The Lutheran Hour offers six Christmas children’s television programs.
Submitted graphic
As a young boy in the 1970s, Ronald Rieckers remembers watching religious Christmas children’s programs on television.
Since then, though, he doesn’t recall seeing them on around the holiday.
He wants that to change.
A fundraising campaign is underway to get the programming and advertising back on four Louisville, Kentucky, television stations at Christmastime.
In total, Rieckers, president of the Lutheran Mission Federation, estimates that to cost around $9,000. He’s off to a good start, having raised nearly half of the $6,000 it takes to get the programs on WDRB, WBKI, WAVE and WHAS. The remaining cost will cover 3 minutes of advertising spots on each channel.
After reaching out to Seymour native Richard Stuckwisch, president of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod Indiana District, Rieckers was invited to attend the Southern Indiana Pastoral Conference at Lutheran Lake to talk about his project.
“The pastors got together and raised some money that day for me, so that was my first money I got raised,” he said. “I also got to talk to all of the pastors in southern Indiana and Kentucky because they are members of the Indiana District, and from that, one of the churches in New Albany sent us a very generous donation.”
Recently, Rieckers had enough money to secure programming on WBKI and WDRB. Those are set for noon Dec. 9 and 7:30 p.m. Dec. 16, respectively. Now, he’s working with the other two stations to get programming set.
“I went ahead and told WAVE ‘Go ahead and put us down,’” Rieckers said. “We needed $1,500. The next day, the treasurer (Brandon Hunsley) called and said, ‘I got $1,200 worth of donations in,’ and the next day, he called, ‘I got $600,’ so that covered that. The good Lord took care of it. Now, we need to raise money to get on WHAS and then for the advertising.”
The Lutheran Hour has six Christmas TV programs: “Little Shepherd,” “Red Boots for Christmas,” “The Puzzle Club Christmas Mystery,” “Christmas Is,” “The City that Forgot About Christmas” and “The Stableboy’s Christmas.”
Rieckers said the programs are animated and run for 30 minutes, including three 1-minute advertising spots for The Lutheran Hour and Lutheran Mission Federation.
“It’s going to depend on the amount of money we raise whether we record one commercial and play it three times or whether we are able to record three commercials and do like a welcoming, thank you for coming and watching, and then maybe have a couple pastors that talk about Jesus’ birth, whatever we can get in 1 minute,” he said. “Then like a middle section, have the pastors talk again about Christ’s birth, and then at the end, thank you for watching and wishing everyone a Merry Christmas.”
Rieckers said he wants to pick a different Christmas program for each channel so they aren’t competing against each other.
“Say your kid watches on Dec. 9. They can watch on the 16th, totally different show,” he said. “They are all produced by The Lutheran Hour. They are all religious. They all tell the story of the birth of Jesus.”
With the Louisville stations reaching people in nearly 40 counties in Indiana and Kentucky, Rieckers said this will be a way to get the Lutheran Mission Federation’s message out.
“It’s not just Louisville. It’s like a 50-mile radius out. We’re going to reach out into the countryside, too,” he said. “Our goal is to reach children — the unchurched is our goal — and tell these kids about Jesus. That’s our mission as a mission federation, to spread the gospel and to plant churches. … That’s where this falls into our mission to try and spread the gospel.”
Anyone is welcome to donate toward this project, not just Lutherans, Rieckers said.
“If you think it’s a good idea that we get religious programming back on TV because I don’t know of a single program on at Christmas like this for the kids,” he said. “Used to, when I was younger, they had the drummer boy that told the story. They don’t play that anymore. It’s all Frosty and Rudolph, so this is a way to put this back.”
If more than $9,000 is raised, Rieckers said that money will go toward getting three Easter programs on TV in the spring and then the Christmas programming again next year.
Donations may be mailed to Lutheran Mission Federation, Brandon Hunsley, JCBank Trust Department, P.O. Box 1001, Seymour, IN 47274. Note on the check that it’s for Christmas programming. That will cover the Easter programs, too.
For information, email Rieckers at [email protected] or contact Hunsley at 812-524-4411 or [email protected].