ATTENDANCES INCREASED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16338, 12 May 1927, Page 3

ATTENDANCES INCREASED

EADIO AND THE CHURCH In America, as in Australia, there have been assertions that radio broadcasting of church services is reducing the attendance at the churches. The Sears Roebuck Agricultural Foundation in the United States issued a questionnaire to the ministers of MO churches ill its area. Of the 29 replies received from ministers whose services were most frequently broadcast, 27 had their attendance increased, while only two recorded any reduction in the average number of church worshippers. One rector wrote: "Since Ave have been broadcasting our service our attendance has grown so rapidly that it is a problem how to take care of the crowds." Another minister wrote that 40 persons had recently become permanent members of his church as a result of broadcasting, while a third minister stated that the gallery pews in his church had been opened up and dusted for the first time in 20 years as a direct result of the increased attendance attributed to broadcasting. The general experience in Australia has been on much the same lines. Ministers whose services have been broadcast have invariably found that there has been an increased interest in the work of their church; quite apart from the great numbers of ;esidents in far remote areas who have written expressing their appreciation of the services broadcast, which give them an opportunity of participating in Divine worship which, owing to their isolation, would be imposvble except on very few occasions during the year.