Sunday Randomness

• So yesterday I got curious to see what happens at House for All Sinners and Saints when Nadia Bolz-Weber is away. Checked out their media page and listened to two sermons by James Wall and Moose Flores. Didn’t realize that HfASS is sometimes pronounced “half-ass.” Although their congregation is small, they’re moving to two services.

• Discovered the Twitter feed of “Augustine of Hiphop.”  (Click below to link.)

• More or less avoiding the whole Phil Robertson thing here, but thought this post was worth linking to, describing how Phil could have phrased things a little differently. 

• In the trend toward multi-site churches, this church’s webpage makes them sound like reluctant converts:
  

  All services are identical in format and content with the teaching portion of the service being shared across all locations via video. Honestly, the whole thing seems a little jumbo-tron-techno-dork to us, but it sure beats building a kajillion dollar facility to hold everyone. All of this just helps us to be more effective in reaching more people, in more places with the good news of God’s love.

• Billy Graham speaks about the real meaning of Christmas — 61 years ago!

• Finally, a study linking growing up with a father to atheism. Could it be that some believe “there is no God” because there was no dad?

Christian Radio in Crisis

The names and faces are familiar as are the names of the various radio programs:

• Insight for Living – Chuck Swindoll
• Turning Point – David Jeremiah
• Thru The Bible – J. Vernon McGee
• Back to the Bible – Woodrow Kroll
• In Touch – Charles Stanley
• Grace to You – John MacArthur
• Love Worth Finding – Adrian Rogers
• Haven Today – Charles Morris
• Let My People Think – Ravi Zacharias
• Bible Answer Man – Hank Hanegraaff

Notice anything?   No, I mean besides the fact they’re all male.   (And all American.)  This is in every sense of the word, an “old boys network.”   Chip Ingram may still look young in his publicity shots, and James MacDonald may open with a cool David Crowder theme song, but exceptions aside, Christian radio is playing host to an older generation of radio preachers, which isn’t the generation they need to attract if the medium is to survive.

You may wish to suggest that maybe it’s just time for the medium to die off.   After all, look what YouTube has done to the hours people formerly spent watching broadcast, cable and satellite television.   The 42″ screen has unexpectedly lost ground to the 17″ monitor.    The plasma screen may be high definition, but the next generation would rather program their own visual channels, even if the images are jumpy, grainy or pixelating.

But is there an opportunity being lost?   Last time I checked, cars still come with FM radios.   It’s still the medium of choice if you’re caught in a traffic tie-up looking for an alternative route.   It’s still what you’ve got if the iPod battery fails or one of the earbuds isn’t working.   And it’s weather forecasts are still reasonably up-to-date and free-of-charge.

No, the problem isn’t with radio itself.  The problem is that a new generation of pastors doesn’t want to fuss with purchasing airtime and building that kind of media ministry.   Keeping the multi-site satellite link working weekly is enough technical challenge for one week.   The demographic they see on Sunday morning grew up with time shifting anyway.   They can PVR their favorite program and view it anytime; so they don’t need some guy on radio telling them, “Don’t forget to tune in tomorrow at 6:00 PM…”

I’ve never understood why an audio cassette version of the VCR never happened, but then I’ve never understood why for years, push-buttons allowed people to find AM and FM stations with pinpoint accuracy in their cars, while at home they had to slide a “dial” back and forth.   Even today, some digital tuners still offer frustrations unknown to driving with preset stations.

Furthermore, today’s younger pastors don’t want to start a branch of their ministry that might start bleeding red ink, which might lead to the type of on-air begging that has tainted the Christian radio medium.

No, radio just isn’t at the forefront for a new generation of Christians.   They know more about Francis Chan than Francis Shaeffer; they prefer Andy Stanley to Charles Stanley.    They download Rob Bell, discuss Greg Boyd’s take on the Gospel of Luke,  and work out to the latest Craig Groeschel sermon from Lifechurch.   They discuss the latest interview available at Drew Marshall’s website, debate the latest pronouncement from Mark Driscoll, and tell their friends about Pete Wilson’s sermon download page.

None of this is lost on Christian radio ministries.   Weekly podcasts from Focus on the Family, Greg Laurie and even John Piper rank among the top ten each week.   They’ve taken their content and propelled it forward into the new media.

Which brings us to the point of all this.   The proprietors of the new media need to make their content backward compatible.   All of this great, next-generation communication of the Good News, and so very little of it being heard over traditional broadcast frequencies.

Some visionary person needs to create a radio outlet for the vast number of sermon podcasts being created each week by younger leaders in a new era of multi-site, emerging, missional, or just plain newly-planted churches.   It’s time the computer-less, broadband-less, or those simply out-of-the-loop got to hear what some of us are already enjoying.    And personally, I think an older generation of Christ-followers would appreciate having some fresh new voices at the table.

The content is already recorded.    The radio stations already exist.   Let’s introduce the two to each other.   Before it’s too late for Christian radio.

Related post on this blog — A fictional story about Pastor Boone, who gets offered some free radio time and instead of just putting his church service on the radio…

Related post on this blog — My proposal to make Worship Network’s Sunday Setlists into a weekly Christian radio show.

Related post on this blog — This  links to a USAToday Religion story on how Christian radio is dealing with the new economic realities, attracting younger listeners, and keeping donations coming.

Related post at The Church Report — James Dobson and son Ryan Dobson are teaming up to launch a new radio ministry.

Appendix — Arbitron Podcast demographics worth knowing — and these go back to 2006! —

When There Are Only Twelve Churches Left in the Entire U.S.

By the year 2020, there will only be a dozen Evangelical churches left in the United States.  All other local congregations will be video satellite campuses of those twelve.

Several months ago, I left this comment or one very similar to this in the response section of another blog.   I left it, more or less in jest.   Now, I’m not so sure.

Bob Hyatt has written an excellent post on this.   For several minutes, I have been wrestling with the thought of cutting and pasting his entire piece here, knowing from my stats the percentage of people who actually click on links.   But I think what follows is sufficient to whet your appetite; when you’re done, backtrack to read the whole article here.

First came architectural improvements to increase the range of a speaker’s voice. Then microphones to throw the voice even further. Then radio, television, tape and CD ministries, podcasts, vodcasts… and the seed of the video venue, the “overflow room.” All with the goal of taking the gift of preaching and extending its reach and impact. So far, so good, right? But now, we have all this technology. We’re not only recording the sermon, we’re video taping it and we have discovered we can send that video, not just to the next room, but to a building across the campus, across town, across the state, around the world… Now, the preaching gift of one person has the ability not simply to reach the back row, but the next town, state, continent. And we’re not just talking about Spurgeon publishing his sermons or Schuller putting his on TV or Driscoll putting his on iTunes… NOW we’re talking about not just influencing local preachers by making the “best” communicators’ sermons available… we’re talking about replacing those local teaching elders. Talk about pushing something to an extreme. The technology that once enhanced the preaching of others, influenced and enriched it? It’s making it superfluous.