Broadcasting Hope Worldwide

In 1947, the Church of God launched The Christian Brotherhood Hour, a weekly radio program. Dale Oldham, then the pastor at the Park Place Church in Anderson, stepped forward on air, speaking, quite literally, to the world.

In many ways, CBH was a pioneer in religious media. Previously, “church radio” was imagined as just that: the broadcasting of a church service somewhere. Dr. Oldham conceived a half-hour program that was a mix of music and message, designed for radio—not a church service which was incidentally also broadcast. His conversational style and commitment to speaking the Gospel to a broad audience proved to be a winning model. What was unique to CBH then is now the norm across the face of Christian media.

Much has changed over the years, though. Other voices have, in turn, sat behind the CBH microphone. Secular media has moved increasingly to formats (think Oprah), in which a host interacts with guests. The world is becoming a smaller place, interconnected by technology. Ideas fly from one place to another just by moving the cursor on a computer screen.

Radio remains, however, the world’s most accessible medium. More people have access to radio than any other form of communication. From villages in the African savannah to the front seat of your family’s minivan, radio is virtually omnipresent.

And, oh yes: the world increasingly wants to learn English. On every continent people on the street know that English is the ticket to advancing economically. English-speaking radio (think the BBC) is a global phenomenon. People listen to learn English, even if they are not originally interested in the content.

CBH has adapted to these developments, too. The moniker has been subtly changed to Christians Broadcasting Hope. Later, in the 1990s, I was invited to become the voice behind the microphone, but with more interviews and guests. CBH established the church’s first 24-hour, toll-free access line (so that listeners could respond from anywhere, anytime). We moved into cyberspace, making the program available online. We embraced email as a response channel, too.

We also began to take “the show on the road.” With advances in technology, digital recording equipment has enabled us to produce programs in previously unimagined locales. These CBH-on-Expedition broadcasts have been some of our most popular, (think National Geographic-for-Jesus or NPR). Once a listener is hooked by the travelogue frame, the listener can see not just the world but God-at-work in the world.

The Madison Park Church has a contract with Church of God Ministries (which owns the CBH program), which reimburses our local church for my time.

As part of that arrangement, CBH takes me abroad once each year, to interview, teach, and produce programming in the field. From Beirut to Bombay, from the Amazon to the Nile to the Mekong River Delta, well, CBH has found God-at-work and brought the stories to the world.

This month, I will spend a few days in Europe taping for CBH. The Church of God is establishing an international ministry center in Berlin; our CBH team will attempt to capture some of the excitement and promise of this bold new venture, on air, in the context of a rapidly changing European Union.

We’ll also spend time with new believers in the Crimea (Ukraine). Ten congregations of the Church of God have been formed in this region over the last few years by the ministry of our Russian-speaking partners at CBH-Russian. The CBH-Russian broadcast is produced in Germany and throughout the former Soviet Union (which includes the Ukraine). These congregations are a stunning testament to the power of the Gospel-on-radio. We will be bringing their stories to a global audience on CBH-English.

It’s a privilege, of course, to be a part of the CBH ministry. I receive feedback from all over the world—from the woman who listens on the Pacific Coast of Washington State, struggling with a call to ministry, to the depressed young man in the United Kingdom who found hope listening, to the customs officer at the airport in Grand Cayman who recognized the sound of my voice as I entered the Crown Colony in transit, to the guy in Prague who was beside himself because his girlfriend had left him, to... well, you get the idea. Christians. Broadcasting. Hope. That’s who we are.

Thanks, Madison Park, for being a part, too. Not only have you partnered with CBH to allow me to invest time there, but you also help underwrite the broadcast financially, both locally and worldwide. Thanks for covering CBH with prayer, too. The Lord is honoring the work. Auf Wiedersehen. Sieh Sie in der Kirche am 25 Mai. Ermutigt werden. Jesus ist Herr.