An Anecdote on Church Ministry

Please forgive me, but I am interrupting our exposition for a single post. We will pick it up next time by turning to Ephesians 3:8. I am just compelled to share a burden with you.

Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones pastored Westminster Chapel in London from 1939 to 1968, first as the associate under the great G. Campbell Morgan until Morgan’s retirement in 1943, and then as the sole pastor. His ministry was one of expository preaching—he spent, for example, five years expositing the book of Ephesians. Many view him, in fact, as the greatest expositor of the 20^th–century. He has had an enormous influence on my own life and ministry.

While recently reading volume 2 of Ian Murray's monumental biography of Lloyd-Jones, I came upon an incident early in his tenure at Westminster that caught my attention. Though the incident occurred in 1944 (please remember that), it could have happened in 2012. I hope you will consider it and ponder its implications.

During a Friday night Bible Study and discussion group, the problem of how to increase church attendance arose. There were several who doubted that the “plain services now established, with 45-minute sermons and not even an organ voluntary, would ever bring back the numbers which once crowded the building” prior to the war. Suggestions included (remember, this is 1944): “more music, livelier music, special musical numbers, shorter sermons, sermons not so deep, more variety in the services,” and so forth.

While one dear lady, Mary-Carson Kuschke, was deeply burdened by all this and so felt compelled to raise her hand and interject that she felt that no changes whatsoever were needed to keep her coming, she was nonetheless a lone voice in a sea of modern (and if I may be so bold, fleshly) thinking.

It was at this point that Lloyd-Jones “smilingly thanked [her] for the first kind words [he’d] heard [that] evening!” He then rose and asked the group what they would say if he told them he knew a way to ensure that every seat in the Chapel would be filled on the following Lord’s Day. He confidently assured them, in fact, that he knew exactly how this could be accomplished. “Tell us, tell us,” they said, “Let’s do it.” He replied, “It’s very simple. Simply put a notice in the Saturday edition of The Times that I shall appear in the pulpit the next day wearing a bathing costume!” This was followed, of course, by shocked silence. (I guess the accepted substitute today is faded jeans and a tee shirt, but alas, few are shocked.)

Lloyd-Jones then went on to expound the biblical basis for proper worship, illustrating with the clear error, which was just beginning to be prevalent in his day, of bringing into the church various forms of entertainment as a means of enticing people to come. (Ian Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Fight of Faith, 1939–1981 [Banner of Truth Trust, 1990], 111–112).

Now, what was the year again?—1944. And where are we today? Where in Scripture does it say that the church is designed for the "unchurched"? Where does it say we should entertain people to “get them in the door”? Where does it say to “give people what they want” so they will keep coming? I shall not forget the statement I heard one pastor make some 35 years ago; so tainted by the world had he become that he actually said from the pulpit: “Even Jesus gave away fish sandwiches to draw a crowd.”

Thankfully, I have also not forgotten what a true man of God told me around the same time period: “You will keep people with what you get them with. If you get them with what is new, novel, and innovative, you will have to continue being innovative to keep them. But if you get them with the Word of God, you will keep them with that because it never changes.”

One of the clearest, most unambiguous principles in Scripture is that the core of church ministry must be the preaching and teaching of God’s Word (not music, which is by far the major emphasis today). The late J. Sidlow Baxter said it well: “Preaching . . . is the gravity center of the Christian pastorate” (Rethinking Our Priorities, [Zondervan, 1974], 245). While everything under the sun is being used today to replace the pulpit ministry, it is the pulpit that is to be the focal point in the church. Just as John Calvin replaced all the altars in the churches with pulpits, and just as Lloyd-Jones had the pulpit bolted to the floor at Westminster, we should likewise make that the heart and hub of our churches today.

Among many biblical examples we could note, the very last letter the Apostle Paul wrote was to a pastor, and what was the last thing he told that pastor to do? Entertain the people? Be “culturally relevant”? “Appeal to seekers”? Indeed, not. He told him to, “Preach the word . . . reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine” (2 Tim. 4:2). What is true preaching? Preaching is the exposition (i.e., detailed explanation) and application of God’s Word from the preacher to the people.

I sincerely pray that the pulpit is the focal point in your church. 

I also pray that you consider forwarding this post on to others.