A friend asked me recently what connection Christian radio can have with development and relief organizations. He was referencing my work at New Zealand’s largest Christian radio broadcaster and my role as TEAR Fund’s Education and Campaign’s manager. He could see a loose connection between Christian radio and our work at TEAR Fund, but was struggling to work out where the value really lay.
What we as a development organization can offer to Christian radio and what Christian radio can offer development organizations is a relationship that can and should be mutually beneficial.
Radio is a medium; it’s a way of conveying information to people. That information may be conveyed to entertain, provoke, educate or engage the listener. Everything that happens on a radio station from simply playing music through to interviews and listener talkback fits this profile and reason for existence.
Formerly I had a role on Life FM (a Christian radio station that is a part of the Rhema Broadcasting Group) as one of the main announcers, hosting a show that was primarily about playing music. My other role that I still have with the station was/is as a talkback host. I run a talkback show every Sunday evening called the Greenroom.
With that in and my current role at TEAR Fund in mind, I am somewhat uniquely placed to see the benefits that the two can offer each other.
Whilst radio offers something to the listener, Christian radio has a unique requirement. Its differentiator is its need to conform to a certain value system. It must live up to and convey, wherever possible, what it means to be Christian in today’s world and it has a requirement to put in place tools that enable it to do so. These tools come in many different forms – music, hosts, specific information, but also its chosen partnerships. Where Christian radio chooses partnerships, it is good for those managing it to evaluate where it falls short in conveying the values of Christianity and develop relationships accordingly.
It is my firm belief that a core outworking of what it means to be a Christian is our action with the poor, marginalized and oppressed – why I think that is a whole other discussion, suffice to say that I believe it was a central element of the life of Jesus, therefore it should also be ours. This is an area where Christian radio, due to its very nature, falls short if it does not engage relationships with individuals or organizations active in such work.
An organization like TEAR Fund enables Christian radio to actively engage that part of what it means to be Christian. That can come in the form of fundraising and allowing us to inform people about the injustices in the world and encouraging activity within that and it can be so specific as to engage the audience one on one through talkback, dealing with direct questions and community style dialogue where the listener participates rather than just being a passive spectator. In so doing, the organization benefits because it is increasing awareness, brand recognition should develop and fundraising can also be an outcome.
By actively fostering relationships between Christian radio and Christian development organizations, Christian radio gets to live out service to the poor, oppressed and marginalized and the development agency is given an audience to encourage helping in its work. Relationships between Christian radio and Christian development organizations can be strong and mutually beneficial and neither should ever underestimate the value of the other.
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