49. W. E. Sangster (1900–1960)
When you visit Westminster Abbey in London, be sure to also visit the nearby Methodist house of worship known as Westminster Central Hall. For sixteen years, from 1939 to 1955, William Edwin Sangster pastored the flock that met in that house of worship—and he not only pastored the flock but, during World War II, managed an air raid shelter in the basement of the building. For 1,688 nights he ministered to the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of all kinds of people, and at the same time he wrote and preached exciting sermons, earned a PhD, led hundreds of people to faith in Christ, and established himself as a worthy successor to John Wesley as one of Methodism’s great leaders.
Sangster was born in London on June 5, 1900. He was nine years old when he identified himself with the Radnor Street Mission in his neighborhood, one of the branch ministries of the Wesley Chapel on City Road. In October 1913, the superintendent of the mission, Frank Wimpory, led Sangster to the Lord, and in a short time the lad became active in soul-winning activities.
The Radnor Street Mission was not only the scene of Sangster’s conversion, but also the place where he met Margaret Conway in 1916 and fell in love with her. Ten years later they were married. He preached his first sermon at the mission on February 11, 1917. His father wanted him to become an accountant, but his Sunday school teacher, Robert Flenly, urged him to consider the ministry. He did. God called him, and he surrendered.
After spending time in the army, he entered college and worked hard to prepare himself for the ministry. One of his problems was his accent, which smacked of his London upbringing. He took private lessons in elocution and often spent hours reading sermons aloud or practicing recitations. In his fine biography of his father, Doctor Sangster, Paul E. Sangster related that these elocution lessons were very trying to students in adjacent rooms. One day, when Sangster had repeated for the tenth time “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” a student knocked at the door and asked, “Will I do?” But the practice paid dividends, and Sangster mastered the art of public speaking.
He was probationary minister in the Bognor Circuit from 1923 to 1926, ministering in several Methodist churches. On July 27, 1926, he was ordained at the Wesley Chapel in York; two weeks later he married his childhood sweetheart. He made it very clear to her that he would not be a handyman around the house (he was very unhandy!) or a gardener or a dishwasher, but that he would love her and make her happy—and he kept his word. His book He Is Able he dedicated “to Margaret, my wife, with whom it is as easy to keep in love as to fall in love.” But his growing ministry often took him away from home, and it is probable that his death on May 24, 1960, was brought on partly by overwork. “I just can’t do enough!” was the motto of his life. Yet, on his 1957 Christmas greeting he wrote, “Slow me down, Lord!” Alexander Whyte always advised pastors to “take long holidays,” but Sangster was not made in that mold.
His first official charge after ordination was at Conway in North Wales. I have visited this beautiful town on Colwyn Bay, walked across its famous suspension bridge, and investigated the ruins of its historic Conway Castle. What a place for a young man to begin his ministry! He pastored two Methodist churches there, yet he said that he felt as if he were “perpetually on a holiday.” Before long the congregations were filling the churches and his reputation as a preacher was growing. His sanctified sense of humor at first upset some of the Welsh saints, but in time they grew to love him and to appreciate his balanced approach to Christian living. In 1929 he moved to Liverpool, where again he pastored two churches, and again the churches were filled. It was at Liverpool that Sangster went through a deep spiritual crisis, the details of which are unknown. “Not even my mother knew exactly what was wrong,” his son wrote. “She only knew something was wrong.”1
After his father’s death, his son Paul found a handwritten “spiritual analysis” buried in the bottom drawer of the desk. It was dated “18.9.30” and was clearly the record of the spiritual conflict that Sangster had gone through at that time—in spite of large congregations and obvious success in his ministry. It begins, “I am a minister of God and yet my private life is a failure in these ways. . . .” Then he listed eight areas of defeat. He concluded: “I have lost grace. . . . I have lost joy. . . . I have lost taste for my work. . . . I feel a failure.” What was the answer? “Pray. Pray. Pray. Strive after holiness like an athlete prepares for a race. The secret is in prayer.” He ultimately found victory, although at times his depression was so acute that he considered resigning from the ministry. No doubt this valley experience helped him in later years, especially during the war when he had to encourage so many brokenhearted people.
In 1932, the Sangsters moved to Scarborough, and at first the decision seemed to be a mistake. The church was “run” by four powerful men, three of whom were very wealthy, and they handed down their decisions as the will of God. One of their decisions was that “famous guest preachers” occupy the pulpit ten Sundays during the year, but they soon discovered that the “big names” drew smaller congregations than did their own pastor! The four generals, realizing their error, then offered Sangster a bonus for preaching in his own pulpit! In the end, pastoral leadership prevailed, but there were several skirmishes and not a few battles.
I cannot help but pass along a story about one of the members of Queen Street Church in Scarborough, who happened to be a bit “backward,” because almost every church has its eccentric member— someone who is both loved and laughed at, scolded and sheltered. The man in Queen Street was a barber who felt it was his duty to witness to his customers, but often he was not careful in his approach. After lathering a man for a shave, the concerned barber picked up his razor and said, “Sir, are you prepared to meet your God?” Needless to say, the customer fled with the lather still on his face. This same brother was as eccentric in his praying as he was in his witnessing. Once he opened his prayer with “O Lord, Thou wilt have noticed in the evening paper.” I can just see Sangster chuckling to himself and praying for his odd friend.
In 1936 Sangster was asked to take the Brunswick Church in Leeds and thus follow the well-known preacher and psychologist Leslie Weatherhead. Every pastor ought to read Sangster’s soul-searching analysis of this call. It begins: “A ferment of thought in my mind in these days—a shrinking from the task.”2 What faithful minister of the Word has not felt that way at one time or another! But it was during this time of self-searching that Sangster felt his call to summon Methodism back to evangelism and revival. “Something else has come too,” he wrote. “A sense of certainty that God does not want me only for a preacher. He wants me also for a leader—a leader in Methodism.”3 And a leader he did become, not only during his three years in Leeds but more during those sixteen remarkable years at Westminster Central Hall in London.
On September 3, 1939, William Sangster began his ministry at Westminster, and one of his first tasks during that morning worship service was to announce that Britain and Germany were officially at war. A year later the devastating air raids began, and Sangster turned the church basement into a shelter; night after night he lived with the people, encouraged them, and ultimately led many of them to Christ. The Sunday services continued, and the sanctuary was usually full. One Easter Sunday a lady visitor arrived too late to get a seat and was offered by the steward a seat on one of the stone steps in the choir. Of course this was an insult, and she stalked away, muttering, “If that’s the way you treat visitors, no wonder the churches are empty!”
So successful was Sangster as a preacher-evangelist that in 1955 he was appointed general secretary of the Home Mission Department, and under his leadership personal evangelism, prayer, and personal holiness became important matters in Methodist churches across the country. His sermons, books, articles, and personal contacts were used of God to awaken not only his own denomination, but other groups, to the importance of winning the lost to Christ. He conducted preaching seminars, evangelism clinics, and other meetings in scores of cities, always hoping to rekindle in the hearts of Methodist preachers and lay leaders the fire that had burned in Wesley’s heart. But in 1957 physical problems definitely slowed him down, and in 1958 the diagnosis was made: progressive muscular atrophy—cause, unknown; cure, unknown.
When Sangster found out he was slowly dying, he made four resolutions: “I will never complain. I will keep the home bright. I will count my blessings. I will try to turn it to gain.” Later he wrote: “There have been great gains already from my sickness. I live in the present. I am grateful for little things. I have more time—and use it—for prayer.” For the next thirty months he experienced the slow paralysis of his muscles, finally being able to move only two fingers. With them he communicated with others by writing, but ultimately even that became illegible. On May 24, 1960, he died. It was Wesley Day, a providential occurrence that must have pleased Sangster no end. More than 1,500 people attended the memorial service at Westminster Central Hall on June 3. Sangster’s close friend Professor H. Cecil Pawson gave the address. You will find it, plus a brief biographical sketch and three sermons, in the book Sangster of Westminster.
Fortunately, Sangster left us at least fifteen books and many articles and pamphlets. There are two volumes of Westminster Sermons. –Sangster’s Special Day Sermons was the last volume he wrote, and in this country it was published by Abingdon. He left over a thousand sermon manuscripts when he died, but he wanted none of them published. His first book was Why Jesus Never Wrote a Book (1932). Other titles include: God Does Guide Us, He Is Able, These Things Abide, Let Me Commend, and two excellent studies in Christian holiness: The Path to Perfection (his doctoral thesis) and The Pure in Heart. But Sangster’s books on preaching are, to me, more valuable than his sermons, although the sermons clearly show us how he applied his homiletical principles. Secure and read The Approach to Preaching, The Craft of Sermon Construction, and The Craft of Sermon Illustration.
Sangster’s sermons have three characteristics: simplicity, clarity, and intensity. You can understand him! Early in his ministry he formed the habit of reading his messages to his wife and deleting or revising anything she did not clearly understand. He constantly sought the clearest way to express Bible truth, and nobody could describe his messages as one man described P. T. Forsythe’s—“fireworks in a fog!” Furthermore, Sangster was a master of illustrations, and his book on the subject is one of the best in the field. I fear that those who have criticized him in this area have not seriously read him. Sangster did not advocate “artificial illustrations” or “sky-scraper sermons—one story on top of another.” He used illustrations, and he did it well!
His messages throb with intensity. They reveal a preacher who loved people and who was desperately concerned with helping them spiritually. I once heard a famous Bible teacher, now deceased, boast that he “preached only to the four square feet in front of his face!” Sangster preached to people, to both the mind and the heart, and he prepared his messages with the listener in view. His sermons were not the cold, academic productions of the learned professor (although he was learned); they were the warm, pastoral pleadings of a man who pursued personal holiness and who sought to make the gospel of Christ meaningful to the man on the street. In one of his lectures, Sangster suggested that the secret of “unction” in preaching is “personal holiness and . . . a passionate love of souls.”4
No matter how you measure him, William Sangster was a big man. He had a big heart for lost souls and for all true Christians everywhere. He had a big vision of revival in his denomination and in all the churches, a vision of a nation stirred for Jesus Christ. He was happy to hear of any man’s success in the ministry and never criticized a fellow pastor or envied his successes. He once prayed at a meeting of some two thousand ministers, “Lord, we don’t mind who is second as long as Thou art first!” He left behind a big store of homiletical wealth for us to use. I suggest you start investigating it very soon.