Chapter III: Difference in Success and Failure

It needs to be emphasized that the difference between success and failure very often consists not of any one great big item but of a great many details or small factors working together. Not one big thing but many little things working together very often makes the difference between success and failure—in every phase of life except the church. In the church they make the difference between outstanding success and just mediocre success. It is very difficult for the church to fail completely. As long as it follows the Bible there can be no failure, but those _little_ things frequently make up the difference between outstanding success and merely mediocre success, between doing something that’s really worthwhile, outstanding and unusual, and just drifting and dragging along.

1. _Running a store._ I want to try to make this point clear by use of an illustration. There are some of you here who are in the mercantile business. You know lots more about running stores than I do. I believe you will agree that very often the difference between success and failure there consists of many little items working together—the manner in which you display your goods on the shelves, the spirit with which you meet your customers when they come into your place of business, the courtesy with which you render service to your patrons, and just a lot of these little things make up the difference.

You don’t make a lot of money on any one item, but making a small profit on each of a great many items is what finally spells success. If you will consider the men who have made fortunes in this world, I believe you will find that they did not get rich by making a whole lot of money on one item or unit of business, but by making a little money on each of a great many items. The difference between success and failure then is not always one big thing, but frequently many little things working together. You can never fill a barrel by pouring water into the bunghole while it is running out a thousand nail holes.

2. _Keeping house._ The same thing applies to house work. I don’t know much about housekeeping, but I’ve had a chance to observe quite a bit of it as I’ve gone around over the country. And I try to determine the difference between a good housekeeper and just an ordinary housekeeper. I’m convinced that it consists not of one big factor but of a great many details—the arrangement of this little piece of furniture, having the magazines up off the floor, a definite place to keep each of numerous little articles, the spider webs out of that corner, and many other little things. I don’t know what all of them are, but some of you ladies do, and I’m sure you get the point.

3. _Leading singing._ The same thing is true in church work. I remember sitting and listening to a song director who is very outstanding and who has won national recognition for his ability to direct congregational singing. I tried to determine what made him so successful. I concluded that it was no one big factor, but a lot of little details about the way he directed the service; and I’m sure that Brother Murphy, who is helping us on Thursday nights, will verify this statement.

4. _Selecting building site._ Let us consider other details of church work. Any one of them by itself is not so terribly important, and I’m sure that I could find someone who would argue with me about any one of them, and say, “Oh, well, after all that doesn’t matter,” but when you take all of them together it does matter. It makes the difference between outstanding success and mere existence. Take for instance the location of the church building. In many instances very poor judgment has been used in selecting building sites.

A certain North Carolina town is still a missionary point, even though there has been a church in it for at least 25 years. The church building is located on a dirty back street. There isn’t a store in the community. No business man would have located one there! Neither is there a school building in the community. No board of education in the world would have put one there. After 25 years in such a location the church is still very small and weak. Very recently they finally decided, after a painful division, to move up town.

I shall not exaggerate in describing their building. The walls were painted, but the overhead was not. There was no rug, no paint, no carpet of any kind on the floor. The benches were such as you cannot find in any country schoolhouse in Davidson County. They were such as you might have found seventy or seventy-five years ago. Hanging on the wall just inside the door there was a mop which was used to clean the floor and over the pulpit a bottle opener with which they unfastened the grape juice each Sunday morning. Over on this side of the building there was a country-store stove with a pipe running all the way across the building and into the wall on the other side. There was a baptistry but no dressing rooms. The people had to come down the aisle to a hole in the floor to be baptized and go up the aisle and to some neighbor’s house to change their clothes. Well, now, are you surprised that this church hasn’t grown?

Down at Kannapolis where I went to hold a meeting, they had a church building on a side street to a side street that got so muddy during the wintertime that they had to discontinue some of their meetings. Every time Brother Flannery was called upon to tell someone how to find the building he would hang his head. I noticed him one night during our tent meeting; he started to announce the location of the building and unconsciously his head went down. He was ashamed of it. And there would be little hope for the work at Kannapolis if they had not decided to remedy that situation. But they’ve already bought two nice lots downtown on which we held the tent meeting and where they will locate a church building as soon as possible.

5. _Keeping the building in proper condition._ Along with the _location_ of the building is the _condition_ of the building. Literally, I have preached in church buildings where the temperature was about 60° or 55° when the service began and 85° when it closed. People would have on their overcoats when I started to preach and want to pull off their shirts before it was over! Well, you may say that that doesn’t make any difference; but you take one hundred little things like that and it does make a great deal of difference.

The arrangement of the program may look like a small item, but it’s one of those little items, which, taken along with others, makes a big difference. Reports and records of the treasurer and of other workers in the church are important. Our attitude toward strangers when they visit our meetings is significant. That’s one respect in which the Chapel Avenue congregation is outstanding. Your courtesy to strangers has caused much favorable comment.

6. _Advertising the work of the church._ I’ve known churches to spend three or four hundred dollars to get a preacher, and refuse to spend $25 to get the people there to hear him. Think about that! You know the preacher can’t do any good unless the people are there. I went to a certain city in West Virginia to hold a meeting, and I wrote to them in advance urging them to advertise the meeting. Well, I couldn’t say too much, you know. They’d think I was trying to get them to advertise me. After I arrived I asked them if they’d advertised the meeting. They said, “Oh, yes.” I looked around for a sign but I didn’t see one. The church building was located on a through highway that ran from the North to the South. A streamer across the road would have attracted the attention of everybody who passed. They hadn’t put one up. I looked in the store windows and saw no ads. I saw none anywhere.

I decided to find out whether they had advertised the meeting. It was a small town where everybody is supposed to know what everybody else is doing anyway—only about 1,000 people. I went to the stores and inquired whether a meeting was going on in town. In every store I entered I was thoroughly informed about a Nazarene meeting. One fellow got so enthusiastic that he took me out on the street and showed me the preacher’s house and told me where they were holding the meeting. After they would finish their story I’d always ask if there were any other meetings going on in town. In each case the answer was, “No.”

In our meeting that night I related my experiment and its results. And I said, “Now, don’t think I told those people any better. I thought I’d help you keep the secret!” That’s the principle on which a great many churches work.

Remember that you have not advertised the work of the church when you merely let people know it’s going on. You haven’t advertised it until you _make them want a part in it_! Everybody in this country knows that the Standard Oil Company has gasoline for sale. If that were the end of advertising, they could discontinue theirs. But that’s not the purpose of it. Their purpose is to make people _want_ Standard gasoline, so they keep on advertising. Too often we think we’ve advertised the church just because people know it’s in existence, but we have not advertised it until we make them want a part in it.

7. _Handling the finances._ Another little detail that needs careful consideration is the planning of the financial program of the church. There is one important respect in which the finance of the church is different from that of any other organization. I’m not a business man, but I know, nevertheless, that it’s well for a business concern to keep a good surplus on hand. The bigger margin they can keep between their income and their outgo, the better off they are. Consequently the administrators of such businesses endeavor to build up a big bank account; but friends, that’s the worst thing that can happen to a congregation! You cannot get a group of people to give into a treasury that has several thousand dollars in the bank. You cannot get people to give to a church when they know it is not needed.

I got a big surprise a few years ago when I preached in a certain town on the subject of giving. After I’d finished the members began coming to me and saying, “Why there’s no need of telling us about that. We have several thousand dollars in the bank. Why should we give? This congregation doesn’t need any money.”

Recently I held a meeting for another church which had $10,000 in the bank. I didn’t know it, so I preached on giving and got the same reaction. During the rest of that meeting I preached on _spending_! Before the meeting closed the congregation had plans to start a new congregation in the north end of town. Since I left they have bought a building for $4,500, paid cash for it, and started a new congregation with about fifty or sixty members. They were going to wait until the war was over. I wonder what they would have done in case of the Hundred Years War! That question occurs to me when people talk about postponing church work until after the war is over. We cannot afford to let the Lord’s work wait until the world quits fighting!

It’s essential in reference to the financial program of the church that plans for Scriptural spending be kept right up with, or a little ahead of, the income; because the income is flexible. When the congregation sees an increased need and a growing program, then the contributions will be increased accordingly. I don’t blame people for not giving to a treasury that’s already overflowing. I wouldn’t want to contribute to a church whose leaders would not spend the money that was contributed. I’d find some other avenue through which to contribute. When it is necessary to set aside a fund for a new building, or some other major, anticipated expense, the money should be earmarked and not counted as part of the operating account. The financial program of the church is one of many problems that needs to be given some careful study.

8. _Avoiding disappointment._ I want to give you another illustration. When I went to a certain town to preach, the ladies, some of whom were even from another congregation, began insisting on having a ladies’ Bible class. They said that the preacher over at this other church wouldn’t have one. I asked why. They answered, “Because it always dies on his hands, and leaves a bad feeling—a feeling of failure.” I replied, “All right, we’ll have one and not let it die. We’re just going to continue it twelve weeks. Then we will be through.”

I planned a twelve-week course. The interest and attendance grew throughout the twelve weeks. Some insisted upon its being continued longer but I said, “No, we may start another one soon, but we’ve finished this one.” You know there’s a big difference between quitting because you’ve finished and quitting because you’ve failed. You can always start again if you think it wise to do so. It is prudent to set a time limit on all activities of the church except those which are essential or already established.

When I was doing missionary work in Richmond, Virginia, I didn’t ask churches to send me “a contribution;” I asked them to send me a definite amount for a definite period of time. Then, when they had promised, they felt obligated to give that much for that length of time. You know, if there isn’t some agreement about the amount and the length of time, people will think, “Well, it’s got to stop sometime and the church has as much right to discontinue it or say when it should be discontinued as the preacher has,” and so after awhile it just plays out. But if a congregation promises to send you $10 a month for twelve months, they are almost certain to do it. That’s just another one of those little details. All such things have to be worked out according to human judgment. They have to be learned by experience and observation. The Bible does not specify them.

I could go on talking like this indefinitely, but all these items are mentioned for illustrative purposes, and to emphasize the one central point I want to drive home tonight. That is, that God has left a field in which he has not made specifications, in which we must make decisions, and those _decisions ought to be made thoughtfully_. They ought to be made deliberately, and every little detail ought to be studied most carefully, for after all, _we are engaged in the greatest work on this earth!_