Soul winner - Spurgeon - VI - Chapter 6

Required reading
Soul winner by C.H. Spurgeon (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) - Read Chapter 6, 'How to induce our people to win souls'.

My summary
Spurgeon now answers the question, 'How can we induce our people to become soul winners?'

He encourages us to:
(i) remember that it is work that takes time;
(ii) not go to work according to any set rule;
(iii) begin with one or two;
(iv) try and keep up the prayer-meetings all you can;
(v) always set an earnest example ourselves;
(vi) get around you Christians who are willing to do all they can to help in the work of winning souls;
(vii) seek the whole atmosphere which is favourable to soul-winning.

What grabbed me
The first point is important and was well made: 'Let me warn you not to look for all this at the first, for it is the work of time. Do not expect to get, in the first year of your pastorate, that result which is the reward of twenty years' continuous toil in one place. Young men sometimes make a very great mistake in the way they talk to those who never saw them until about six weeks ago. They cannot speak with the authority of one who has been as a father among his people, having been with them for twenty or thirty years; or if they do, it becomes a sort of foolish affectation on their part, and it is equally foolish to expect the people to be all at once the same as they might be after they have been trained by a godly minister for a quarter of a century. It is true that you may go to a church where somebody else has faithfully laboured for many years, and long sown the good seed, and you may find your sphere of labour in a most blessed and prosperous state, and happy will you be if you can thus jump into a good man's shoes, and follow the path he has been treading. It is always a good sign when the horses do not know that they have a new driver; and you, my brother, inexperienced as you are, will be a very happy man if that should be your lot; but the probability is that you will go to a place that has been allowed to run almost to ruin, possibly to one that has been altogether neglected.'

Slow and steady wins the race.

Next week's reading
Read Chapter 7, 'How to raise the dead'.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.