Many years ago I read some words that came from Clarence E. Macartney which have been indelibly impressed on my mind. These words are, “The pastorate is the front-line trench of the ministry.” His little book entitled, Preaching Without Notes, is an inspiring and practical discussion of preaching. His love for pastoral preaching shows itself repeatedly throughout the book, and on page 175 he writes, “The minister’s occupation is appointed of God, not of man. The current tendency is to secularize the ministry, both its message and its office, as if the work of the minister were just the same as that of a teacher, a physician, a scientist, or an artist, only with a slightly different accent.