Happy National Radio Day

The Lord wants us to be not only hearers of His Word, but also doers - and that do-ing will involve reflecting the nature of Christ in what we speak and how we speak it.  And, we can effectively communicate in a Godly manner by having our hearts right before Him and allowing the life of Christ to flow through us.   In Proverbs 16, we read:
20He who heeds the word wisely will find good, And whoever trusts in the Lord, happy is he.21The wise in heart will be called prudent, And sweetness of the lips increases learning.22Understanding is a wellspring of life to him who has it. But the correction of fools is folly.23The heart of the wise teaches his mouth, And adds learning to his lips.

Jesus said that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.  So, if we want to bring honor to His name, we must align our hearts with Him, acknowledge that we belong to Him, and allow the words of our mouth to bring Him glory and praise.  We are all called to be transmitters of truth, living out the gospel and making sure that we are speaking in a manner that encourages people, drawing them to our Savior.

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God has given us the capacity to communicate His Word with clarity and compassion, and to live in a manner that brings honor to His name.  Consider the words of 2nd Timothy 2:
15Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.16But shun profane and idle babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness.

It's Wednesday, August 20th, and I wish you a happy National Radio Day!   That's right, it's a special day, but the origins are not particularly clear.  Nevertheless, the National Religious Broadcasters, or NRB, thought it to be important enough to publish, on its website, a fascinating chronology of religious broadcasting, taken from the book, Air of Salvation, by Mark Ward, Sr.   Here are some highlights:

1921 (Jan. 2): First religious broadcast. KDKA airs the Sunday vespers service of Pittsburgh’s Calvary Episcopal Church, presided over by junior associate Rev. Lewis Whittemore.

1921 (Nov. 27): First continuous religious program. Broadcasts begin in New York by the Radio Church of America.

1921 (Dec. 22): First religious station. Church of the Covenant (now National Presbyterian Church), a congregation in Washington, DC, receives the first broadcast license issued to a religious organization.

1922: First religious broadcaster. Paul Rader is invited by the mayor of Chicago to give a radio address from City Hall, and when response far surpasses expectations, Rader begins a radio ministry.

1928: First network religious program. Donald Grey Barnhouse, Pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, becomes the first to purchase network airtime for a religious program. The year before, he broadcast a local program and finished 1927 with a balance of 11 cents but nevertheless signs a $40,000 contract with CBS.

1930 (Oct. 2): Walter Maier, founder of KFUO in St. Louis, which was founded 90 years ago, goes national. The Lutheran Hour airs on network radio for the first time, eventually becoming the largest radio venture of its day. By the 1940s, the program is heard in 36 languages over 1,200 stations with an estimated worldwide audience of nearly 700 million.  (Maier died in 1950 at the age of 56, and was believed to have preached the Gospel to more people than any man in history.)

1937:  Charles Fuller goes national.  He brings the Old-Fashioned Revival Hour to the Mutual Broadcasting System (MBS), and it soon becomes the top religious broadcast in America, with an estimated audience of 10 million.  In 1939, he introduces a second one-hour network program, and by 1943, Fuller’s Gospel Broadcasting Association is the top broadcaster on the Mutual system, spending 50 percent more money for airtime than the network’s next-largest secular customer.

1943: Mutual announces restrictions. In the fall of the year, MBS announces its intention to severely curtail its practice of selling time for religious programs by the 1944 season. The development sets off a firestorm in the evangelical community, which is also worried that individual stations will follow suit.

1944 (April 12): NRB organized. As the threat to Gospel broadcasting deepens, broadcasters decide they need to organize themselves in to an effective pressure group that deals officially with radio issues. At a constitutional convention in Chicago on September 21, 1944, the new association is incorporated.

So, this year, NRB celebrates its 70th anniversary, and Faith Radio is pleased to be a member.   Jerry Johnson is the President and CEO of NRB, and in his installation ceremony at this year's NRB Convention in Nashville, he vowed afresh to defend the goals of the NRB by simultaneously advancing biblical truth, promoting media excellence and defending free speech, according to a report on the ASSIST News website, which stated that Johnson warned repeatedly against the dangers of an unbalanced emphasis on any one of the organization’s three primary purposes.

He promised that the battle for freedom of speech, press and religion will be dear to his heart.  He received applause from the audience when he said, “We in NRB must become to First Amendment freedoms what the NRA is to the Second!”  A great line, indeed!

So on this day that has been designated to show appreciation for radio, I'd like to give glory to God and express appreciation to the Lord for the technology that enables us to communicate truth on-air and on-line. 

And, we praise the Lord because of the transformation of lives that He will bring about as the result of the powerful truth that is spoken and sung on Faith Radio.  We'd like for you to not only share your story with us, perhaps to even relate to our listening audience, but also to share your Faith Radio story with others.   We give you the tools to do that - through FaithRadio.org, you can sign up to receive our Ministry Magazine, which is released 4 times yearly, as well as our monthly e-mail newsletter.  There's a page you can go to and request materials from our ministry - go to FaithRadio.org/ShareFaithRadio.

I am thankful for the unique opportunity to be involved in this unique ministry work.  I do have a form of communication that involves a microphone, but we can all be involved in the transmission of God's love and truth.   As we follow the direction of the Holy Spirit and allow Him to speak and flow through us, we can be partners in the work that God desires to do in the lives of people; people who need to hear about and experience a relationship with Jesus Christ.