thoughtful Christians of every age the question will present itself, whether the prevailing arrangements as regards to the service of the Gospel are such as are adapted to the present condition, and needs. The way of salvation never varies. The “Old, old story” of the love of God to man, manifested in the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ, knows no change, and needs no adorning; but men’s thoughts about it from time to time ebb and flow. In order that God’s message to man may reach him and be effectual, it must find him just where he is. The preacher, charged with the precious message from God, must seek his hearers at their own standpoint, and place himself in a position to understand their difficulties in order to be able to shew them how thoroughly God’s method meets their case.

In an age like the present, when everything is being called into question, from the highest to the lowest, and when, in place of that true conviction of a former day, that the highest attainment of human wisdom was to submit itself to the revelation of Himself made by the Infinite God, many of our leading thinkers have landed themselves in the dismal dogma that it is impossible for man to know anything about God, there is surely a crying need for a clear outspoken testimony by living witnesses who have themselves been plucked “out of the horrible pit and the miry clay,” and in whose hearts is found the “new song,” to the power of Christ to put away sin, to dispel darkness, to confer new life and to bestow “the peace of God that passeth all understanding.”

It may be laid down I think as a truth, that the ministry which is to accomplish this end must be, first of all, one that is full of the Holy Ghost and of faith; one that is instructed unto the Kingdom of God; that bringeth forth out of the treasury things new and old; that knows how to bring forth fruit in its proper season; that can offer milk to babes, and strong meat to those who are of full age; and avoid the error which the Saviour rebuked when He said, “Neither cast ye your pearls before swine.”

It can hardly be otherwise than a pertinent inquiry for us, as members of the Society of Friends at the present day, whether the ministry now exercised amongst us fulfils such conditions as these.

I am glad to find that the Yearly Meeting on Ministry and Oversight gave some attention to it at its recent gathering, resulting, no doubt, in the valuable paragraphs contained in the annual epistle.

As one who was not privileged to be present there, but who, now almost in the sunset period of life, and debarred from much personal service, feels an undiminished interest in this important subject, I propose, if the editor of THE FRIEND permits me the use of his columns for that purpose, to pursue it a little further in some future letters.

Joseph John Dymond.
Ilkley, June, 1892


Part 2 of this series is here.

Exhort One Another Daily

I was reading one of George Fox's epistles (#22) last night and I came across this lovely sentence:

Dear Friends, watch over one another in love, and stir up that which is pure in one another, and exhort one another daily.

What is it that keeps us from doing this? Are we shy? Are we culturally conditioned to keep such matters to ourselves? I want a spiritual community where this kind of thing is welcomed!

A Quote From Isaac Penington

I read this the other night in Selections from the Works of Isaac Penington:

The main thing in religion is to receive a principle of life from God, whereby the mind may be changed, and the heart made able to understand the mysteries of his kingdom, and to see and walk in the way of life; and this is the travail of the souls of the righteous, that they may abide, grow up, and walk with the Lord in this principle; and that others also, who breathe after him, may be gathered into, and feel the virtue of the same principle.

I parallels writings of George Fox, such as this one from epistle 33:

Therefore, ye believers in the light, wait in the wisdom, that with it and in it ye may be ordered to the glory of God, that among you nothing may reign, but light, and life, and wisdom, and power, the dread and fear of the Lord be among you, and truth and righteousness reign; which will answer the light of Christ in every man.

Penington has a soft, poetic way of expressing the life in the Spirit, while Fox tends to be more direct. I find both to be helpful.

A little bit of physics

You may have learned about kinetic and potential energy in high school. Basically, potential energy is energy waiting to be released - sort of the possibility of something happening, while kinetic energy is the energy of motion. The classic example I remember is that of a book sitting on a table. While it is just sitting there, it possesses potential energy. When the book is knocked off the table, the potential energy is converted into kinetic energy by its falling, as well as into other kinds of energy.

I thought about these kinds of energy this morning in meeting when someone talked about "looking for 'that of God' in others". I wonder if what people are looking for is more "kinetic that-of-God" - some sign of God's activity in a person, some spark of goodness to latch on to. I think we should worry more about the "potential that-of-God", the ability within every one of us to commune with God, to be transformed into the image of Christ, and to do what God asks of us.

Where we might unleash a book's kinetic energy by knocking it off a table, we can help to unleash a person's kinetic that-of-God by answering that of God within them, not by just looking for it. When our speech and actions are Spirit-led, when we aren't guided our ego, our fears, our desire to control things, we can reach the potential that-of-God in another person so that they might come to be guided by that same Spirit.

As I look around my living room, it is mostly still (the cats must be napping). Yet, there is potential energy everywhere. As we look at the world, and have trouble seeing the good amidst the greed, hatred, and suffering, we should remember the potential that-of-God in everyone, and that we are called to answer it.