Practical Theology and Ministerial Efficiency

Abstract

It was altogether to be expected that with the emphasis that has been placed of late upon the importance of a modern training for the ministry there should be uttered in certain quarters warnings against a mere technical and commercially conceived efficiency. And these warnings may well give us pause and require of us a definition of this easy term. As a matter of fact, everything depends upon the criterion of ministerial efficiency. The criterion of any efficiency is necessarily inherent in the nature of the activity involved. The efficiency of an engineer is mechanical. It would be folly to say that he is a poor engineer because he has no musical taste. The efficiency of a carpenter must be stated in terms of his trade, of a musician in terms of his art. The efficiency of a minister of Jesus Christ is spiritual. If anyone ever thought of ministerial efficiency as concerned with ability to entertain a crowd or to get conversions, as cleverness in handling men and in keeping a religious plant going at full speed, he knew not what spirit he was of. The department of practical theology is especially charged with the final task of technical, professional efficiency. But it never regards itself as concerned with making able pulpiteers, clever evangelizers, hustling administrators, psychological religious educators. It always presupposes in every man seeking the benefit of the discipline that it may be able to afford that there is first, as a conditio sine qua non, a call of God to the Christian ministry, a sense of prophetic purpose, an appreciation of the church as a community of religious persons seeking to realize for themselves and for others the kingdom of God. It always assumes that the supreme need of man is God. But a modern practical theology assumes also that God is not found merely in lonely meditation 426