Among the most celebrated preachers of the nineteenth century, Charles Spurgeon was famous for his powerful sermons at London’s Metropolitan Tabernacle, which won droves to faith in Christ. But in the following words from a lecture to young ministers, he notes that sermons alone do not determine the effectiveness of a pastor’s ministry. Indeed, gracious deportment, pleasant manners, and warm hospitality outside the pulpit help buttress his proclamation and lend credibility to the gospel.

Have a good word to say to each and every member of the family—the big boys, and the young ladies, and the little girls, and everybody. No one knows what a smile and a hearty sentence may do. A man who is to do much with men must love them, and feel at home with them. An individual who has no geniality about him had better be an undertaker, and bury the dead, for he will never succeed in influencing the living… A man must have a great heart if he would have a great congregation. His heart should be as capacious as those noble harbours along our coast, which contain sea-room for a fleet. When a man has a large, loving heart, men go to him as ships to a haven, and feel at peace when they have anchored under the lee of his friendship. Such a man is hearty in private as well as in public; his blood is not cold and fishy, but he is warm as your own fireside. No pride and selfishness chill you when you approach him; he has his doors all open to receive you, and you are at home with him at once. Such men I would persuade you to be, every one of you.1
Footnotes:
1

Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Minister’s Ordinary Conversation,” in Lectures to My Students (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1954), 169.

article adopted from Kairos Journal

First Baptist Church of Perryville is located on Rt. 40, one and a half miles east of Rt. 222.