Word: sunday
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...many American churchgoers, though, a Sunday sermon is something merely to be endured. Many preachers and parishioners alike think that passionate and skillful preaching has grown rarer and rarer in individual congregations in the postwar years. The chilling of the Word is a major contributor to the evident malaise in many a large Protestant denomination these days...
Like poetry, preaching is always a mystery. Each Sunday brings the danger of failure, and with that the question of potential impact. In his intriguing little book on preaching, Telling the Truth, Novelist and sometime Preacher Frederick Buechner describes the magic moment when the minister steps into the pulpit. In the pews sit a college student there against his will, a banker who twice contemplated suicide that week, a contractor on the take, a pregnant girl who feels life stir within her, a teacher hiding his homosexuality. "The preacher pulls the little cord that turns on the lectern light...
...commands attention instead with infectious charm and an ingratiating, please-understand urgency, communicated by eyes and face as he leans out over the congregation. Since he finds that laymen always make the same two complaints about sermons (too long, too short on humor), he tries to oblige, honing his Sunday morning sermons to 22 minutes, often putting them on tape cassettes for memorization...
...Register has everyone's attention because it is Iowa's only statewide paper (27% of all Iowa families subscribe, 40% on Sunday), with the power to define issues and influence election results. It is also sophisticated, readable and not at all bashful about its leadership role. Says David Oman, press secretary to Iowa Governor Robert Ray: "They feel they have a mission to set the agenda for Iowa and to prod the state on important issues...
...Register (circ. 209,000 daily; 392,500 Sunday) started getting its own way back in 1903 when Gardner Cowles Sr. bought the paper and began distributing it throughout the state. Its sister paper the Tribune (circ. 83,000) is distributed primarily in Des Moines and nearby counties. The Register has six news bureaus around Iowa, an elaborate stringer network and a large, aggressive contingent at the statehouse in Des Moines. Four reporters, two editorial writers, a columnist and an editor are assigned to Washington. They concentrate on topics that have special significance back in Iowa, most notably farm issues. Bureau...