Copyright by Shea Oakley<\/p>\n
All rights reserved<\/p>\n
Not too many years ago the New York area received its first Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) station. At the time I was happy to see it happen. Despite not always being of the highest quality, CCM has, at times in recent years, been the fastest growing segment of popular music in the United States. It\u2019s potential for reaching the millions of un-churched people who live in the states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut is great. But after listening to the station a few times something began to bother me. The advertising and disc jockeys spoke constantly of how it was \u201csafe for the entire family\u201d. In fact the word \u201cfamily\u201d, in one context or another, was mentioned literally hundreds of times a day and it soon became apparent to me that single people were off the radar screen, at least as far as station promotion was concerned. This was a bit disconcerting to me considering that 41% of America is single, as I was at the time.<\/p>\n
Fast-forward several months. One night I was at a fundraising dinner for the local chapter of a national youth ministry. The keynote speaker turned out to be an employee of the station in question. After the dinner I took the opportunity to speak to him about his employer\u2019s tendency to play a song that might catch the ear of the average urban single, and then follow it with advertising that made that single person, perhaps from a family background just as soon forgotten, feel left out. His answer was to inform me that the target audience was 38 year-old Christian soccer moms! Then he told me to start my own radio station. I was speechless. Here was a broadcaster with a historic opportunity to reach perhaps 15 million people with what, in my opinion, is one of today\u2019s more effective media-based evangelistic tools and they were purposely preaching to the choir!<\/p>\n
This is an egregious example of how the Christian population in this country sometimes takes care of itself at the expense of the Great Commission. Now I did not completely write off this station. Apparently the evening broadcasts were less family-oriented. As for the rest of the time undoubtedly some New York area secular adults did not bolt after the song ended and the \u201cFocus on the Family\u201d rhetoric began (In fact a friend of mine once told me about one such man she knew who was a new listener and one whom she felt was being led to faith at least partially by the programming). But as a former New York area secular adult myself I can tell you with some confidence that more did bolt than didn\u2019t. You see; healthy families are scarce here and that breeds a certain cynicism among those of us who survived childhoods molded by divorce, various kinds of abuse, and broken promises. We number in the millions and saccharine odes to the nuclear family are apt to make us twitch\u2026and switch… stations that is.<\/p>\n
Much has been written about the so-called \u201cChristian Ghetto\u201d. This is a term used to describe the separatist evangelical subculture that has developed in the United States over the past two-decades. We have a Christianized version of everything here, ranging from Christian dating services to \u201cChristian yoga\u201d. In fact some of our vaunted mega-churches resemble nothing so much as shopping malls, right down to an actual \u201cfood-court\u201d in one such behemoth on our West coast. We may not want to be of the world but we apparently have little reluctance about copying and baptizing it. The result is a facsimile of many of the more banal elements of contemporary pop-culture in a supposedly more spiritual setting. This allows American Christians to enjoy the blandishments offered by our consumerist nation while still feeling comfortably set-apart.<\/p>\n
I cannot help but wonder if we have ceased being salt and light in pursuit of this comfort.<\/p>\n
This brings us back to the radio station ministering to the approximately 500 or so \u201c38-year old Christian soccer moms\u201d who live in its multi-million resident broadcast area. When I happened to run into the person from the fundraiser in a local restaurant a year or so latter I re-introduced myself and brought up the topic again. This time he ruefully commiserated with me about the tiny demographic his station was chasing, his tone of voice having a sort of \u201cresigned to reality\u201d flavor to it. Then he shared with me that he was now in station management! Once again I was speechless.<\/p>\n
I can only assume that this man was not willing, or able, to challenge his bosses with what he himself implied to be true in his comments to me on both occasions, that catering to the saved is of higher value than meeting the unsaved where they live. As long as this kind of thinking holds sway, at this organization and at others like it across America, the \u201cChristian Ghetto\u201d will continue to exist and everyone outside that ghetto will be that much more likely to end up being un-reached.<\/p>\n
By the way, if anyone out there has the 5 million or so dollars of start-up capital needed to create a new radio station here please let me know\u2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Copyright by Shea Oakley All rights reserved Not too many years ago the New York area received its first Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) station. At the time I was happy to see it happen. Despite not always being of the highest quality, CCM has, at times in recent years, been the fastest growing segment of… <\/p>\n