"Neglect the Needless"

Among numerous U. S. ministers who preach by radio, Methodist Dr. William Leroy ("Bill") Stidger of Boston is notable, if only because he is a commercial broadcaster. Five days a week, on a New England network, he delivers a four-minute talk on a devotional program which plugs Fleischmann's Yeast. In common with many of his colleagues, Dr. Stidger believes that radio is valuable to religion. This week he did something practical about it. He instituted a course in radio preaching at Boston University School of Theology, where he is professor of homiletics.

Famed among ministers as the man who suggested to Sinclair Lewis that he write a book about a minister, helped him gather material, and was appalled by the outcome, Elmer Gantry--Bill Stidger is big, baldish, hearty in the manner of preachers who did Y. M. C. A. work in the War. In the early days of radio he broadcast news from Detroit and still says: "I consider myself a reporter, not a preacher. The earliest Christians were reporters who simply told to others what they saw, heard and experienced, and that is what I try to do." Currently he preaches on Sundays at Boston's Morgan Memorial Church, which has a Unitarian congregation but, by the terms of a bequest which gave it its property, must keep a Methodist in its pulpit.

Lately Dr. Stidger has tried out experimentally his prospective course in radio preaching on five of Boston University's 400 theological students. In them he instills his own technique. He broadcasts with his coat off and observes "Ten Radio Commandments": 1) Speak in a conversational tone; 2) Take your sermons not from the Bible, but from life; 3) Leave out the word "I"; 4) Neglect the needless; 5) No bunk; 6) No sob stuff; 7) Make the web of your sermon optimistic, cheerful; 8) Check and recheck your script before delivering . . . for absolute factual accuracy; 9) Keep the word "not" out of your sermon script; 10) Use no introduction. Plunge right into the middle of the sermon.

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