Now, if educational work deserves such careful study as that, surely the work of the church deserves even more. And yet, friends, I know congregations—great, big congregations—that never do have any sort of a business meeting. Just think of it! They don’t even have a business meeting! The overseers never get together to ponder the problems which confront the local congregation, or to study ways and means of improving their work.
Now, please remember that the fact that the Bible furnishes us completely unto every good work does not relieve us of the responsibility which I am emphasizing. Anyone who stops to study the matter will realize that this is true, because there are so many questions which the Bible does not answer specifically. We must study and give diligence and pray for wisdom and use whatever talent the Lord has given us to make His work just as successful as possible.
It needs to be emphasized that the difference between success and failure very often consists not of any one great big item but of a great many details or small factors working together. Not one big thing but many little things working together very often makes the difference between success and failure—in every phase of life except the church. In the church they make the difference between outstanding success and just mediocre success. It is very difficult for the church to fail completely. As long as it follows the Bible there can be no failure, but those _little_ things frequently make up the difference between outstanding success and merely mediocre success, between doing something that’s really worthwhile, outstanding and unusual, and just drifting and dragging along.
1. _Running a store._ I want to try to make this point clear by use of an illustration. There are some of you here who are in the mercantile business. You know lots more about running stores than I do. I believe you will agree that very often the difference between success and failure there consists of many little items working together—the manner in which you display your goods on the shelves, the spirit with which you meet your customers when they come into your place of business, the courtesy with which you render service to your patrons, and just a lot of these little things make up the difference.