Four Requisites for Radio Success

Every preacher since the days of the first prophet has been interested in getting an audience—the bigger audience the better. Isaiah 28 :23 says "Give ye ear, and hear my voice ; hearken, and hear my speech." This is what preachers have been doing from time immemorial —trying to get people to hearken to their speech, to give ear to their voice. Remember the words of Mark Anthony, "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears." Moody tried to get a hearing, and he commanded vast audiences. Knox, Wesley, and the great revivalists down through the years achieved their objectives. Many people came to hear the Word of the Lord. But they didn't have radio ; whereas we do. We can therefore get big­ger audiences and speak to more people. More ears listen to our voices, more hearts are moved by the Word of God because of radio.

Radio is a providence. It is a miraculous giant. It is the instrument of providence to bring the gospel to lonely, hungry hearts all over the world.

Seventh-day Adventist preachers ought to be using the radio more fully. The Voice of Prophecy has no monopoly on radio. We believe that there is need for more good Seventh-day Adventist radio preachers. The quicker the work is finished, the sooner we can all go home.

Now just a word about the actual purpose of the Voice of Prophecy broadcast on the air. You remember what Paul said in Romans 9:28: "A short work will the Lord make upon the earth." That is, His work will be done quickly. How could His work be done quickly in this fast-moving age, when there are multiplied millions to be reached, if it were not for such mechanical giants and means of communication as the radio and the press?

The marvelous supplement of radio to the work of our printing presses is in God's order. Our publishing brethren quote the writings of the Spirit of prophecy to show that our presses are ordained of God. If there were a living prophet today, I think that that prophet would say just as much by way of approbation of the radio as a soul-winning agency. We have gone far beyond the time when the Lord should have come, and God has had to bring in these mechanical miracles in the last days to help finish His work.

The testimony of church members and of evange­lists in public work could not and would not complete the work in this fast age. It would have been impossible for all the multitudes living in the great cities to hear the message either by personal witnessing or by literature. Think of the thousands of businessmen going by trains, planes, busses, and automobiles from city to city. These traveling men, living in hotel rooms have little likelihood of hear­ing the gospel of Christ unless it be from an Ad­ventist evangelist preaching on the radio.

I. SUPERIOR CHARACTER OF PROGRAM.—If we are going to make disciples, we must have a high-class radio program. The preacher ought to have a good radio voice and a radio personality. If his voice is a high screech, if he rants and raves, if he does not know how to be conversational, if he goes on the air as a hell-fire preacher, he is not going to hold his audience very long. The program must be high class, with high-grade preaching. Unless the music is high class there had better be none at all. Nothing kills a radio program more quickly than poor music. Better have some "canned" music than to have Mrs. Jones, from the church choir, who thinks she can sing, but really cannot.

The format for the broadcast must be of the type that is continuous and appealing to the ear and sensibilities of the people. It must be neatly ar­ranged, and should run right along. That is most important in a radio program. When they have heard it, people must say in their minds, "I want to hear it again." The program itself is the great­est single factor in making disciples.

2. SOMETHING TO OFFER.—The broadcast must have something tangible to offer, so a profitable contact with the invisible audience can be made. Otherwise our radio work is merely doing good and not reaching its full objective—making dis­ciples. Hence, we must have something to offer.

We have a book every month. We do not sell it; we give it to those who write for it and who con­tribute. We write these people a word of apprecia­tion for their interest and invite them to become "sustaining members." And we send out copies of Elder Richard's sermons to all who request them, and suggest that they help support the Voice of Prophecy. We must have something to offer—a Bible course, a radio sermon, or a book for the month. This gives us names for our files. It gives us a potential list to draw from, to make disciples for Christ.

3. BIBLE SCHOOL FOLLOW-UP.—The thing that really convinces people that we have the true Bible message is the Bible correspondence school. We must have that. It is the Bible school that does the convincing work. We have enrolled 575,000 active students, and 5,300 have requested baptism as a result of the Bible course. How many baptisms we would have had without the Bible school, only God knows.

4. THE LOCAL FOLLOW-UP.—Think finally of the relationship of the field—the local pastor and the evangelist. When we get people on our list who say, "I want to keep the Sabbath ; I want to be baptized," we ourselves have come to the end of our rope. We tie a knot, hold on, and say, "Dear Pastor, please visit Mrs. Jones, 607 Columbus Street, over there in Midtown. Here is a copy of the letter she wrote telling of her interest in the truth. If you do not visit her, no one on earth will or can visit her, and our radio work will have been in vain."

The field—the minister—must carry through the interest of the Voice of Prophecy, or of any local broadcast, or we cannot make disciples. Our evan­gelistic efforts would fall to the ground and would be a failure. A good program with something to offer, with a Bible school and a ministry working in co-operation with the radio evangelist, all func­tioning together, helps to realize our grand objec­tive in making disciples for Christ.