The Vocal Mystery

Pastor friends from the local Methodist and Presbyterian congregations adjourned their Sunday evening services that week in order to worship with Truett and his First Baptist congregation and thus to show their support for a pastor struggling as few are called to do. Hollow-eyed and broken from the week's sleeplessness, and with his sensitive face marked by deep lines of suffering, Truett began to preach in an unusually strange voice. Sadness seemed to surround every word. Sorrow gave a timber of deep pathos to every syllable. The great congregation sat in solemn silence as he seemed, as one said, To carry the burden of all the grief in the world. (James, 1939: 89).

This event molded him into a pastor with an extraordinary capacity to minister to persons in trouble. It seems as if, for him, no one could struggle with any sorrow that was deeper than his sorrow and, accordingly, he could serve them empathetically from dimensions which others appeared unable to access. Changes which the experience effected in his inner person may be beyond our understanding, but the effect upon his pulpit ministries cannot be gainsaid.

A Fresh Attitude

Prior to his tragic experience George W. Truett was gifted, eloquent, incisive, erudite and greatly used of God. After his walk through the "valley of the shadow" these characteristics continued but the new power of pastoral sensitivity and empathy which entered into his preaching from that time forward transformed a great ministry into a glorious one.

His pulpit manner became markedly different. Hearers crowded into the pews placed closest to the pulpit saying they could gain a special blessing just from close observation of his facial appearance and demeanor. They talked of a "hush of holiness" which they sensed when he preached. An unusual ethos of old-fashioned "godliness" seemed to surround his pulpit ministry. His worship leadership carried a fresh and most remarkable sense of earnestness and seriousness about it that congregations felt themselves confronted by an un-usual sense of the presence of God mediated through His committed servant in an extraordinary manner.

Even more surprising is that the high sense of humor which Dr. Truett continued to exhibit in his daily life and family disappeared completely in the pulpit from this time on so that some who only heard him while preaching exclaimed amazement, "We have never seen him smile"! It seems as if the experience through which he passed had so affected him that everything disappeared from his public ministry except an incredible compassion for the salvation of those who heard him and an intense need to focus on the spiritual needs of those who were hurting souls to whom he preached.

Amazingly this fresh dimension of his ministry did not make him appear to be so stern that others were repelled by the new solemnity. On the contrary his words and bearing carried such authenticity that the crowds thronged to hear him wherever he ministered, especially during the many evangelistic outreach meetings which he regularly conducted for churches across Texas and the nation.