Chapter II: Inadequate Causes of Change

Many causes operate to unsettle a pastor which ought not to produce that result; indeed, some of them, if rightly interpreted, would have served rather to strengthen than to dissolve the pastoral relation. Thus, 1. Mental depression. A sedentary, studious life often induces abnormal nervous conditions, and the hypochondriac misinterprets the feelings of the people and underestimates the results of his ministry. A change is in consequence resolved on, which subsequent developments show to have been wholly unnecessary. 2. The loss of popularity. This is often due to real defects in the character and work of the pastor, and its true remedy is not a change of field, but a correction of his faults. Imperfect preparation has, perhaps, made his sermons commonplace and his pulpit a failure. Or he has failed to cultivate executive, pastoral, and social power, and, as a result, the church is not in effective working condition, and no bonds of personal sympathy and affection bind pastor to people. Or there are imperfections in his spirit and life, and these forbid confidence and respect on the part of the congregation. In all such cases a loss of popularity does not indicate so much a change of field as a change in the spirit, plan, and work of the pastor, for these defects would in any field soon lead to the same result. 3. Difficulties in the church. Such trials enter more or less into every minister's lot, but they may be no indication of duty to change. The trial may be sent as a discipline, designed to develop, through faith and patience, a nobler character and higher power in the pastor. Change in this case is only a cowardly running away from duty, and consequent failure to gain an intended blessing. Many a disruption of the pastoral tie, it may be feared, is thus only a shrinking from trial and intended discipline and results only in loss to pastor and people. 4. Ambitious seeking for distinguished position. There is an unhallowed ambition which, unsatisfied with advancement through natural growth, is ever restlessly seeking, by newspaper notoriety, sensational sermons, and influential friends, to secure prominent places in the ministry. A vacant pulpit in a conspicuous church is usually beset by many such ambitious aspirants for place and notoriety. It is hardly necessary to suggest that such a spirit is at the farthest possible remove from the genuine spirit of the Christian pastor; and in the end it reacts disastrously on the reputation of him who indulges it, for self-seeking and pretense are sure, sooner or later, to be exposed.