The author of a 2002 biography described him as “Evangelism's First Modern Media Star.” He was born in Moundsville, West Virginia and began his education in Appalachia, attending Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. He was ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1914 and pastored in cities including Detroit; Kansas City, Missouri; San Francisco; and San Jose. He also taught preaching at the Boston University School of Theology.
Additional information can be found in Chapter XIII of Edgar Dewitt Jones, American Preachers of To-Day: Intimate Appraisals of Thirty-Two Leaders (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1933).
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Stidger User Guide
Robert H. Ellison
The User Guide for the Library of Appalachian Preaching is a Google Sheet that can be searched, sorted, and downloaded for offline use.
This part of the Guide provides information about Stidger's sermons. It includes the title, sermon text, date and place the sermon was preached (if known), and so on. This information is available in the master list of sermons as well.
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Building Sermons with Symphonic Themes
William Le Roy Stidger
Stidger discusses what he calls “symphonic sermonizing” in Chapter I of That God’s House May Be Filled. The unidentified editor of Symphonic Sermons summarizes Stidger’s method in these words: “The plan that he adopted was to get two lines of poetry which exactly summed up the thought that he wanted to set forth in his text. Then, after every illustration in his sermon, and after every division, he would sing this symphonic theme into the hearts of his congregations, linking it up with his text” (pp. vii-viii).
The book contains 14 examples of this technique; an additional 17 appear in Symphonic Sermons.
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Finding God in Books
William Le Roy Stidger
This is a collection of what Stidger calls “Dramatic Book Sermons,” discourses that draw “Christian application[s]” from “books that have a moral or a spiritual lesson in them” (see pp. 28-35 of That God’s House May Be Filled [New York: George H. Doran Company, 1924]). The 14 works discussed here include novels, “narrative poems,” a play, and “books of a more serious social, political or religious nature.”
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God is at the Organ
William Le Roy Stidger
In “As to the Book,” Stidger writes that this “is a book of sermons, preached to audiences through the medium of the new revelations of science and nature…As one who is trying to make understandable the new truths of science; who is trying to find revelations of God through every discovery of science; who believes that God reveals himself to us in a continuous revelation, I have preached these sermons to my own congregations, and I send them forth to a wider group” (p.9).
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High Faith of Fiction and Drama
William Le Roy Stidger
The “Word from the Publisher” describes this book as a collection of “drama sermons,” a term that is similar to—or perhaps even interchangeable with—the “dramatic book sermons” in Finding God in Books and other works. Inspiration for the 15 sermons published here include Ben Hur, motion pictures Seventh Heaven and The Way of All Flesh, and 2 plays by George Bernard Shaw.
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If I Had Only One Sermon to Preach on Immortality
William Le Roy Stidger
In the Introduction, Stidger writes that he wanted this collection to have a wide “representation of preachers—geographically, theologically, denominationally, and by age groups.” He goes on to note that the book includes sermons by “leading English preachers,” the “immortals of the Protestant ministry,” a Roman Catholic cardinal, a rabbi, a layman, and a woman. Taken together, he says, these sermons will leave readers “with a new certainty of life’s eternal values and a new faith in the immortality of the soul” (pp. viii-x).
This book has a User Guide of its own, with information on the 9 preachers who had ties to Appalachia. This information is also available in the master lists of preachers and sermons..
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More Sermons in Stories
William Le Roy Stidger
This is a sequel or companion volume to There Are Sermons in Stories, which Stidger published in 1942. In “A Word to Start This Book,” he writes, “Jesus himself recognized that the short story, or parable, is the best form of preaching and the best way to keep the soul of the world alive.” He thus published the book “with the hope that it may be useful to those who are dedicated to moving humanity—or some small part of it—to higher levels” (p. 9).
Like There Are Sermons and some of his other books, More Sermons is cataloged under “Homiletical illustrations” rather than “Sermons.” This raises the question of whether the contents should be regarded as stories to be included in sermons or as “story sermons” in and of themselves. In keeping with Stidger’s use of terms such as “dramatic book sermon” to describe his other works, these pieces are designated as “story sermons” in the User Guide.
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Outdoor Men and Minds
William Le Roy Stidger
In God is at the Organ, Stidger describes Outdoor Men and The Epic of Earth as collections of “nature sermons” (p. 10). In the Introduction to the book itself, he says that “The Bible is an out-of-doors book” (p. 13). Outdoor Men was thus written “to call attention to the fact that the greatest incidents of the Book of books occurred amid the mountains, along the rivers and lakes; in the deserts, on the seas, and have to do with the trees, the stars, the birds, and the storms of the Bible” (pp. 16-17).
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Pew Preaches
William Le Roy Stidger
This collection of 14 essays offers what Stidger calls “a cross-section of what America’s leading laymen are thinking about preachers, the Church, religion, the State, missions, and life” (p. 7). Some have the label “sermon” underneath the title; Stanley High described others as sermons when he published them in the Christian Herald, a weekly newspaper that operated from 1878 to 1992.
This book has a User Guide of its own, with information on the 2 people who had ties to Appalachia. This information is also available in the master lists of preachers and sermons..
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Planning Your Preaching
William Le Roy Stidger
As he says at the beginning of Chapter One, Stidger wrote this book “to outline a preaching program for an entire year.” To that end, he provides scripture readings, prayers, sermon outlines, and even 52 complete “short talks” suitable for prayer meetings and other gatherings. Information on the outlines and talks is included in the User Guide.
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Pulpit Prayers and Paragraphs, Editorials, Commandments and Beatitudes
William Le Roy Stidger
Of the four categories mentioned in the title, the “pulpit editorial” is most relevant to the Library of Appalachian Preaching. In “What Reason Has This Book?,” Stidger writes that the editorial is “a scheme for commenting on civic affairs and matters of news-note and human interest, without interjecting them into the sermon.” As a “vehicle to convey truth; to keep one’s congregations up on new discoveries, new books, and new thinking,” it can be a “popular and a forceful part of a Sunday evening service” (viii, ix).
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Sermon Nuggets in Stories
William Le Roy Stidger
In “A Word to Launch This Book,” Stidger writes that “The friendly welcome accorded There are Sermons in Stories and More Sermons in Stories” inspired him to publish “this little book of ‘sermon stories’” (p. 9). Topics listed in the index include beauty, death, faith, hope, integrity, and race relations; Library of Congress subject headings are provided in the User Guide.
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Sermon Stories of Faith and Hope
William Le Roy Stidger
In “The How and Why of This Book,” Stidger writes, “THIS book of sermon stories grows out of a year’s writing of a syndicated newspaper column which I have run for eight years…I get the stories from preachers, students, friends; from a wide reading in ancient and modern literature; and from a varied contact with the great and the humble of the earth” (9).
The Library of Congress catalogs Sermon Stories and some of Stidger's other books under “Homiletical illustrations” rather than “Sermons.” This raises the question of whether the contents should be regarded as stories to be included in sermons or as “story sermons” in and of themselves. In keeping with Stidger’s use of terms such as “dramatic book sermon” to describe his other works, these pieces are designated as “story sermons” in the User Guide.
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Symphonic Sermons: A New Method in Homiletics and Its Effective Use with Sermons and Suggested Themes
William Le Roy Stidger
Stidger discusses what he calls “symphonic sermonizing” in Chapter I of That God’s House May Be Filled. The unidentified editor of this book summarizes Stidger’s method in these words: “The plan that he adopted was to get two lines of poetry which exactly summed up the thought that he wanted to set forth in his text. Then, after every illustration in his sermon, and after every division, he would sing this symphonic theme into the hearts of his congregations, linking it up with his text” (pp. vii-viii).
The book contains 17 examples of this technique, along with a chapter entitled “One Hundred and Sixty Selected Symphonic Themes” and 8 outlines that the “busy preacher” can use, working “the sermons out according to his own personal needs, desires, talents, and personality” (p. 312). An additional 14 discourses appear in Building Sermons with Symphonic Themes.
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That God's House May be Filled; A Book of Modern Church Methods and Workable Plans
William Le Roy Stidger
As the title suggests, this is more a book about church administration than a collection of sermons; there are chapters on publicity, prayer meetings, the Sunday evening service, radio broadcasts, and even church bulletins. The final section contains 5 “Studies in More Modern Dramatic Book Sermons,” a genre he describes in Chapter II. Information about these sermons is included in the User Guide.
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There are Sermons in Stories
William Le Roy Stidger
In “A Word to Launch This Book,” Stidger writes that it is a collection of “stories which I have picked up in my reading, living, adventuring way across the continent and around the earth…They are not my stories, but the stories of the people themselves; and in that mood I dare to present them in this form, hoping that just as they have thrilled and stirred my soul so will they stir and thrill the souls of the readers of this book” (p. 9).
Like More Sermons in Stories and other books, There Are Sermons is cataloged under “Homiletical illustrations” rather than “Sermons.” This raises the question of whether the contents should be regarded as stories to be included in sermons or as “story sermons” in and of themselves. In keeping with Stidger’s use of terms such as “dramatic book sermon” to describe his other works, these pieces are designated as “story sermons” in the User Guide.
