The Pastor: His Qualifications and DutiesHarvey, H. (Hezekiah)
Religion
The Pastor: His Qualifications and Duties
Harvey, H. (Hezekiah)
Pastoral theology
not be so multiplied as to conflict with the general meetings of the
church or with each other. Each should subordinate its arrangements to
those of the church, and each should have its own separate,
distinctly-marked sphere. (2.) They should be kept under the pastor's
supervision and subject to his guidance. It will be readily seen that
this supposes care and tact on the part of the minister.
3. It is important that in this development of the forces in a church
the pastor should mark those cases among the young in which special
promise of intellectual ability appears and should inspire and direct
them toward a higher education. Intellect is a gift of God: it is
criminal to leave it undeveloped. Be thoroughly alive to this fact and
impress it on the people. You will see young men and young women in
your congregation who might, with adequate intellectual culture, occupy
positions of power in life, and carrying into those positions a
Christian character as well as a cultivated intellect might exert a
wide and beneficent influence for Christ in the world. It seems to me
one of the highest duties of a pastor to foster in such minds a desire
and purpose for an education, and to facilitate in every possible way
the attainment of that end. He should perpetually stimulate the people
to a larger and higher intelligence, and never be satisfied unless
numbers of the youth of his church are in higher institutions of
learning. A failure to develop his people intellectually is a discredit
to any minister.
4. Another important end to be secured is the development of
ministerial gifts. The prayer-meeting, the Sunday-school, and the
general work of the church will commonly, but not always, make these
manifest. Sometimes a very diffident young man may possess them, but
only encouragement will develop them. A pastor should be on the watch
and should take occasion to call out the latent power. A few kindly
words of encouragement have often developed a man of ultimately wide
usefulness. Besides this class, there is much talent in the church that
could be utilized in lay-preaching, where men of good speaking and
spiritual knowledge, without relinquishing business pursuits, might be
employed at destitute points to proclaim the Gospel. A pastor's care is
needed in seeking out and setting at work these gifts for
lay-preaching, and thus multiplying the agencies for evangelization
around him.
+SECTION XI.+
FUNERAL SERVICES.
Funeral services bring the pastor into most tender and influential
relations to the families of his congregation, but they are also among
the most perplexing and difficult parts of his work. Warm sympathy must
here be combined with wise discretion, or he may destroy at the funeral
the effect of his most faithful teaching in the pulpit. Here I suggest:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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