The Minister and the Boy: A Handbook for Churchmen Engaged in Boys' WorkHoben, Allan
Religion
The Minister and the Boy: A Handbook for Churchmen Engaged in Boys' Work
Hoben, Allan
Boys; Church work with children
The pastor who abdicates, and whose church is but a foraging ground for
other institutions which present a magnificent exhibit of social
service, may, indeed, be a good man, but he is canceling the charter of
the church of tomorrow. It is at best a close question as to how the
church will emerge from her present probation, and the pastor should be
wise enough to reckon with the estimate in which the community and the
boy hold him and the organization that he serves. And if he wants
business men of the future who will respect and support the church,
laboring men who will love and attend the church, professional men who
will believe in and serve an efficient church, he must get the boys who
are to be business men, wage-earners, and professional men, and he must
hold them.
If he is concerned that there should be strong, capable men to take up
the burden of church leadership in the future let him create such
leadership in his own spiritual image from the plastic idealism of
boyhood. Let the hero-worship age, without a word of compulsion or
advice, make its choice with him present as a sample of what the
minister can be, and tomorrow there will be no lack of virile high-class
men in pulpit and parish. As a rule the ideals that carry men into the
ministry are born, not in later youth nor in maturity, but in the period
covered by the early high-school years; and the future leadership of the
church is secure if the right kind of ministers mingle with boys of that
age on terms of unaffected friendship and wholesome community of
interest.
Then too there are the riches of memory and gratitude that bulk so large
in a true pastor's reward. If in the years to come the minister wishes
to warm his heart in the glow of happy memories and undying gratitude,
let him invest his present energy in the service of boys. If the
minister could but realize the vast significance of such work, if he
could feel the lure of those untold values lying like continents on the
edge of the future awaiting discovery and development, if he could but
know that he is swinging incipient forces of commanding personality into
their orbits, directing destiny for the individual, predetermining for
righteousness great decisions of the future, laying hold of the very
kingdoms of this world for Christ, he surely would never again bemean
himself in his own thought nor discount his peerless calling.
To be sure, there are certain satisfactions that a minister may lose all
too quickly in these days. The spell of his eloquence may soon pass; the
undivided love of all the people is no permanent tenure of him who
speaks the truth even in love; speedy dissatisfaction and unbridled
criticism are, alas, too often the practice of church democracy; but
that man who has won the love of boys has thrown about himself a
bodyguard whose loyalty will outmatch every foe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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