The Woodland Pulpit

The new pulpit was designed and built by local carpenter Victor Salas.

The inspiration for the design came from the pulpit in the chapel of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, where Garrett Vickrey served as a pastoral resident before being called to Woodland. That pulpit is pictured to the right.

Victor Salas and his ARTchitectural Interiors are behind some of the most prominent carpentry projects in San Antonio. He restored the furniture inside the church at Mission San Juan Capistrano, for example, and refurbished the quatrefoil windows, duplicated period moldings and forged a new flagpole for the Bexar County Courthouse. He also made the stately double doors that distinguish the Lucchese Boot Company in the Quarry. Arguably his most visible project, a sculptural iron tower rendered in a ribbon-like design, is installed in Woodlawn Lake Park. He and his father also built the doors to the shrine at the Alamo.

In 1987, they were tapped to build hand-carved chairs, a table and throne for the record-setting mass Pope John Paul II delivered to a crowd of 350,000 in San Antonio. As for the reasoning behind this unusual delivery method, When it came time to deliver the custom-crafted throne, the Salas family opted for a slightly eccentric, labor-intensive option. After building a custom trailer outfitted with ropes, they secured the elaborate chair on top and pulled it roughly 16 miles to Westover Hills by hand. Salas explained that it was the most authentic, “old-world” strategy the family could devise for the task at hand.

The pulpit carries the traits of its maker: Authenticity, Creativity, and Steadiness. Christian preaching should be marked by these three traits.

The quatrefoil crosses on the pulpit are an ancient symbol of the life-giving nature of the cross. Their flowering shape depicts the cross of Christ reaching outward in all four directions, extending the gospel to all creation. The four crosses represent the four Gospels. The diversity of voices they embody reminds us that the gospel has always been received and proclaimed through distinct perspectives. They invite us to interpret these ancient stories faithfully for our own time and to become witnesses to Christ’s redeeming love in the world today.