Why Don’t More Ministers Write?

A sermon I heard over ten years ago has meant more to me than any other during the twenty-three years since I was a teen-ager.

As I recall it began with a story about a man who was so weighed down with problems that he was completely beside himself. One day while reading in the Psalms the burdened man came across these words: “By my God I have leaped over a wall.…” Comforted in heart, he got on his feet and “with God’s help” found his way over his own particular mountain of difficulty.

I myself was at that time deeply concerned over numerous problems. In quiet prayer after that sermon, “By God’s Help,” immense burdens in my life were rolled away; I experienced a new confidence which even now is renewed regularly just by the reminder of this text.

This particular sermon impressed me so much that I urged the minister to develop it as a magazine article so that it could reach thousands of other people, too. As far as I know, he has never done this. The same is true of other ministers whom I encouraged to prepare their messages for wider distribution in print.

There were some who listened, however, like the man whom I also helped a bit to put his experiences and sermons into articles. For three or four years I lost track of him. Then one day as he was passing through our town he gave me a call. Imagine my amazement to hear that he was writing regularly and that year had supplemented his income with $1,500 from articles!

A few others to whom I spoke have also come through.

One has authored three books; another has written for various Sunday school publishers. But these cases are the exception and, it seems to me, far too few.

I am a layman and for seventeen years have been in the advertising and public relations business in Chicago, ...

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