Educational film magazine; (19-)

HOW ONE CHURCH CAPITALIZES MOVIES ON SUNDAY NIGHTS This Pastor Does Not Make Speeches or Write Protests against Sunday Night Movies in the Theaters but Uses Them in His Church, and with Great Success By Rev. Herbert C. Ide Pastor Congregationalist Cliurcli, Redlands, Cal.* BEFORE beginning the use of movies about two years ago we had a perfectly respectable and conventional sec- ond service, about as well attended and enthusiastic as they usually are. Part of the year it was a vesper service and the rest of the year in the evening. Our people are widely scattered over a large territory and many who came faithfully to Sunday school and morning service found attendance at an- other service difficult. An occasional special program or a fine musical service brought out a good number. At other times we urged the saints to stand by the ship and everybody felt about as (heerful over the result as they usually do when that is the only tiling left to do. A Reugious Service With Pictures An Accessory Then we took up motion pictures. We have never allowed our service to become a "show." It remains a religious service in which pictures are only an accessory. The service is speeded up a little and lengthened a little. But choir work, hymns, Bible reading and prayer are not slighted. The talk has been as direct, forceful, and carefully prepared as the preacher can make it. Often it costs him more than the morning sermon, though it may be only from ten to fifteen minutes long. Any- how old folks listen with respect and young folks sit still. And there are young folks now. There didn't use to be— except an occasional swain and his best girl. There are all Muts of folks there now whom we never saw before. They come with their children by the hand, hardly knowing how to behave in church. At first awkward and looking a bit suspicious, they liave gotten accustomed and feel a keen personal interest now. Some have also annexed the morning service. But in any case we have a new constituency at our second service, and an at- tendance several times as large as formerly. A lot of people are f-'ctting the church habit and are sharing in a real religious -irvice, who were little interested before. Two OR Three Reels Every Sunday Night We use two or three reels a night and they are very carefully sf^lected. No detail of the arrangements is slighted. After many experiments we have now settled down to getting our pictures through a motion picture service which has grown up in Southern California and serves many churches which are doing as we are. An expert, a former minister and "Y" man, manages it and makes a living for himself while serving us well. He picks out of a mass the best available for our use and arranges booking and shipment. Imagination, resourcefulness, alertness and adaptability on I lie part of the minister are necessary if such a service is to suc- ' In TKe CongreeatUmati$t. ceed and leave the right impression. But we feel it is worth while. Some day when just the right sort of pictures are avail- able in sufficient quantity—and that day is rapidly approaching —the appeal through the eye-gate as well as eargate will be made by many churches which now look askance. Then the "prob- lem" of the second service will be solved. Movies a Great Joy to Discouraged Churches Many will find the old method more congenial and will con- tinue to use it. If adequate results can be achieved that way, very well. But where they are not, it will be a great joy to many heretofore discouraged ministers and churches to have a congre- gation, and to perform a real mission where now they can only go through the motions. We do not regard the pictures just as a life saver, nor as mere bait, but as a legitimate means of teach- ing religion and creating the atmosphere of Christian living. THE POPE AND THE MOVIES QHALLOW critics may at first miss the true import of the ^ Vatican's approval and formal endorsement of motion pic- tures. The first film display in the Vatican's history was recently given in Consistorial Hall before an assemblage of church digni- taries, including the late Pope Benedict. It was a reproduction of a "Young Catholic" demonstration, and the pontiff is said to have pronounced his blessing upon "the progress of the motion picture science as directed toward the moral uplift and advancement of humanity." Some may attempt to deduce from this incident an indiscrim- inate lifting of the ban on all classes of films by Catholic teach- ers and moralists. Doubtless, nothing is farther from the truth. It is the degradation of the movies that has received and will continue to receive the uncompromising hostility of those whose lives are devoted to the moral uplift. The significance of Pope Benedict's blessing on the movies lies in the recognition, as other far-seeing educators have expressed it, of the film's possibilities as an educational and moral factor in human life. In modern Sunday schools, chautauquas, and even in foreign mission fields the film is now an essential factor. The time is not far distant, probably, when its use will become universal in secular schools. Nothing else in modern science has brought about a more rapid readjustment of educational values. The most conservative religious organization on eartli hails one of the youngest among modern sciences as a helper in the eternal warfare against ignorance and sin. From that starting- point there may be a gradual discovery that the motion picture industry is only in its infancy of development, and that the entertainment of pleasure-mad millions is not the film's only or supreme mission.— Chicago Journal. 14