Minister at Large

Presbyterian Louis H. Evans, 55, is one of the most successful clergymen in the U.S. In his 30 years of pastoral work, he has swept into churches from Pittsburgh to Pomona, Calif, with the kind of contagious enthusiasm that transforms backsliders into church elders, and the kind of organizing ability that soon makes any church deficit an object of purely historical interest.

In twelve years as pastor of Hollywood's First Presbyterian Church, he has not only made it the largest in the denomination (present membership: 6,400) but also given the scattered membership a personalized, closely bound organization almost without equal, e.g., there are 325 different societies to which a member of the First Church may belong (TIME, Aug. 25, 1947).

Pastor Evans, a big (6 ft. 4 1/2 in.), brisk man, is also a compelling preacher. Besides his four Sunday sermons, he gives an average of four major addresses each week, not counting informal talks. To make his tightly packed lecture schedules, his wife Marie often drives him from one engagement to another while he sits in the back seat of the car pecking out his next speech on a specially built typewriter stand.

Outside the Orbits. The Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. has long been aware of Dr. Evans' talents. Last year, on the 150th anniversary of Presbyterian home missions in the U.S., his fellow Presbyterians discussed using them in a new and nationwide ministry. Their object: to reach the millions of Americans who need some religious help but who exist outside the neatly traced orbits of local church congregations.

Last fall President Jean S. Milner of the Presbyterian Board of National Missions sent Pastor Evans an unprecedented job offer. "We need you, Lou," he wrote, "to perform a unique ministry to this nation which is not now being fulfilled by any Protestant church . . . We need your ministry in a preaching mission in our great American cities from coast to coast, and in the huge gatherings in conventions of leaders of labor, of education, of industry ... in a spiritual ministry carried directly to a whole nation." Fortnight ago, after a long time thinking the offer over, Pastor Evans accepted.

He said a provisional goodbye to his Hollywood congregation and announced that his new job will begin on March 1. His title: Minister at Large for the Presbyterian Board of National Missions. His headquarters will be at the church's national offices in Manhattan.

"What Shall I Cry?" In this work, Dr. Evans will spend half the year writing and preparing his talks, the other six months on the road, preaching to men in the armed services, at colleges, church gatherings and various secular meetings. A good Presbyterian, he objects to being called the "voice" of his church, but he will do his level best to get the message of the church across wherever anyone wants to hear it.

Said Dr. Evans last week: "I'm just an ordinary run-of-pastor to whom God has given a splendid opportunity for partnership . . . Preaching is the hardest job in the world. I so often feel like Isaiah when he said, 'Cry, cry, what shall I cry?'-- I shall do the best I can. My continual question to myself will be, 'How can I make Christ attractive?' "

* Isaiah 40: 6-8: "The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:

"The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.

"The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever."

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