Yesterday I read the below quote in a neat little book called Words to Winners of Souls by Horatius Bonar. An older book, but still very valuable, as he calls the minister to true conversion and an accurate understanding of his job—not to deliver sermons and go on the occasional visit, but to work diligently in every way to convert people to God, and so to save them.
"To deliver sermons on each returning Lord's Day, to administer the Lord's Supper statedly, to pay an occasional visit to those who request it, to attend religious meetings—this, we fear, sums up the ministerial life of multitudes who are, by profession, overseers of the flock of Christ. An incumbency of thirty, forty or fifty years often yields no more than this. So many sermons, so many baptisms, so many sacraments, so many visits, so many meetings of various kinds—these are all the pastoral annals, the parish records, the ALL of a lifetime's ministry to many! Of SOULS that have been saved, such a record could make no mention."
Challenging. I pray that after 30–50 of ministry that I will not realize I have been ministering in vain.
"To deliver sermons on each returning Lord's Day, to administer the Lord's Supper statedly, to pay an occasional visit to those who request it, to attend religious meetings—this, we fear, sums up the ministerial life of multitudes who are, by profession, overseers of the flock of Christ. An incumbency of thirty, forty or fifty years often yields no more than this. So many sermons, so many baptisms, so many sacraments, so many visits, so many meetings of various kinds—these are all the pastoral annals, the parish records, the ALL of a lifetime's ministry to many! Of SOULS that have been saved, such a record could make no mention."
Challenging. I pray that after 30–50 of ministry that I will not realize I have been ministering in vain.
