Proclaim to the World the GOOD NEWS OF THE WORLD TOMORROW
BOX 111, Pasadena, California
Publishing: The PLAIN TRUTH a Magazine of UNDERSTANDING
May 2, 1955
Dear Friends:
I have IMPORTANT NEWS for you! Very soon I hope to come right into your home — on Television. The WORLD TOMORROW is now going on TELEVISION!
I'm writing you this letter to ask you to help me in planning, so we may select just the right TV station in your area. We need to know, direct from our own interested listeners them- selves, how far some stations reach, and which ones come in best for you.
To make it easy and simple for you, I will attach a questionnaire at the close or this letter, and I'm sure you'll be glad to help me by merely filling in and mailing back to me in the enclosed self-addressed reply envelope. No postage is necessary.
And now I want to tell you something of our Television program. Television offers tremendous opportunities to really PORTRAY the most important Message of this hour in a manner no other medium has ever made possible. Television offers wonderful opportunities for GOOD! But Television also brings into your home A NEW TEMPTATION!
Television, of itself, is neither good nor bad. But it is a very POWERFUL medium. And it can be put either to a good use, or a very harmful use. As always, THE WORLD is putting it to an injurious, — yes, even a dangerous, use!
God Almighty has allowed TV to come. Like radio, He foresaw, long before we did, that Television could become the very MEDIUM OF POWER to finish His work for this age thru His servants. But also it places before YOU a serious temptation. If you have a TV set, its possession brings into your home the serious RESPONSIBILITY of using intelligence and SELF-DISCIPLINE and WILL to let it be used only beneficially, for yourself and your children. It can bring to you a valuable facility, or a curse!
But God has commissioned us to go INTO ALL THE WORLD, with Christ's GOSPEL. Christ commissions us to go TO the people. We have to go to the people where the people are. The people are sitting before TV sets! So we are coming TO the people with HIS GOSPEL, thru their TV sets!
Personally, I have been reluctant to go on TV. Somehow I always shrank from having my picture taken. Except from some of the inevitable camera shots — (and I always did my best to dodge and escape even them,) — I had never had my picture taken from the time I was about 23, until a radio listener, indignant because I refused to send him my picture, wrote me a letter.
He put it this way: If I attended a church service, and the pastor refused to show his face, but hid behind the pulpit or a screen while he preached, wouldn't I become suspicious that he had something to hide? Didn't I always want to SEE the face of the speaker — didn't that tell me something of his sincerity, or lack of it — wasn't it really PART of his message? Well, until then, I had turned down thousands of requests from radio listeners for my picture — had run from every camera. I reasoned that it was not myself I wanted people to see, but CHRIST, and His Message. But this listener put it in a different light, and I realized that SEEING the speaker is a vital PART of His Message. A speaker ought not to hide.
And so, on Television, I hope soon to be coming right into your home, just as if I were there in the flesh. Not only that, but I hope to bring you, without the expense of a trip across the country, right here to the very headquarters of God's Work — to take you all over this magnificently landscaped Ambassador College campus — to take you into our big mailing room, where you will SEE our students and employees mailing out YOUR Plain Truth!, or that booklet you wrote in for. You will see our Ambassador Chorale singing. You'll SEE my daughter, Beverly, as she sings to you on the program right out of her Bible. And soon my son Ted will be joining her in singing on the program. When I speak of PROPHECY, and present world-catastrophes fulfilling it, we will frequently SHOW you these very turbulent scenes actually happening over the world, by news-reel film, while I talk to you about it — you'll actually SEE what I'm talking about!
JUST THINK how much more interesting and thrilling a Telecast can be made than a radio broadcast! Yet, we plan to CONTINUE making available to you the RADIO program six nights a week, in addition to the TV Sunday Telecast. For this purpose we may need to add one or two, or even five or six more clear- channel super-power radio stations which reach out over most or the nation at night.
So I will consider it a great favor if you will answer RIGHT AWAY, by return mail, and tell me whether you can now get "The World Tomorrow" with GOOD reception on one of the stations we are now using for the DAILY radio program — and if not, which of the ten other stations listed bring you good, clear reception.
Television costs a great deal more than radio — but the program will be seen by many more people, and much more effectively. It is giving us our supreme test of faith to be able to make this switch-over from radio Network to more costly, but far more effective TV, but we do have faith in GOD, and in our large family of Co-Workers whose tithes and offerings are making this work possible, so that we sincerely hope to be coming to you on Television in a very few months. God has opened the door for us, so that we have the technical services of the very best Hollywood producers, and they tell me enthusiastically that they believe "The World Tomorrow" TV program will be one of the very top programs, in listening-viewing interest, on the air. And now, THANK YOU for filling in the questions below:
Most sincerely, in Jesus' name, Herbert W. Armstrong
(You may tear or cut off on the dotted line, or mail back whole sheet) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Please check each of these radio stations which you get at night with reasonable clearness: WLS, 790 on your radio dial___; WWVA, 1170 on dial___; XEG, 1050 on dial___; XELO, 800 on dial___; XERB, 1090 on dial (Pac. Coast)___.
If you do not get any of the above stations good enough to hear the program (nor our local daily stations in Los Angeles, Portland, or Seattle), then check which of following radio stations you are able to get with good reception after 8:PM. (Try listening to those nearest you): KOA, Denver, 850 on radio dial___; WCCO, Minneapolis, 830 on dial___; WHAS, Louisville, 840 on dial___; WBZ, Boston, 1030 on dial___; WCAU, Philadelphia, 1210 on dial___; WRVA, Richmond, 1140 on dial___; WSM, Nashville, 650 on dial___; KWKH, Shreveport, 1130 on dial___; WOAI, San Antonio, 1200 on dial___; and KFI, Los Angeles, 640 on dial___.
TELEVISION: Do you have a TV set?______. Please list call-letters,
or channel, and city, of station you tune to most_________________.
What other stations, either in your city or near-by cities, are you
able to get? (List either call-letters or channel number, and
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