Bible Correspondence Course Successful
Bible Auditorium of the Air is the chain name that F. W. Detamore, of Kansas City, L. H. Lindbeck, of St. Louis, and I have been using for about a year over three radio stations in Missouri and Kansas. Elder Detamore used this name for six years in St. Louis and Kansas City and/ built up a large listening, audience; so Elder Lindbeck and I were glad to join him in using the same name in forming a small chain of broadcasts. We have found that this gives the people confidence in our radio work, for they see that it is carried on in a widespread, unified way. We try in every way to promote one another's work, and list one another's broadcasts on our stationery and other advertising. R. M. Whitsett, of Oklahoma City, and A. E. Lickey, of New York City, are now joining the Bible Auditorium of the Air chain.
The Bible study correspondence course is the most effective feature of our radio program. We cannot discuss the testing truths of our faith over the air, as these are considered controversial. But through this free Bible study correspondence course, offered from our three stations, between four and five thousand families are studying the Community Bible School Lessons in their own homes. We have more than thirteen hundred local enrollees, and are receiving more than a hundred new enrollments a week.
In Wichita we get the enrollments in four ways: (1) Announcing the free Bible study correspondence course during the fifteen-minute weekly radio broadcast, (2) working from house to house and systematically covering the city, (3) circularizing, by mail, all apartment houses and rural routes in the county with folded detachable business-reply cards, (4) passing cards to church members on which they may enroll friends and neighbors.
We have just begun our promotion work, and it looks as though we might have several thousand enrolled from the trade area of Wichita within a few weeks. In some parts of the city which have been already covered, we have as many as ten enrollments to a block.
I found the test questions in the Bible lessons so difficult that only a small percentage actually wrote out the answers. So I am now sending out a mimeographed test paper for each lesson, with statements which students must complete by filling in the blanks. This is bringing a flood of replies, and makes the papers much easier to correct. With the first lesson we send a letter of instruction, the test paper, and a self-addressed envelope. As each test paper is filled in and returned to us, we correct it and mail it back to the student with the next lesson and test paper. Here are a few responses from recent mails :
"I know my Bible better and understand parts of the Bible which I never understood before."
"I wonder if you can realize how much these lessons mean to people like us."
"I had grown somewhat cold in my Christian experience, but now with new determination I am studying my Bible more than I ever studied it before."
"After I finish my lessons, I take them to church Sunday morning and give them to my Sunday school teacher, and she is certainly enthusiastic over them."
"Many thanks. I like the lessons fine. They clear up things."
"I have been introduced to your course through one of your students, Mrs. —, and am very much interested. I am pastor of two Methodist churches, and would like to get my constituency interested in your course. Would you please enroll me as one of your students ? Also, could you send information regarding enrolling a class of say twelve to fifteen in your course? I believe they will be greatly benefited by the instruction. May the Lord bless the work you have undertaken."
We are just now launching the program of using a Bible worker to call on these hundreds of Bible study correspondence course students who live in the city of Wichita. We believe this will be a marvelous preparation for our coming spring effort. It is too early to predict what percentage of those who are taking the course will accept the truth, but we have already had the privilege of baptizing several.
Radiocasting's Golden Hour
Considerable experience with radio-casting the message in New York City leads me to feel that the growing interest in this field of endeavor is ushering in a new era in our work, as practically every American home has a radio. This fact provides a tremendous potentiality. Religion is fast becoming a radio headline feature. The times have created it, and we must capitalize on it.
A voice with a personality recommends the message, and we should seek to develop such. I recently used sections of "Steps to Christ" for my broadcast manuscripts. But all the pronouns were broadcast in the second person, so as to make each message from the book a more personal one to my listeners. During recent years, I have been broadcasting under various titles: "God Behind the Headlines," "The Advent Church of the Air," "Prophetic Headlines," and "Good News."
The message must always come first in our presentations. A few weeks ago I was rebuked by the station announcer. He said, "Mr. Heald, give your listeners more holiness and less headlines." Surely our message is paramount. I nearly always arrange to be introduced as "a minister of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination." In any event we should be modest in the publicity. In the preparation of the broadcast manuscript, I always endeavor to have a program that recommends itself without much build-up. And for ten years I have never paid for time.
It has been a source of encouragement to me to learn of the details of the coast-to-coast hookup provision for Seventh-day Adventists. With the many Seventh-day Adventist speakers before the local microphones in our cities throughout the nation, we can so build up this national broadcast as to make our message felt in every American home. As is true of our conference organizations, the local stations will build up the national broadcast, and the national broadcast will build up the local stations. We sincerely hope that the time is not far distant when the world's message of hope will be heard on every reception set in North America.
