By Pastor Bruce K. Oyen
Email: bk_oyen@hotmail.com
C. H. Spurgeon died in 1892. But that remarkable English Baptist preacher continues to influence the world for good through his writings, many of which were first preached as sermons, and some of which were written as books.
While I reject his Calvinism (he was a 5-pointer), I always enjoy his statements on other subjects. Here are two quotes from his book called "An All Round Ministry." They are taken from the chapter called "Individuality, And Its Opposite." The quotes tell us what he thought of the size of a congregation. He had 5,000 attend his church services every week for many years.
Spurgeon said this: "Remember, dear brother, if you give your whole soul to the charge committed to you, it does not matter much about its appearing to be a somewhat small and insignificant affair, for as much skill may be displayed in the manufacture of a very tiny watch as in the construction of the town clock; in fact, a minute article may become the object of greater wonder than another of larger dimensions. Quality is a far more precious thing than quantity." Spurgeon also said this: "If our individual responsibility be rightly felt, we shall refrain from judging others. We are all too ready to ascend the judgment-seat. One man judges his fellow, and condemns him because he has had so few additions to his church. I should myself be sorry if I saw few conversions, and I should severely censure myself; but I should be very, very wrong if I were to utter an indiscriminate censure upon others. Our brother's congregation may be smaller than ours; the people's hearts may have been long steeled by a cold, dead, stereotyped ministry, and it may be that there is a good deal of work to be done before they will become interested in the gospel, much less affected by it. Possibly it may happen that the preacher, who has one convert, might say as the lioness did about her one cub, when the fox boasted that she had so many, "One, but that one is a lion!" The minister, whose whole year's work ended with one convert, and that one was Robert Moffat, did not reap a scanty harvest."
