Thank you for visiting our new website, we are excited to be able to share and expand the vision for radio in Calvary Chapel. Of course your church doesn’t need to be a Calvary Chapel to be involved in radio. This web site is dedicated to explaining how to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with a lost and dying world through radio.

That this is a passion for some of us would be an understatement, radio is a fantastic way to reach people. Chuck Smith was a pioneer in this area, his teachings were on the radio as early as the 1960s. He found out then that putting the gospel on the radio was very effective. They used reel-to-reel tapes to record Chuck’s messages and get them to the local radio station, and people who heard Chuck were eager to come and check out Calvary Chapel.

With time, Chuck was on radio stations from coast to coast and many of us listened to him daily. It was a basic Bible education while we drove to and from work. Other Calvary Chapel pastors joined Chuck on the airwaves; Joe Focht, Greg Laurie and Raul Reis were among the first to do so. It was possible to “attend seminary” as you drove in your car each day, and many people did just that.

In the 1980’s Chuck Smith was able to purchase his own radio station, now known as KWVE and based out of Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa. Chuck loved the opportunity and raved about it whenever he could. He told the rest of us Calvary Chapel pastors to go out and get our own radio stations, he said it was the most cost-effective means to share the gospel that he knew of.

Many people listened to Chuck’s advice and there are now hundreds of radio stations owned by Calvary Chapels and affiliated groups. We own full power stations, low power stations and translators, AM and FM, there is probably no kind of broadcast station that a Calvary Chapel doesn’t own somewhere. Calvary Chapels are using radio to reach people all across the country, from Maine to Hawaii and from Alaska to Florida and everywhere in between. On any given day dozens of Calvary Chapel pastors have their messages broadcast on hundreds of stations throughout the United States.

Maybe you’re interested in having your church join us. We would love to have you, and the purpose of this website is to give you a little bit of helpful information on how to get started. This is a work in progress and it is certainly not complete, but hopefully it will be a helpful introduction to those who want to see their church join us on the airwaves. Over time we hope to add more resources to this website.  We pray it becomes a resource for anyone and everyone interested in using the medium of radio to reach the lost.

In a nutshell, there are two ways you can proceed if your church is not currently involved in radio, and we will look at both of them on this website. The first possibility is for you to build, obtain or buy your own radio station. Many Calvary Chapels have done this and we have a lot of experience among many people to help you in this endeavor. Owning your own station allows your church to reach your community with programs that you find helpful. You get the awesome responsibility and privilege to decide what content should be on your station. You pick the teachers, you pick the songs, you pick everything. It’s your station, your church owns it and you run it the way your church wants to run it, just like the way you run any other ministry.

The second possibility is for you to launch your own radio program, with your pastor having a radio program that is aired on one or more stations. You don’t have to own a radio station to have a radio program, you just need a small budget to prepare the program and pay for air time. You will need good quality recordings of your pastor’s teachings and excellent computer skills to edit the programs for radio. Many Calvary Chapel pastors have their programs edited and produced by professional production companies, which makes it even easier because it eliminates the need to do your own editing.

Regardless of which road you travel, or even if you travel on both roads, you will find radio to be a richly rewarding experience. There are numerous testimonies of how the Lord touched the lives of people as they listened to the radio not expecting to encounter the living God that day. Many people have gotten saved and had their lives changed by hearing the unchanging Word of God boldly proclaimed on the radio.

Somebody once asked me why they should spend money to put their pastor on the radio. I asked if their pastor was a good teacher and of course they said he was. I told them that their pastor spends many hours each week preparing his messages to teach his church that week. For just a little money all of that research and studying can be multiplied as that same message taught in church can be broadcast to hundreds and thousands of people.

Your church can prepare and broadcast a daily Bible teaching radio program for more than a year for what it might cost to send your youth group on a mission trip to Africa. Radio is like a mission trip: it’s local missions to local people in your community. And when the Lord touches their hearts, they show up in church.

If you would like to read more about how to start, please take a look at one or both of these articles:

How to Start a Radio Station

How to Start a Radio Program

You are welcome to contact us through our contact form.