In the services of Christ Church, Frank Nelson's individuality found complete expression. The Prayer Book offices were marked by an absence of ceremonial, but filled with a profound simplicity and a noble dignity. People coming from other parishes and accustomed to considerable ritual and better architecture (Christ Church has been likened to a Moorish mosque!) learned that such externals occupy in reality a subordinate position in the Christian life, as the rector's manner and forceful preaching lifted them to the plane of spirit-filled worship. He was concerned not with the creation of an atmosphere in which to bathe with satisfaction one's feelings about God but with the living message of the Gospel. One came at last to love the old church building because there the spirit was fed, the mind enlightened, and the will impelled to action. People came to be in his presence. They found a new, bright sense of the glory of religious faith; they felt how precious is the least of the human vessels into which God pours His Spirit. The man in himself communicated a personality so wholly infused with the grace of the Lord Jesus that his hearers were stirred to action, which result stems from the authentic note in preaching. "Effective preaching can only mean effective in the sense of doing God's work."[14] Frank Nelson did God's work. He stirred people to do God's work. The atmosphere of conviction generated by the preacher is due to his whole personality rather than to his words; hence the impact made upon his hearers at the moment of his speaking is never conveyed through the printed page. Its influence, however, continues in their lives, and measured by this standard Frank Nelson was a powerful and effective preacher. The gift of swift, magnetic, eloquent speech was his. Words with the quality and vigor of intuitive imagination poured out of him. Yet preaching was never easy for him, and as it was dominated by his characteristic intensity and fervor, he was nervous beforehand and exhausted afterward. His emotional range sometimes led him off the main thread of a discourse; at times he ranted; and more than once preached an entirely different sermon from the one outlined in his written notes. His preaching was "feeling warmed up to vision," and the word of God passed through him to men. He believed tremendously in preaching; there were few services in Christ Church at which he did not preach,[15] but he was not a so-called popular preacher; crowds did not constantly fill the pews. To some his driving power was wearing, and even some of his admirers would exclaim, "Oh, I do wish Mr. Nelson would not tear his throat so when he preaches." But his very force of delivery, and his vehemence were a part of the man, and he no more could have preached in another manner than have changed his stature.