A Young Man's View of the Ministry by Samuel Shoemaker from 1951

A Young Man's View of the Ministry by Samuel Shoemaker

This is the Third Printing from 1951 of the Revised Edition of this book.

This book was first published in 1923 by Association Press. The book was Shoemakers 2nd published book after “Realizing Religion”. The First printing is a very rare and special book that shares the insight and practices that Shoemaker had taught during the early 1920’s.

TWO PREFACES

1: Seeking leaders to face atomic power today with cosmic power of another kind becomes one of the urgent jobs of our civilization. To inspire and coordinate that purpose among all Christian communions, the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America was asked by the American Association of Theological Schools to set up a Commission on the Ministry. Presentation of this book, together with others in the Ministry for Tomorrow series, is made by that Commission.

Samuel Shoemaker's book ideally fulfils the various demands for a message to young men about the ministry. He wrote it years ago at Princeton, after an assistantship at Grace Church in New York, to give "a young man's view" of work he had thus far only briefly undertaken. It influenced thousands of lives in that other post-war generation, and well-worn copies of it are still found on the bookshelves of many a campus Christian Association. But by this time, its message has the enviable distinction of being corroborated and exemplified in a quarter-century of his own remarkable ministry.

Thus it stands as a classic in presenting, with vigor and insight, the vast challenge and excitement which come to the committed minister. Clergymen will find in it kindling analysis of their job together with not a few chuckles over its occasional keen satire. Young men—for whom it was written-cannot but find it a realistic and ringing challenge to large dedication of life.

JOHN OLIVER NELSON

Director, The Commission on the Ministry

2: I have written this book because there are some things which I very much want to say to that large number of young men, especially college undergraduates, who are in doubt about where to invest their lives. I know many of them well enough to be conscious of the many fine aspirations towards human service which arise again and again in their minds. And I know them well enough, too, to be conscious how often, before a choice is made, something else creeps in so that these visions remain unachieved.

This book does not pretend to be an exhaustive treatise on the ministry. Such a book must have the authority of a long and successful ministry. The attempt has been made here to set down the reactions of a man not long in the ministry as to the needs and opportunities for substantial service in that profession. It records first impressions while they are fresh. It comes out of a quite ordinary experience, while the writer has been playing that needful but inconspicuous instrument, second fiddle, in a very large metropolitan parish. It must have the limitation, therefore, of only one look at the ministry, albeit in a parish where the activities are very comprehensive.

There seems to be rather a wide-spread feeling amongst undergraduates that they are experiencing currents of thought and stirrings of sympathy which are unique to their own generation, and which cannot be shared by men who are many years their seniors. I have hoped that six years out of college would seem not too wide a chasm between their thought and mine, the more so as much of my work for the past three years has been among them.

I have attempted to gather into this book some of the ideas which have been hammered out time and again in a very great many interviews with men about the ministry, and to answer some of the questions which have arisen. I have been very frank, in some places perhaps unduly so; but I refuse to keep back anything when I am asking a man to consider giving his life to this work: he deserves absolute candor. If I have been hard or immature or hasty in my conclusions, I ask you to forgive it. But I ask no pardon for being very personal throughout, for the book could have no point whatever if I had written otherwise.

S. M. S.

Princeton, New Jersey

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Sam Shoemaker is well known in the recovery community as he was AA cofounder Bill Wilson’s spiritual advisor during the vital pioneering days of AA. Bill W. wrote: “Dr. Sam Shoemaker was one of A.A.’s indispensables. Had it not been for his ministry to us in our early time, our Fellowship would not be in existence today.”

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This book is in good condition with some wear and stains on the cover. There is no writing or markings inside the book.

Please view all of the photos for the conditions.