RELIGION BY THE FIRESIDE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 124, 7 November 1941, Page 14

RELIGION BY THE FIRESIDE

Experimental Broadcast From 1YA ELIEVING that the possiB bilities of broadcasting are not always fully exploited by the usual relays of church services, the broadcasting committee of the Auckland Presbytery plans to hold a new kind of evening devotional service to be broadcast from 1YA on November 16, Instead of the usual service broadcast from St, David’s Church, the hour be-

tween seven and eight that evening will be occupied by a broadcast from the 1YA studios. ‘The first half-hour will be a studio service, pure and simple, with appropriate recorded music and a very brief address or period of meditation, The second half-hour, designed to take the place of the usual sermon, will take the form of a discussion in which a minister and a husband and wife will take part, 'This discussion, in which the husband and wife bring to the manse study the problems which afflict them, is designed to show that religion has a positive contribution to make towards the solution of the problems of our time. "The intention of the service," said the Rev. G. A. Naylor, chairman of the Presbytery’s broadcasting committee, "is to induce the non-churchgoer to listen instead of switching off his radio, and to create a more intimate atmosphere than is usually possible with a broadcast church sermon. "Similar studio services, I understand, have been broadcast in the United States, and I believe that the BBC has experimented in the same way. However, we are not trying to imitate overseas sessions but rather trying to meet as best we can the conditions of the present day. It is recognised that a number of people ‘do not listen to the normal church broadcasts, because they tend to discount the (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) value of organised religion or for other reasons, and it is felt that an effort must be made to demonstrate to such as these that religion can and does face reality, It will not be a case of going out into the highways and byways and compelling people to come in but rather of persuading them, in the intimacy of their own homes, that religion is vital and positive and something which they cannot do without." Though the broadcast on November 16 will be an experiment, the Presbytery committee has arranged for four more broadcasts of this type next year. The exact form of these studio services will, of course, be influenced by the experience gained as the series proceeds,