Mentor Whispers

Last week retired pastor Dr. Roy Blackwood, who has been a longtime mentor to me, and his family made yet more volumes of his library available.  Knowing that many of my friends had gone through his books numerous times - as have I - I did not expect to find anything else of interest.  Yet I came home with a box of books.

One of the treasures of obtaining a mentor's books is that seeing notes or highlights in them is like having him whisper in your ear. That's how I felt when I saw the following underlined.  I share this whisper with you:

"The prayer-meeting is the spiritual thermometer.  The rise and fall of interest in the prayer-meeting marks the change of heat or coldness in the church.  You may be at a loss to determine which is the cause and which is the effect; i.e., whether the cold prayer-meeting makes a cold church, or a cold church makes a cold prayer-meeting; but we know that a cold prayer-meeting indicates a cold church.  They are inter-operative." -R.J. George, Lectures in Pastoral Theology, "The Prayer-Meeting," p. 29.