Worcester Democrat and the ledger-enterprise. (Pocomoke City, Md.) 1921-1953, 1922-10-28
PASTORLESS CHURCH
RADIO INNOVATION
Rural Congregations May Attend
Service And Hear Best Talent
From Unseen Forces.

Pastorless churches have for the
last decade been the source of much
worriment to the official heads of the
various denominations - the falling
off of available clergy, due to the de-
creased number of postulants for the
ministry among students, the death
OF approximation of elderly clergy,
and the taking up of secular pursuits
of many still virile ministers in the
struggle for bare living.
All over the United States, and par
ticularly in the rural districts, the
villages are dotted with closed church.
es. This means scattered and gradu-
ally unchurched people, who, if oppor-
tunity offered, would regularly be at
these places of worship. with father
and mother not going to church, it
has become increasingly hard to keep
up the interest of the young in Sun
day School, and the result is seoul
arized community, with Sunday less
and less recognized as a peculiar day
of devotion.
Pastorless churches with a congre
CATION attending every Sunday and
listening to a metropolitan clergyman
and highly paid choir, all invisible
to be sure, but all distinctly audible
i'll every part of the little country
church miles away from the preacher
and singers, is the latest phase of this
condition. Such is made possible by
radio. Arrangements are now being
made by the radio corporation to,
equip certain large churches in me-
tropoles throughout the country with
specially designed apparatus which
will not be apparent to the congrega-
ton in the church of initial impetus,
but which will carry sermon and sa-
cred music to specially designed ap-
paratus to be placed in the receiving
church.
The plan is yet in it's infancy. and
the officials in charge of its promul-
cation are as yet studying the best
way to get in touch with the govern
ing boards of the moribund sectarian
congregations.
Religious services every Sunday
have become a regular feature of
troadcasting. The morning service,
in every case, will consist of the en-;
tire service of some important church
which will be connected with the
transmitting equipment OF the big
radio station by telephone wire. The
afternoon or vesper service will be
conducted in the station studio.
The expansion of this program to
include Sunday has come as result
of thousands of letters from radio lis
teners in the rural sections of the
country. A great many of the letters
were from aged people, too feeble
longer to go to their churches but
earnest in their desire for spiritual
uplift. Among the letters were also
a great many pathetic appeals from
invalids, some of whom must spend
their lives in a single room. To such
as these deep swelling tones of the or
gan, the singing of the congregation,
the responsive readings and sermon
are real inspiration, boon that lifts
them out of the monotony Of their ex-
istence and makes them again sharers
in the activities which have failed to
touch them.
Another class, and probably the
most numerous, that has requested
radio church services are residents OF
country districts, too remote from
churches, or of localities where chur-
ches are closed because of the scarcity
or expense of regular pastor. In
one case it is known that little group
of neighboring farmers had gathered
at the home of one of their number