Not from the Onion:
Sunk in their deep armchairs, 36 Anglican clergymen were told here today about the “weary Willies” of the pulpit by the Rev. D. W. Cleverley Ford, director of the Church of England’s first college of preaching, which opened here today at Scargill House, the Anglican conference centre.
Mr Ford, who was listing his “tools of the trade” for the preacher, said a congregation first considered what the preacher was, secondly how he said it, and thirdly what he said.A preacher was his own visual aid or hindrance. “His clothes, his hands, his hair, his beard or absence of beard, his robes — all these are important. A man who starts preparing his sermon at 10 p.m. on Saturday and finishes it at 2 a.m. on Sunday might arrive in the pulpit looking like a weary Willie. What kind of advertisement is he for the Christian faith? Many members of our congregation are women; they see people rather differently from us. They notice that a preacher has a clean collar, or that he is wearing one that might be cleaner. They spend the rest of the sermon wondering about things that need cleaning at home.”
Read the rest in today’s Guardian. The article first appeared in that paper 50 years ago.
Speaking of gold anniversaries there’s this from Rome Reports: “Anglican spiritual leader, Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury will visit the Vatican on November 17th. His visit is in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity.”