Using the Newspapers in City Work by Walter L. Burgan

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 18, 1916

Using the Newspapers in City Work

By Walter L. Burgan

INFORMATION recently received from a number of our evangelists engaged in city work shows that they are using the newspapers to advantage. Practically all heard from are paying for advertisements, and in return the papers are giving them space in the news columns for the publication of reports on different phases of the message. In this way many are reached who would not otherwise receive the truth.

It was very encouraging to receive a clipping taken from the New York Sunday American containing an interesting account of a sermon delivered by Prof. C. T. Everson in one of his Sunday night meetings in the Fulton Theater, New York City. The clipping was half a page in length, two thirds of the space being taken up in a discussion on the state of the dead, and the rest being given to an illustration. It had a headline stretching across the page, and reading, “Do Our Souls Not Reach Heaven Until the Judgment Day? Where are the Dead? as Answered by the Bible.” Our workers will appreciate the importance of using the newspapers more when they are told that the one edition in which this article was, had a circulation of more than six hundred and ninety thousand copies, and was no doubt read in nearly all the New England States, and in New York and States south of it. No one can tell the vast influence of this wonderful agency in reaching the masses with the gospel.

Elder Stemple White, who is a stanch advocate of reporting sermons in the newspapers, has had encouraging success in getting various phases of the message published in the papers of Duluth, Minn., and of Superior, Wis.

In speaking of this feature of our work, he says: “I assure you that my zeal along this line will not die out, for I feel it is as much my duty to report the sermons for those who are not present to hear as it is to prepare them for the listeners that are present.”

“I always advertise in the newspapers when conducting special services. I know by experience that it pays. Especially is this true of the weekly edition in smaller cities and towns, where rates are cheaper; but it also pays in city work. Why have our own people carry bills or folders to a few blocks in a city, when for perhaps the same amount an effective advertisement can be carried by the newsboys to nearly every home in the city?”

A concrete example of the power of the press in attracting persons to inquire further concerning the truth is shown by the following letter, written to a minister in the Lake Union Conference:—

“Several times have we noticed in the Detroit Journal an article touching on your teachings. We firmly believe that a tent meeting would be grand here in our little town. We haven’t any such church or mission in our town. Will you come? Our doors are open.”

The town mentioned in this request has more than 6,000 inhabitants, and is 30 miles from Detroit.

Elder A. S. Booth, who has just closed an effort in Stockton, Cal., sends the following cheering news about the newspaper work there: “We have been able to secure the publication of more articles here than in any other place we have been. For 68 evening services we have had 140 articles published, averaging seven inches in length. Fifty-one persons are keeping the Sabbath, and twenty-five have been baptized and added to the church.”

Elder Booth says that the papers in which his sermons appeared were in demand. Encouraging letters have been received from persons in other places who had been reading the reports, asking for more information on the subjects presented.

Let us not fail to take advantage of the many opportunities before us to use the newspapers in helping to hasten the message throughout the world.

WALTER L. BURGAN.