00:00:00.000 - 00:00:32.000

Go ahead. Sir. We were sharing yesterday about the need to be vulnerable to the people to whom he's talking about.

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I'm wondering if you could speak to that. I don't understand. The question, I think, they've asked me to repeat these questions because this microphone does not pick up the questions.

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If I understand your question correctly, it is, "What is the role of the government in the fight against the virus?" And I think that's a very important question. I think that's a very important question.

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I think that's a very important question. I think that's a very important question. I think that's a very important question. I think that's a very important question.

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I think that's a very important question. I think that's a very important question. I think that's a very important question. I think that's a very important question.

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I think that's a very important question. I think that's a very important question. I think that's a very important question. I think that's a very important question.

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I think that's a very important question. I think that's a very important question. I think that's a very important question. I noticed, as any sensitive person does, how overindulgent we are as people.

00:16:16.000 - 00:19:36.000

I think that's a very important question. I noticed that some sermons are geared towards having you feel something at the end of the sermon. I stand before you condemned as a heretic within the Presbyterian Church. I think the heart leads you to do things that the mind doesn't.

00:19:46.000 - 00:21:26.000

I would hope that somebody who was sitting in the chapel this morning might have learned something. I shoot for the heart much more than I do for the head. I really do believe that most people don't die for philosophies. They die for what they love. My most vivid experience in that was when I went to California, which I refer to as my time on the mission field.

00:21:26.000 - 00:22:06.000

I was in Los Angeles, which is about as primitive a place as there is. Going to California was quite a cultural shock. I involved myself out there in a lot of different ways. I spent a lot of time with my people. I didn't have time to write sermons. I was running around every place, reading all the newspapers, local magazines, visiting homes, and finding out.

00:22:06.000 - 00:22:34.000

Especially talking to the businessmen, because they seem to be more sensitive to the total picture within an area. They vibrate more rapidly. You can pick up a great deal more from them. It's very important to spend time with the young people, because they're often far ahead of their parents. I found, for example, that most parents in the Los Angeles basin at that time, and this was 12 years ago,

00:22:34.000 - 00:23:00.000

were not nearly as conscious of the presence of the drug traffic as their kids were. Their kids could get it every day. Most of them thought their kids never even saw it or were horrified to know it was in their school. And, indeed, as pointed this out, what a wide gap there is between a child, for example, who can never remember when there wasn't television. I was 15 before we got a television set, and we had the first one on the block.

00:23:00.000 - 00:23:30.000

That's a great deal of difference in that. I never saw a political convention until I was 16 or 17. Now I can start watching them when they're 4, which is about the appropriate age level for watching those things. But there is a world of difference. I can remember the Second World War. When the Second World War was on, on the front page of the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph newspaper was a little map about this big.

00:23:30.000 - 00:23:54.000

And the black area, of course, was the axis. That was Germany and Italy and Japan. And the white area, the good guys, was the allies. And you watched the line move back and forth across the map. That's how you're told every day. That's where it was. Now 4- and 5-year-old kids had the Vietnam War going right on in their living room. Every night they saw it.

00:23:54.000 - 00:24:18.000

I remember talking to a minister friend of mine who was sitting watching the evening news. And do you remember that picture? It became, I suppose, one of the two most memorable pictures out of the Vietnam War. Of the little girl running down the road on fire. Her clothes had been burned off. She had the napalm on her. Do you remember that picture? Well, that was taken from a film. That was not a still shot.

00:24:18.000 - 00:24:35.000

And that was on. That was on the screen. And this fellow was sitting there watching it. And all of a sudden heard someone crying. And looked over. And he was casually sitting there watching this. And his little 5-year-old son was sitting over there watching it. Just crying and crying and crying.

00:24:35.000 - 00:24:54.000

And he suddenly realized what an impact this was having on this child. So I think that association with the young people is a very important way to get a handle on what's going on in a given culture. Then people's worship customs reveals a great deal about them too. And especially committee meetings in the church and things like that.

00:24:54.000 - 00:25:16.000

And you can really find out a great deal there. I think it's very important. If you go to a church and if you're in a system where you have a pastoral nominating committee. You meet with a committee and the committee eventually ends up nominating you to the church. I think it's very important to insist that you meet with that pastoral nominating committee.

00:25:16.000 - 00:25:29.000

At least periodically throughout the first two years that you're there. First two years you're in a place you can't do much anyway. You know they say a new broom sweeps clean but an old broom knows where the dirt is. So it takes you a while to get both of those things.

00:25:29.000 - 00:25:43.000

But I found that by staying in touch with those people. And I knew those people generally better than anybody else in the church already. Because those are the ones with whom I'd been meeting anticipatory to going there. But you stay with them and they'll tell you what kind of a job you're doing.

00:25:43.000 - 00:25:54.000

They've got a vested interest. Their name was on the letter that called you there. So if you screw up they're going to look bad. So they're interested in you doing a good job. And hopefully by that time they like you.

00:25:54.000 - 00:26:09.000

And therefore you can get a lot of vibes from them. On where your people are and when you're hitting and when you're missing. And so I've always done that. I've made that a point. In fact the last group with whom I had an evening.

00:26:09.000 - 00:26:23.000

A social evening before I left California was the pulpit committee that called me there. That was the last time we got together and I was leaving after seven years of ministry. But that was a very, very rich time. And we reviewed what we had done in that seven years.

00:26:23.000 - 00:26:34.000

And it was good. Yes. You mentioned yesterday that before you reached on these you had your cards. And then you laid them before some select people.

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That's right. To see if there was some conversation. Have you ever had those same people or other people evaluate your sermons after you left? Well I've tried that.

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I've tried that on a number of occasions. And that's very difficult. That's really very difficult. What did you do?

00:26:55.000 - 00:27:05.000

I'm sorry you didn't hear the question? The question was, have you-- I talked yesterday about once I get the sermons planned. Or what I think I'm going to do.

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I would go out and I would have key elders, my colleagues and the staff come in and look over all those. Am I hitting? Am I missing? Am I overworking this?

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Am I riding a hobby here? Am I missing something altogether? Getting another perspective. So he said, have you ever done that on an individual sermon?

00:27:21.000 - 00:27:35.000

Have you ever had your people come to you after a sermon and analyze the sermon that you just gave? Now I have never just invited a committee in to do that. No. And I don't believe that a committee should do the preaching either.

00:27:35.000 - 00:27:44.000

I want to make it very clear about that. I think the pulpit is yours. And that no committee should take it over. I deplore this idea of a guy getting together--

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Some ministers get together on Saturday nights with a committee and write their sermon. That's supposed to be very maud. It's like these groups now that-- Well there's a whole move to get the pulpit down, get it down on the level of the people.

00:27:57.000 - 00:28:12.000

And get your robe off, of course. Just like everybody else. It's a sort of a crisis. We've developed a kind of ecclesiastical gong show in the ministry today.

00:28:12.000 - 00:28:23.000

Where everybody gets up and does their thing and all that. And I deplore that because I think we are called to lead. There are chief seats. Jesus was very dubious as to who was going to get in them.

00:28:23.000 - 00:28:32.000

But he did say there were chief seats. And some people are going to rule over ten cities. And some people are going to rule over five. And we are called upon to do the very best that we can.

00:28:32.000 - 00:28:45.000

And I think we are anointed for leadership. And I think that the church desperately needs leadership. I don't know any healthy congregation where there isn't strong pastoral leadership. And I think that we need to get the counsel of our people with regard to our preaching.

00:28:45.000 - 00:29:01.000

But that doesn't mean that we are to surrender the pulpit to whatever the group wants. Now having said that, let's get back to the question. My problem is that I find that people won't shoot straight with me when I get a group in to ask them about my preaching. They don't do that.

00:29:01.000 - 00:29:16.000

Through a tape recorder. And they know I'm going to hear the tape? It might work. I don't know. It might work.

00:29:16.000 - 00:29:29.000

Did you hear the story about that Dr. Mangrove? I think his name is out in California. He's a psychologist whose child wanted to hear the Three Little Pigs every night. She wanted the same story read.

00:29:29.000 - 00:29:38.000

You know he had to read the whole thing. So he put it on a tape recorder and gave it to her. And all she had to do at night was press the button and it would play it back. And the third night she came to him and asked him to read it.

00:29:38.000 - 00:29:49.000

And he said, "Well, you know how to turn the tape recorder. Go ahead and do it." She said, "I can't climb up in its lap." I like that. I don't know. Maybe it would work with a tape recorder.

00:29:49.000 - 00:30:10.000

But I've never had much. I can't even get my colleagues to do that. I have a great deal of difficulty getting people to really shoot straight with me about my preaching. And that's been a consistent problem with me. I don't know. I'd be really grateful if you had been successful in getting people to...

00:30:10.000 - 00:30:25.000

I've had preachers come to me and ask me to come in and sit in their worship services and talk about their service with them. And I've done that. And I've asked other people to come and do the same thing for me. And they come and then they don't really shoot straight with me.

00:30:25.000 - 00:30:36.000

I mean, it couldn't be that good. [laughter] Wasn't that terrible? That was the devil speaking through me at that moment.

00:30:36.000 - 00:30:51.000

It sounds like such a frightfully arrogant thing to say. But what I mean is that the... I don't know how you get people to do that. I've never succeeded in getting people to really level with me about that.

00:30:51.000 - 00:31:11.000

Sure. I'm sure it is to some degree. They'll tell me the things I ought to preach on and they'll tell me when I think I'm overworking something. But as far as saying to me... You're not quoting... I've never had anybody say to me anything like,

00:31:11.000 - 00:31:28.000

"You quote too much scripture. You don't quote enough scripture. You talk too loud. You don't talk loud enough. You use too many illustrations. You're too personal." I've never... I don't get that. [inaudible]

00:31:28.000 - 00:31:40.000

Well, you know, there's a lot of truth in that. I've heard that from a lot of guys. A lot of men get a very good playback from their wife or their husband. And I don't have that privilege. I've never had that privilege.

00:31:40.000 - 00:32:02.000

For the last years, I've always had people living in my house. Like when I lived in California, I had five seminary students, Fuller Seminary students, living in my home. And they all were sons of our church. Or they were members of the church when they came to seminary.

00:32:02.000 - 00:32:14.000

You know, they came into our area and joined the church there. And I couldn't get those guys to do it either. And I thought that would be a very good forum, you know, because we ate together every night or most nights. I was very unsuccessful at that.

00:32:14.000 - 00:32:25.000

I don't know. If your wife does it for you, it's good. But you're going to have trouble finding other people to shoot. Were you able to get people to shoot straight with you about your preaching? I guess not.

00:32:25.000 - 00:32:32.000

You guess not. There were a few occasions... Were there? ...that were very helpful.

00:32:36.000 - 00:32:45.000

Were those things you set up? In the sense that you invited people to do this, or this just happened spontaneously? In a conversation over lunch. I see.

00:32:45.000 - 00:32:52.000

I would often raise it. Uh-huh. Yeah. And you become self-conscious about bringing it up. You know, you say, "How was it?"

00:32:52.000 - 00:33:06.000

And that's really a very... You become very self-conscious about doing that, because that begins to sound like you're fishing for compliments. You know, "How was it? Tell me how good I am." I've noticed that the great preachers always ask that, because you're never sure when you've preached.

00:33:06.000 - 00:33:24.000

If what I was trying to say as theological background yesterday is true, that the Holy Spirit does it, and only the Holy Spirit can do it, and no matter what you do, that does not necessarily ensure that it's going to be done. If that is so, then you really wonder if you have preached the Word.

00:33:24.000 - 00:33:39.000

You know, have you preached? And I've had an awful lot of people, people that I look at with the greatest admiration and respect, say to me, "Do you think I... Was anything there today?" You know, "You were going to say something else. I'm afraid I cut you off."

00:33:39.000 - 00:34:07.000

Well, just a question. Can you sense in preaching with the congregation when you are communicating well? Isn't there a kind of presence, a sense within that context that gives you pretty good feedback right there? I think it is, but I would emphasize the fact that it's whether you're communicating well.

00:34:07.000 - 00:34:22.000

In other words, I have found times when I was communicating like gangbusters, and you could have heard a pin drop, and I don't think the Holy Spirit had anything to do with it at all. It was good technique. And so there are times when you really feel caught up.

00:34:22.000 - 00:34:37.000

You know that it becomes very quiet, and there's a special ambiance that comes on, and you just, "Boy, we're all together here now." But sometimes that's just because it's a darn good story. And not because...

00:34:37.000 - 00:34:50.000

It's more your technique than it is the fact that you're anointed at that moment. Sir? Do you feel manipulative at times like that? Oh, I not only feel it, I try to be it.

00:34:50.000 - 00:34:56.000

Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I really work hard at it. Oh, yeah.

00:34:56.000 - 00:35:01.000

Yeah. I want to manipulate you right into doing something. Absolutely. Yes.

00:35:01.000 - 00:35:15.000

Sure. In fact, tomorrow I'm going to talk about how you should choose illustrations, and I think there are some very definite perspectives that one ought to follow in choosing illustrations. You pick the illustrations that are going to press the right buttons,

00:35:15.000 - 00:35:27.000

that are going to get the right response, and I think it's very easy to know which ones to pick. It's the concept of rhetorical vision, and we'll be talking about that tomorrow in the Art of Illustration.

00:35:27.000 - 00:35:38.000

Because the reason a lot of people-- See, most people make the mistake of thinking that the function of an illustration is to explain. The function of an illustration is not to explain. Just about anything you have to say to your people,

00:35:38.000 - 00:35:55.000

I don't care how profound the theological concept is, you are intelligent enough and educated enough to explain it to them. You will be able to get across to them that idea. If you can't do it in 25 minutes, there's something really wrong, you see,

00:35:55.000 - 00:36:08.000

and you ought to be able to do that. The purpose of an illustration is to motivate, is to get them to do something on the basis of what has happened. When I told the illustration this morning of David,

00:36:08.000 - 00:36:19.000

I could have explained that concept of how you share. I could have said it in a single sentence. If you share, that means you have to share sorrows as well as joys. And that's it. I would have said the whole thing.

00:36:19.000 - 00:36:30.000

That was all there was to it. But I went into that whole story about David because I was trying to lead people there to think to themselves, "I would like to minister in a situation.

00:36:30.000 - 00:36:42.000

I would like to be that close. I would like to have that kind of experience, even at that price." I'm hoping that there was enough of that there, that somebody will be brave enough to do that kind of thing and know that.

00:36:42.000 - 00:37:19.000

That's what the purpose of that was. [inaudible] Not in the least. No, I don't think that the means is improper.

00:37:19.000 - 00:37:29.000

I don't think it's in any way shady. The goal is not shady, nor is the mean shady. I don't think either one of them. I'm not saying that I think the end justifies the means

00:37:29.000 - 00:37:40.000

because I think the means are perfectly all right and perfectly legitimate. I think people know when they come in and sit down to listen to somebody give a speech, I don't care what it's on, that the person isn't giving the speech for their own entertainment.

00:37:40.000 - 00:37:54.000

They're giving the speech because they have a definite goal in mind. You, as the auditor, are the recipient of that approach. I think you know that when you go in. In fact, people will come out of church and say, "I didn't get anything out of it,"

00:37:54.000 - 00:38:06.000

which really means, I think, that they didn't feel moved. Nothing happened to them there. They want something to happen to them. I think I'm playing the game.

00:38:06.000 - 00:38:22.000

That's exactly what I'm involved in. The foolishness of preaching is the attempt to the application of God's word through your words, which can be done only by him, to change lives, to motivate and change lives. I think it's perfectly legitimate to use those techniques.

00:38:22.000 - 00:38:33.000

If you'll remember, in that tape, there's one of those concepts, though, that I think is evil. It's a very dangerous one. We'll talk about that tomorrow. Yes, ma'am.

00:38:33.000 - 00:38:51.000

Do you think it's possible to preach just so long a propagation of that after his death? It certainly is for me, yes. I don't know of anybody that has more than 10 or 12 years of good preaching in them. Now, there are men who have been in the same pulpit, you know, for 20 and 25 years and 30 years

00:38:51.000 - 00:39:06.000

and have had marvelous ministries. There are exceptions to every rule. Dr. Auchinge is an exception to that rule, for example. That's the reason the series is named after him, and there will never be a series like it named after me.

00:39:06.000 - 00:39:22.000

There are some who can do things like that, you see. But that is not for most of us the case. I find myself rewriting the messages from back then and going back and reading some of those messages and being appalled at some of the things that I said

00:39:22.000 - 00:39:37.000

and being astonished at the way God used some of the things that I said. So I really, really wonder about that. I was taught in seminary that 7 to 10 years was about the ideal ministry. It took you 2 years to get in and you had from 5 to 7 years of good ministry,

00:39:37.000 - 00:39:53.000

and you ought to plan to move on after about 10 years. I have followed that rubric in my own ministry and have found it to be very good. Of course, it's very nice being on a college campus because 25% of your congregation leaves every year, so you don't have to.

00:39:53.000 - 00:40:31.000

Another nice thing about college ministries is all your problems move out too. You're not going to get out of the session. [inaudible] I'm studying surgery.

00:40:31.000 - 00:40:52.000

My singularity is the greatest burden of my life. I feel incomplete not being married. I've tried very hard to be married, as a matter of fact. It is a very difficult thing for me.

00:40:52.000 - 00:41:12.000

I tried to compensate early in my ministry by reading voraciously in the fields of counseling, especially marital counseling, etc., etc. Trying to compensate with knowledge gained from books, what I was not gaining in experience. That might have helped.

00:41:12.000 - 00:41:34.000

I discovered very early, however, that especially among women, that women were very, very ready to come to me as an unmarried man. More so, in fact, than they were many times to go to a married man. I think that some women think that all married men are in it together.

00:41:34.000 - 00:41:53.000

And that I have a certain objectivity not being a member of the team. The same thing has not worked with the fellows. I have not had the men coming to me in the same number that I've had the women. Which is just the opposite of the way I would have thought it would have been.

00:41:53.000 - 00:42:08.000

I thought the guys would come to me and say, "Well, here was one that was smart enough to stay out of it all, so he ought to have something good to say to me." But that very rarely happens. As far as my relationships with my congregation are concerned,

00:42:08.000 - 00:42:27.000

it has always given me a wonderful entree into homes. I go every place for dinner and have all the kids in the church, or my kids, Uncle Bruce. I'm Uncle Bruce in all the different-- I've always been able to work that very, very successfully.

00:42:27.000 - 00:42:39.000

I think it's many regards-- I never spend a holiday alone or anything like that. I've always had usually three or four-- breakfast, one house, lunch, another house, dinner, another house--that kind of thing.

00:42:39.000 - 00:42:54.000

Because everybody opens up, and it really gives me an opportunity to get into a lot of family things in that regard. I find my congregations have been willing to help me in that. Because I've always expressed it as a need. Now, I come right out and tell them that.

00:42:54.000 - 00:43:05.000

I don't play cozy about it. I just tell them I have that need. I have found that they've always been open. They've invited me into the precincts of their family life.

00:43:05.000 - 00:43:23.000

Then I have had a very rich family life of my own. And I rely a great deal upon it for my judgments and my experiences. I mean, I come from a family that has been a very blessed thing for me, one of the richest gifts God has given.

00:43:23.000 - 00:43:35.000

That's another thing. I have continued reading very heavily in the field. But I do not recommend to anybody to go through the ministry in a single state. I strongly urge.

00:43:35.000 - 00:43:55.000

See, what I did was when I went to seminary, I knew I was not going to go on to graduate school. I had no interest in going on to graduate school beyond seminary. And so I decided that I had to get maximum use out of seminary. So while I dated regularly through college, I really hit the books in seminary.

00:43:55.000 - 00:44:16.000

I did field work and everything, immersed myself totally in the experience for four years. My plan was then when I came out into my first church to find somebody and get married. Well, you never make the mistake of dating anybody in the church where you're serving as pastor. That's a very big mistake because, you know, you take somebody out and she turns out to be a real dog

00:44:16.000 - 00:44:29.000

and you don't take her out again. And her father's on the session, see. You can really get into some real problems that way. Any time you try to break a relationship, it's very bad.

00:44:29.000 - 00:44:47.000

So I learned that, and so then I started to go out and try to do my dating outside the church. The trouble is the church took so much of my time, I didn't know anybody outside the church. So then I resorted to having some of my minister friends who were married invite me to their houses for dinner and then have single girls from their congregations.

00:44:47.000 - 00:44:56.000

It becomes quite an engineering project. [laughter] And I've been very unsuccessful at it. Our time is gone.

00:44:56.000 - 00:45:10.000

We can talk afterwards if you wish. I really appreciate what Dr. Steele has been sharing. To be so young and to be so wise, I mean, how does he put that together? But thank you very much for what you've shared here today,

00:45:10.000 - 00:45:22.000

and I think to use a common phrase of our respected and esteemed dean, we want to keep faith with your schedules. So it is 1 o'clock. If you need to go, you're free to go.

00:45:22.000 - 00:45:26.000

But if you would like to come and talk to Dr. Steele, he'll be here for a few minutes.