The evils of a change of field are many and serious and only the most
imperative reasons will justify a pastor in making it. For, 1. It
involves a serious loss in the pastor's working capital, for the
confidence and love of a congregation, which a true minister acquires,
constitute a chief element in his power. These, however unlike mere
popularity, are only slowly acquired; but, once secured, they add
immensely to the value of his public and private work. But this
advantage is all relinquished on leaving the field, and must be again
slowly acquired at another post. A pastor's power also to benefit a
people by a wise adaptation of his work to their character and needs
must depend largely on his knowledge of them; but in making a change
this is lost, and can be regained only by similar study of a new
congregation. 2. Few ministers widen their range of original
investigation after their first pastorate. At the first post they are
compelled to push out into new lines of thought, but in a new field the
temptation to use old subjects, if not old sermons, often proves
irresistible, and their life-thinking is likely to move round in the
same narrow range. Pastoral change often thus checks intellectual and
theological growth. 3. This restless expectation of change also
discourages broad, comprehensive plans for the instruction and
development of the church, and tempts the minister to aim exclusively
at immediate results. Hence, his sermons are largely sentimental or
sensational, confined within a limited range of topics, and the
development of church-life is correspondingly dwarfed. 4. The marked
decline in public respect for the ministry is probably in part a result
of this feverish restlessness, which weakens confidence in them as men
of high, unselfish purpose, and compels a community to regard the
minister no longer as a permanent force in its life, but rather as a
transient sensation.