Many people have asked us to do an interview with Paul Rees. So when we wanted an elder statesman of the faith who could talk about the devotional life from both personal experience and observation of the Christian community, we immediately thought of him. Rees’ still-active ministry has lasted over fifty years as a pastor, denominational executive, and leader of Christian organizations. He pastored First Covenant Church of Minneapolis from 1938 to 1958; he is a past president of the National Association of Evangelicals; and he has served as minister to ministers at Billy Graham Crusades. He currently serves as an editor-at-large for World Vision International.
At eighty-one years of age, Rees speaks with a soft voice and calm presence. It’s the presence of a man who long ago settled the ultimate questions of life in his own mind and now is only concerned in helping others do the same. His words carry a convincing ring of authority while they convey a heart full of love for Christ and his kingdom. He’s known as a peacemaker, one who unites the church. We found him to be a man deep in spiritual insight.
Terry Muck, Harold Myra, Dan Pawley, and Paul Robbins met with Rees and discussed the devotional life and its broader implications for evangelism.
How does one cultivate an intimate relationship with God?
Take time to pray. Ministers frequently ask each other, “How do you get the time to pray?” There is no clear-cut answer to that. What is obvious is that you get the time by making the time. You prioritize. If the cultivation of an intimate life with Christ is really important to you, you organize and arrange your agenda so there is time for quietness and openness. A helpful resource here is Max Warren’s short book, The Master of Time.
Who have you known who has obviously walked close to God?
Let me answer that with a specific example. The introduction to a new anthology of A. W. Tozer’s writings describes Tozer as “a man who walked with God and knew him intimately.” I knew Dr. Tozer; when I was with him I felt an unmistakable sense of God’s awesomeness. When we prayed together, this awesomeness of God was combined with a childlike confidence. Tozer approached God with what might be called a trembling reverence.
Can you think of people besides Tozer who displayed trembling reverence toward God?
I think immediately of Charles Cowman and Edwin Kilbourne, founders of the Oriental Missionary Society, known today as OMS International. Kilbourne seldom raised his voice above a conversational speaking level even when he preached. But there was something about the way he referred to the Lord that made you know he was intimately Godconscious. I once roomed with him at a conference in Shanghai. Awaking at what I regarded as an early hour, I looked over at his bed. It was empty. Then, as my eyes grew accustomed to the near-darkness of the room, I saw that he was kneeling at a chair quietly praying. It’s a scene I’ve never forgotten.
What is the spark that ignites permanent, day-by-day intimacy with God?
Sometimes it’s the example set by someone else. Sometimes it’s facilitated by temperament. Some of us have to practice prayer and meditation with greater discipline than others do. I have a sister-in-law in her eighties who never went beyond high school. She has lived the strenuous life of a farmer’s wife. But she has always conveyed this sense of how incredibly real the Lord is to her and how natural it is for her to listen to him and talk to him. The Holy Spirit is, of course, the great igniter of the spark of which you speak.
We read about Martin Luther spending three hours a day in prayer. How can church leaders who want to pray more often get started if they don’t have this habit built into their lives now?
First of all I’m reasonably confident that when you talk about Martin Luther’s three hours a day in prayer, you are not talking about three hours of un-interrupted speaking to God. You’re talking about three hours in which Martin Luther’s attention was given to God’s Word; to this, Luther would respond by listening and meditating.
There’s a certain impoliteness about our doing all the talking to God and not allowing him to speak to us. The book of Habakkuk is instructive along this line. In the first chapter the prophet is perplexed and baffled. He says, “I know that we’ve been sinful; I know we’ve been wicked; but we’re certainly not as bad as those Assyrians.” Then in the second chapter the prophet says, “I will stand on my watch and hear what the Lord has to say to me.” Listening to God is part of the transaction. To the church leader who wishes to develop a deeper devotional life I would say, don’t be intimidated by someone who spends hours in prayer; begin by talking and listening to God for ten minutes or so each day. Read straight from the Scripture or use devotional aids such as those by Oswald Chambers, but don’t worry so much about the length of time you spend. Start with something you find both meaningful and manageable, and let it become a developing norm.
It sounds like the idea of two-way prayer—speaking and listening to God—is crucial.
Prayer is indeed a two-way street. By learning how to listen to God we learn to listen to other people too. Years ago our board of administration of the National Association of Evangelicals had a special dinner in honor of Billy Graham. Eight of us sat with Billy at the head table. Now, one brother, not a member of the board, but a very prestigious church leader at the time, had been invited to sit with us at the head table. This man absolutely dominated the table talk. Billy, characteristically, contributed to that domination by listening so well. He actually began to draw the man out, asking many questions. When it was over, I was disappointed in the man, but filled with admiration for Billy. He was the guest of honor for that occasion, yet played the role of the eager listener. What someone has called “the awesome power of the listening ear” needs to be cultivated in our communion with God. The intimacy that is privately disciplined will then be experienced in many a non-private situation in the course of a day.
Can you talk more about what you referred to as devotional aids?
I get the feeling pastors read very few books on the inner life. Their reading usually is related to church programs, organizational affairs, denominational responsibilities, and academic theology. We should insist on making inner-life books part of our diet. Pastors can’t talk persuasively from the pulpit or in counseling sessions about the power of prayer unless in their own devotional lives they’re informed and involved.
Where would you suggest church leaders start in that kind of reading?
S. D. Gordon’s Quiet Talks on Prayer stimulated me fifty years ago. Even today I don’t see how anybody can read it without profiting. I also recommend A. J. Gossip’s book on prayer called The Secret Place of the Most High. People who think the life of prayer is a remote or esoteric thing should read Stewart’s Tile Lower Levels of Prayer. For strong meat read E. M. Bounds’ Preacher and Prayer, Peter Forsythe’s The Soul of Prayer, Samuel Chadwick’s The Path of Prayer, A. W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God, or Thomas Kelley’s Testament of Devotion.
Holiness ought to be an exciting experience, yet many people view the word holiness negatively. How do you explain this negative view?
There’s a widespread misconception that the pursuit of holiness is a monastic hangover; that the person who lives a life of holiness is not living in the real world.
It would help if Christian leader made more of an effort to teach the biblical concept of holiness. Sanctification should get as much emphasis as justification, reconciliation, and other doctrines of the faith. Here is where Tozer is helpful, because he was not afraid to talk about holiness in the most down-to-earth terms. He hasn’t left the impression that Christian holiness is strictly other worldly. It is other worldly in the sense that all of the Christian gospel involves an appreciation of the transcendent. But Tozer shows that the life of holiness is for any believer who desires immediate and continuously renewable fellowship with the Savior. Experiences of holiness can be very real, but they soon become remembered stereotypes to be talked about in conventional cliches unless there is, in ever-present reality, what St. Paul calls “the renewing of your mind.”
Are all Christians called to a life of prayer?
Yes. We’re called to the life of total commitment, and total commitment means total dependence. In turn, total dependence calls for total, habitual, penitential, joyous prayer. It’s not because we have been ordained to the ministry that we are called to a life of prayer. It’s simply because we’re Christ’s people, and we’re involved with him in a profoundly dependent way.
As you said earlier, we do have different temperaments. How can someone who has a gregarious personality—who doesn’t understand how to be alone for even five or ten minutes—develop a guilt-free spiritual life?
Whenever we intentionally or unintentionally place people under guilt without recognizing what the grace of God can do in their lives, we are not ministering to them in the fullness of God’s truth and love. The real accent in the New Testament is not on how human I am, but on how Christian I can be. A gregarious temperament need not be denied, but neither should it be a dictator. We tend to make too much of the fixities of human personality and not enough of its flexibilities.
Can you relate that to holiness?
A Christian’s holiness always co-exists with the imperfect. Bishop Steven Neill in Christian Holiness talks about “The Perfectionist Error” and “The Conformist Error.” One sets the standard unbiblically high, the other unbiblically low. When we’re talking about holiness, we’re not talking about sinless perfection, but about an attitude of heart toward God. This struck me in a fresh way in a recent re-reading of something Paul wrote to Timothy. He speaks of the “love that springs from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a genuine faith.” One is reminded of a saying of Kierkegaard: “Purity of heart is to will one thing.” To this I would add a quotation from The Pure in Heart, by the distinguished preacher/scholar W. E. Sangster: “Modern psychology knows no technique of mind transference so effective as that of the sensitized, adoring contemplation by the saint of the Saviour, and when we add to this the power of the Holy Spirit, the miracle of sanctity is understood.”
When is your quiet time?
The early morning hours. No telephone is ringing; the house is quiet. I can be engaged with the Lord and let his Word speak to me. I can be open to impressions that the Holy Spirit wants to make on me. For instance, I have had the experience of someone’s name suddenly appearing in my consciousness, a name not thought of for months, even years. I am instantly aware I must pray for this brother or sister.
What do you struggle with in your quiet time with God?
A variety of snags and snares such as the battle for concentration. Here, however, is a specific. I am often reproved by the Word for the times I’ve been insensitive to my wife’s need for a healthy sense of personal worth. Since she doesn’t play the piano, sing solos, or address groups, she battles the question of how significant she is in our ministry. I’ve sought to be more open about my shortcomings in this area.
You seem to be very open to discussing it.
I don’t think I’m being any more vulnerable when I tell you of this particular struggle, or when another minister tells you of his struggle with depression, than Stanley Jones was one day when he said to me, “I have not known a depressed hour in forty years.” Now, who’s telling the truth? Perhaps each of us is. We tend to feel that when someone is described as being vulnerable, it means he or she has to admit to some surprising weakness. But it might mean admitting to some surprising blessing. We’re attacked, you know, just as much through our blessings as through our blemishes.
What have you and your wife found helpful in your spiritual growth as a couple?
The morning and evening times of prayer we have together. A few years ago, Edith went through a period of severe depression. During that time our prayer life together took on a quiet urgency, an expectant patience, an acute sense of what it meant for one of us to be singularly dependent and the other faithfully supportive. It was an experience of mutuality in a new form. Not once did Edith show any signs of trying to blame the Lord for her condition. Her prayers were so intelligent, in my view, so theologically perceptive, that they drew us into an extraordinary intimacy of heart and spirit. It was like writing a new chapter in the book of our wedded life. In fidelity to all of the facts, I should add that in the end the Holy Spirit used medical science to bring about her release. For this too we gave thanks to God.
How long have you prayed together with your wife?
To some degree, throughout more than a half century of our married life. When the children were growing up, we involved them in the prayers too, so Edith and I were not as intimate in our prayers then as we are now. A new level of prayer togetherness was reached when I had open-heart surgery ten years ago this summer. They reached new heights when Edith went through her time of depression.
There is so much tragedy in the world and in life. You’ve faced the personal tragedy in your life of the death of a daughter and son-in-law. How do you come to grips with what sometimes seems to us to be outrageous tragedy?
From my father and my mother I inherited the truth that God’s love is never measured by our comfort; that in Jesus himself we have an illustration of how the perfect love of the Father was entirely compatible with Gethsemane and the Cross. I remember one time I was convinced my father was being mistreated and misrepresented by a group of churchmen. The temptation was to be bitter. A fresh invasion of Christ’s love counteracted that poison. Stanley Jones used to say, “It’s not enough to be resigned to your suffering. The Christian way is to take hold of suffering and use it.” Or as David put it in Psalm 4, “Thou has enlarged me when I was in distress.” In counseling I have sometimes tried to illustrate the difference between hurt and bitterness. You cut your flesh. If the wound heals normally it may leave a scar, but there’s no infection. If you neglect it, however, it can turn into blood poisoning. As a pastor, I have found if you allow a person to become bitter about a situation or another person, it can sour the whole family, and usually their circle of friends also. We can’t eliminate pain and tragedy but we can deal with it on God’s terms, and be the better for it.
How were you able to establish priorities as a young minister? What would you say to young people just starting out in the ministry?
My father was an early riser. When I was about fifteen, I began to realize that he rose early to pray in his study, and this had a tremendous influence on me. I had a brother four years younger than I who was a very different type of person. His sleep and work habits were the opposite of mine; he was a night person. I’ve been no good at working on that sort of schedule. I’m at my freshest at five o’clock in the morning. So I think my father’s example, together with the dividends I have derived from this early-morning time of quietness, has served to establish the habit as something that is creatively meaningful to me. But I don’t disparage anyone who has a different schedule.
My counsel to younger brothers and sisters goes something like this: In your lifestyle set priorities. Determine the time of day or night when prayer and meditation are best for you. Hold to that as a discipline, but don’t be enslaved by it. Changed circumstances may call for a change of pattern. Learn what a medieval saint called “the practice of the presence of God” in any and all circumstances. Keep short accounts with God. Don’t let guilt even begin to fester. Take forgiveness and freedom in the name of Christ our great high priest.
How have the Scriptures become the living Word for you, more than just a reference work for sermon preparation?
This also takes me back to childhood impressions. My grandmother would sit reading her Swedish Bible and her face, almost invariably serene, would at times be aglow. I could tell this Book was different. That childhood experience gave me a start in my reverence for the Bible that has never lost its grip on me. Habits of Bible study followed. By the way, I’ve never been able to buy the package that says the professional use of the Scripture must be separated from the personal use.
Do you read the Scriptures systematically?
Not as rigidly as some do. Yet usually I follow some pattern. Right now, for instance, I am exposing myself to the New English Bible in a way I’ve not done before. The NEB has been out for more than ten years. Although I’ve dipped into it, now I’m taking what Campbell Morgan calls “the great chapters” of the Bible and focusing on them more intently. Also, I’m going through my copy of the New International Version, putting my own underlining and code signs into it and, by so doing, making myself comfortable and intimate with it.
As editor-at-large for World Vision you travel to and speak in many churches. What are the major concerns of church leaders in day-to-day ministry?
One of the chief concerns of many pastors is “How can I relate better to the laity?” What does it mean for us as pastors to “prepare God’s people for works of service,” as we read in Ephesians 4:121 On the whole, clergy-lay relationships have improved in recent years; laity are not as patronized, ignored, or reduced to numbered tithing-units as before.
When I started out in the ministry, Sunday night meetings were evangelistic services; you knew you were preaching to many people who had made no profession of faith. This is much rarer today. We’re preaching to a laity that to a greater extent is taking its Sunday faith and making it work on Monday. But these priceless lay-folk need to feel what any athletic team needs to feel: that they have in their pastor a skilled and devoted coach.
Has this increased concern with discipleship reduced the emphasis on evangelism in our churches?
Yes. Currently we’re seeing a lot of shifting of denominational allegiances, increases in church membership, and a far-reaching emphasis on discipleship; but we hear extremely little that speaks convincingly about the growing ranks of the newly converted.
Some say the heavy emphasis on discipleship has achieved its task of bringing about better internal communication, but has reduced evangelism programs.
I doubt that we are knowingly discouraging evangelism in favor of discipleship; nevertheless, we may be limiting ourselves to the one at the expense of the other. We’re putting so much emphasis on the internal dynamics of the corporate church that we are underplaying a stark fact: most of our church people are spending much of their lives out there in the world, and they are inadequately equipped to handle the dynamics of that world. Help is greatly needed to sharpen the cutting edge of the church’s evangelism, which is not in the sanctuary but in the marketplace.
How can churches and church leaders develop people who will model the Christian life of Christ to unbelievers?
First of all, we can’t ignore the different plans for church growth, discipleship, and evangelism. But sometimes what is missing in the working out of these plans is the simple function of agape love. I latch on to that bit of redundancy simply because love is such a grossly misused word in our society. More than once I have heard Richard Halverson say that he had misgivings about all of our evangelistic plans that are so highly methodologized, if I may re-sort to verbal awkwardness. Yet he and his Washington congregation remarkably modeled an effective evangelistic outreach. His overwhelming concern was that he and the members of the congregation should be motivated and activated by the caring love of the crucified and risen Lord. Such love is torrentially motivating. Such love is more than a sentiment; it is an action. Neither at the individual nor at the corporate level can it be egocentric. Only as it is an authentic manifestation of “the Man for others” can it be regarded as New Testament evangelism.
What about methodology?
When I read some church growth books, I some-times wonder how all the jargon and neat definitions would have sounded to those whose language and whose thinking are recorded for us in the book of Acts. I suspect those brothers and sisters of the apostolic church wouldn’t have had a clue as to the meaning of some of our terminology. I am being extreme, admittedly. Like an earlier Paul, I speak “after the manner of men.” It would be wrong of me to leave the impression that I think the principles of church growth are to be slighted, much less denied. After all, too much reliance on ardor is as unwise as too much emphasis on order.
Are we in the church guilty many times of saying, “All right, God, here’s my gift; use it”? Shouldn’t we be saying instead, “Lord, here I am; use me just as you wish”?
That’s an essential distinction. The Calvary principle is that you lose yourself to find yourself. But finding yourself is not the true quest. The true quest is for an authentic locale that, according to St. Paul, is “in Christ.” It is a phrase he never tires of using. We do less than justice to it when we make it merely the reflection of a theological position. By implication it affirms a profound submission: He is sovereign Lord; I am willing subject. Indeed, my offering to him—bits of time, fractions of money, fragments of service—can be an offense if unaccompanied by the totality of my allegiance. Neither a worm-of-the-dust posture, encouraged by some evangelical teaching, nor the prevailing narcissism of Western culture is able to speak for that holistic redemption that is ours in Jesus Christ the Lord. We need to be on guard against a stealthy narcissism creeping our way. We are currently heavy on self hyphenations: self-worth, self-actualization, self-realization, self-love. Right-fully viewed, there’s a certain validity about these recognitions. My concern is that we do not succumb to them as a kind of obsession. Even pietistic preoccupation with ourselves can shadow the peerless wonder of our salvation, which is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
It’s interesting that our conversation has shifted from the topic of the devotional life to that of evangelism.
That’s a very natural shift because the two are intimately related. For example, intercessory prayer is crucial to evangelism. So many persons in church visitation programs have tremendous feelings of un-easiness, if not of guilt, about going out, buttonholing people, and laying the gospel on them. Surely it is at least part of the answer to such fears to say that prayer makes a huge difference if we go having prayed; and if we go praying, it’s amazing how God opens up opportunities for witnessing by preparing people’s hearts for the gospel. Humble, earnest, expectant prayer is a kind of linchpin here.
If you were in a local church pastorate again, how would you develop the relationship with your congregation?
The desire for a more integrated responsibility for evangelism is at the core. Laymen are beginning to see that we have what I sometimes call an unfinished Reformation on our hands. Most of us Protestants never have carried the implications of the priesthood of believers to their proper conclusions. Our churches have been full of lay people who think evangelism means that twice a year you put on an evangelistic crusade, often mistakenly called holding a revival. The pastor, or the invited evangelist, does the soul-winning and the members pay the bills! It’s rather sad. But there’s a growing perception among lay people that something is missing here; that evangelism isn’t just Billy Graham’s responsibility. It’s the responsibility of all of us in the church.
How does the rat race fit into all of this? Many feel that at today’s fast pace they can barely squeeze church responsibilities into their schedules.
If I were a pastor again, I would emphasize to members of the congregation that it is possible for them to be over-involved in church activities. I can easily believe, for example, that for some members who have to choose between a midweek church event and a meeting of the Parent-Teacher Association, the latter needs their Christian presence more than the former. We have given people the feeling that if they are really loyal, they have to be in everything the church program is providing. I think one of the most Christian things we can do is to encourage our people to be a Christian presence in secular organizations.
Earl Lee, pastor of the First Nazarene Church in Pasadena, California, is the father of Gary Lee, one of the former American hostages in Iran. When things began to heat up in the last days of the hostages’ confinement, Earl’s wife was away at a women’s retreat. His mother-in-law, who lives with them, phoned his church study one day. Rather frantically she said, “Earl, you have to get over here. I’m frightened.” Earl asked what was the matter. “Well,” she said, “the representatives of NBC, ABC, and CBS, camera people, and newspapermen are here in the yard and I can’t get out of the house!” Earl said, “Oh, you don’t need to be afraid.” Not fully reassured, she urged him to come home. And as he drove he rehearsed how he would tell the media people what a nuisance they sometimes made of themselves. But an inner voice cut him short: “Earl, that’s not the way to do it; open up to these people.” Earl said, “It was unmistakable. I knew it was the Holy Spirit talking to me.” When he reached the house, there they were, spilling over on lawn and driveway. He walked in among them and said, “Well, what can I do for you?” They said, “Surely you have a statement you want to make to the press.” He told them he didn’t. He was adamant but friendly. He then went inside and calmed his mother-in-law down. Coming back out he said, “I don’t know whether all of you can fit in the house or not, but if you want to come in, you’re welcome.” For the next three days while all the tension was on, there were the press and television people inside and out. Some of them slept on the floor. All of them had access to such food supplies as the family could afford. After a couple of days of this, one person said, “You know, Reverend Lee, I’ve never seen anything like this; the way you folks have treated us has had an effect on the way we treat each other. We’re like a family here.” A woman reporter went over to Earl. “Reverend Lee,” she began, “somebody gave me a copy of your little book The Cycle of Victorious Living. Can I talk to you?” She went on, “I was intrigued by your book, but what really hooked me is the way you’ve conducted yourself during this crisis, with so much pressure on everyone.”
The sequel to that extended conversation was a happy one. After the crisis was over and his son returned home, Earl received a letter from this young woman. It told about the day and hour when she opened her heart to Jesus, and how real he had now become to her. I suggested that what we see here, in a setting that was highly dramatic, is a nonconventional, fleshed-out evangelism which, in many a less dramatic context, could yield priceless consequences.
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