33S
THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NES S
A
MudOfChurch “Ad” CHARLES H. SMITH
every commercial advertisement, the foremost feature was the product for sale. Therein was the answer. The question was not who were we, or what were we, but what did we have to sell? We had nothing to sell, but the greatest of all gifts to give, the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! With this in mind, we made an in vestigation of church advertisements to see if any magnified Jesus Christ. Our search of big metropolitan papers revealed there was not enough Gospel printed in the entire church section to lead a soul to Christ, or even to arouse his curiosity about salvation. Appar ently, all the advertisers were trying to bring the mountain to the people, instead of taking them to the moun tain. We felt we had an answer. But our problem was how to produce an attrac tive Gospel advertisement, and how to finance it. We had neither advertising specialist nor money. ’ v e prayed. The pastor and a young working girl felt led to use their tithe to run any ad vertisement that could be written up. Another study of the church advertise ments revealed that most of them had a white background with black print. We decided on a reverse cut for heading and bottom of the ad, to be arranged like a newspaper feature column. We started in two small newspapers in the city of Glendale where our church is located. Immediately a flood of comments came to our ears. The Lord was working. Newspaper men were surprised, and offered helpful suggestions. The Lord blessed as He always does when ’ T is glorifia \ W prayed, "Lord, may this ad bring men to realize they are lost and need Thee. Glorify Thyself. Cause men and women to s ;, read, and ponder their souls’ condition.” That is r” ''i l ; God knows the t i -alts. You pastors and church members who waste .'-ousands of dollars each week inserting ads in the press, which call attention to men, to preachers, to churches, to meetings- wh not mag nify your product—the Lord Jesus Christ Himself? We have tried every method to bring sinners into the church. People throw away the tracts given them, but they do not throw away their newspapers. Why not in sert a bit of the Gospel where men will see it and let the Holy Spirit do the rest? Will you not join with us in prayer that many will come to Christ through our humble little ad, and that God will meet every need, and allow us to con tinue to present His words of life where all men can see them? Let us try advertising Christ. He has prom ised to bless the use of His Word. Let us stand on this promise; 7v
A Sure Foundation in Time o f Upheaval
In the attacks made against orthodox Christianity by hu manists, modernists and any others who do not put then- trust in Christ’s shed blood, there is one subject that is fre quently avoided. It is the his toric fact of Christ’s resurrec tion from the grave. Some people argue that his tory and religion have nothing much in common, and so it is not necessary to consider the facts of Christ’s birth, life, death and resurrection. These people might sayThat the res urrection is a picturesque way of representing the triumph of good over evil, just as Santa Claus represents a jolly Christ mas spirit. But more than five hundred early Christians testified that they had seen Christ walking around, alive, after His burial —they had talked with Him In these days of unbelief, in these days of social and polit ical upheaval when civilization totters, in these days when sin ners must soon face God of righteousness, it is good to have a religion based on historic facts. Many people hope for Heaven, but they have no foun dation for their hope; they are simply whistling in the dark. • The Christian, that is, the person who relies on Christ's’ sacrifice on the cross for sal vation, has a sure foundation for his hope of Heaven, for Christ is not dead, Christ is Risen. SPARR HEIGRTVClMuOT^Wi^^ 3229 NO. VERDUGO RD., GLENDALE- CALIF y':<: '' ' - Sunday Services-9:45 and 11:00 A. M .-6:30and 7:30 P. M Wednesdays—7:30 P M. ' YOU ARE ALWAYS WELCOME and eaten with him. They maintained t he i r testimony Jthrough persecution. They died rather than deny the facts. They pointed to the empty tomb, and the unbeliev ers of that day had no answer but persecution.
L IKE MANY other churches, we wondered what benefit, if any, was derived from newspaper ad- vertising. Being but a small group and needing every cent that came in to pay current bills, we had very meager funds for advertising. We tried adver tising after a rather hit-and-miss fash ion, but there were no visible results. Then we decided to advertise only special services, making a bigger "splash,” and hoping thereby to catch some eyes. This had little better re turns, so finally we decided to use all of our income for current expenses and building fund, and to give to the pas tor whatever might otherwise have been used for advertising. The pastor or our church had come to us "on faith.” Besides shepherding the flock, he was doing secular work
part time and studying on the side. A new building had been planned; since our rented store building had changed hands and the rent had been more than doubled, we felt that the Lord was leading us to, take this step. A new Sunday school unit was built and used temporarily for a church; still we struggled on. However, the funds coming in were not sufficient to pay the pastor a living wage. At last it became necessary for him to assume a full-time job in addition to the pastor ate, in order to provide for his family. The idea that we were losing out somewhere by not using newspaper advertisements troubled some of our people, and particularly the pastor. We prayed about it. We searched the newspapers for ideas. Finally, God took a hand. We discovered that in
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker