May 2024

From Step Change To Stepping Forward...

Last year, in our fortieth year as a media ministry, I shared with you how right across our work the Lord was positioning us for a step change in all we do. It was a great moment, BUT NOW it's all about stepping forward from that place, and we seek your support.

At Radio Hayah, our station in Bethlehem , we employed our very first local Arab Christian. Every week Karam has helped take Radio Hayah to a new level of engagement in serving the city of Bethlehem, through Arabic interviews with community leaders, organisations, charities, churches and the people; profiling their activity, work and lives. And at a time of war in that area, how important is this voice? BUT NOW one employee is not enough, we need to grow the work and increase its impact.

At Cross Rhythms City Radio in Stoke we couldn't be more thrilled at the impact of our new studio. It’s a physical representation of our step change moment. Like we’ve gone from 'an old wineskin' to 'a new wineskin'. Everyone’s response has been “Wow!” as we’ve hosted notable guests from across the city such as the Council Leader, the Lord Mayor, and leaders at Staffs Chambers Of Commerce, Citizen's Advice Bureau, Your Heroes Awards, Regent Theatre, and so many more.

Scripture says: 'Man looks at the outward appearance, God looks at the heart'. The heart is always the most important thing but often you attract man's attention, his engagement and the opportunity to build relationships, through the quality of your presentation. And that's exactly what we’ve seen! Fresh connections means new listeners but it also means increased influence as significant new partnerships into the business sector, the university and local college have emerged. Our reach has increased, our impact has grown, BUT NOW we need to maximise on this season of fresh opportunities. We need more than our two core presenters, we need more than our one production engineer, we need to employ someone to deliver the marketing and social media that empowers our programming and we need the focal point of a dedicated website for this local station.

Meanwhile at xRhythms, and possibly most exciting of all, we managed to launch a second DAB station in Stoke-on-Trent last year (after the first which was launched in the North East). These are brand new teenage focussed stations, dedicated to reaching UK teenagers and packed with edgy, relevant Christian Hip-Hop, Rock, Pop, Worship and full on Jesus messages and testimonies! We are thrilled to see the vision move a step forward with this second platform yet the potential for many more of these across the country is huge. Consider this: we can roll out each station for just £7,500 a year! That’s nothing! An extraordinary opportunity to deliver the message of Christ to teenagers in cities across the country, 24 hours a day, every day, for just £7.5K!

BUT NOW, to be honest, the vision is huge, the potential is awesome, the opportunity for xRhythms might be the most exciting of all...but it is proving the most difficult to achieve. It is probably the most important of all our initiatives - to reach a teenage generation for Christ - yet it is the most challenging to accomplish, as we seek the partners across the country and the resources to develop and empower an army of new voices to reach their generation.

And so it’s all about the BUT NOW! Here is a message from our Cross Rhythms Trustees:

“The trustees believe the time is right to be bold. We need to extend our broadcasting with development of Cross Rhythms and xRhythms into more regions and to extend our support to Radio Hayah in Bethlehem. We need more voices to be added to our broadcast team.

As you may know we have been proved and tested in broadcasting with our licences since 2002. Our goal is to reach out for an additional £300,000 in this year of our charity.

Our new, fully transformed studio with latest equipment makes us ready to move forward. We have old and “creaking” servers to be replaced, infrastructure to keep compliant, and most importantly we need to employ more people in specific, broadcasting tasks.

We need to add support to our extremely competent team, including our many volunteers.

We are poised and ready to reach out. Can you, your business, your community, your charitable trust, be a part of this next development?

There is much to be done.

Chris Cole & Alan Barker on the behalf of the trustees”

The Lord has been good to us and He has entrusted to us such extraordinary media opportunities. They are truly a joy to run with. Remarkably, by His grace, we do this with a team of 6 employees, dozens of volunteers, and a turnover of just £250k a year. We keep standing in the gap for these opportunities, BUT NOW, for them to be truly effective in our day, we need greater empowerment. We need the support of people like you.

If you would like to invest a one off gift or become a regular donor, then please do so here or call us on +44 (0)1782 251000. Thank you!