Take 3: 2011

Hey everyone, we're back for Summer 2011! There's a lot going on in the next few months, and we'll be here in Mt. Washington to let you know about all of the great concerts, bands, and also to share the best Christian music.

We're in the studio recording tonight, so I'll pass along any good things as they come up!

Hey everyone!

Happy May! Hope everyone is enjoying themselves as our school has ended and public school will soon too! We're in the studio recording tonight, and we'll have a show up for you all next week -- Wednesday at 5pm!

Plenty of new stuff on the way. Take care until then!

Some more music for you!

Here's a preview of a song that'll be playing today at 5: Everyday Sunday -- Find Me Tonight. Only a few more weeks of school left on our end... hope everyone is doing well!

Bible Blog: How do you live out your faith?

So if you listen to us any time in April, you'll hear the beginning of our newest sets: The Bible Blogs. The name could use some workin'... personally I think it's a bit cheezy, but that's not really the point of the matter.

We'll periodically have these on the show, where we ask you -- the audience -- a question about your faith that you can answer by replying to our blog posts. You can do that by submitting a comment at the end of the post!

So getting started today, we find ourselves in James Chapter 2 where the question is being asked -- How do you live out your faith? In verses 14-17, James comments...

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

James is saying is that you *can't* can't cant just speak your faith for it to be 'real' and 'lasting'... in regards to being cordial to people and just going about your day. You've got to live it out -- later in the chapter he even goes on to say that 'even the demons believe... and shutter.' In this context James is making the point that they acknowledge that God exists, and they choose not to act on that in their daily life. How would we be any better if we did the same thing?

It's about walking the walk, and practicing what you preach. If you're living a life where you are loving those around you, and are working in their best-interest because God has placed that on you and you have genuinely interest in them -- that's living out your faith. If you've been called to take notice and act when you've seen something you can change or fix for the better, that's another example. There are plenty of them, and we all have specific examples in our lives of how we can do this.

I've gotta get to class so I'll elaborate more later (and post up some audio!) but until then -- How do you live out your faith? Leave us a comment here on the blog and we might read your reply on the air!

Season 2 Begins Tomorrow!

Hey everyone! We'll be back tomorrow on Reach 95.3 FM in Mt. Washington at 5pm! Through all of April we'll be appearing in a reduced timeblock since both Cliff and I are still at school, so you can expect an hour of great music from us every Wednesday at 5!

Until then, here's another song we'll be playing tomorrow by a great band that goes by the name of Downhere. They're responsible for "My Last Amen," one of my more favorite songs as of late, but today we'll be playing "Better Way." Check it out below!

Show Schedule for April

Hey everyone! We're all set to begin broadcasting in April, and our first show will air on Wednesday, April 7, at 5pm! You can catch it before WOW every week through April... our chatting will be the same every week but we've mixed up the music schedule and I'm pretty impressed with what we've got lined up for the month.

To give you a taste, here's one of the songs we'll be playing this week: Chris Sligh - Arise

Happy Easter!

Today is the day that Christians across the world celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. You're welcome to attend Easter Service with us at the First Baptist Church of Mt. Washington -- services will take place at 8:15, 9:35, and 11:00 in the morning. :) If you can't make it to church, feel free to tune in to Reach 95.3 FM at 11:00 a.m. to listen in on our Easter service. Wherever you attend or celebrate, it is a great day!

Easter is a wonderful time, and is important to Christians in-that it celebrates the Resurrection of Christ and what that means for us. Read what the Apostle Paul had to say about the Resurrection, and why it is so very important to us:

   
Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.   
But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. (1 Corinthians 15:12-20, New King James Version)

The Resurrection of Christ is very fundamental to our worldview -- if Jesus wasn't resurrected, we are indeed to be pitied! But we believe he was sent by God as a final, permanent sacrifice for the sins of man, and by living out a life in pursuit of Him we can freely enjoy and worship the good Lord this Easter day. I'll leave you with this:

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
(John 11:25-26, New King James Version)

Have a good day!

Check... Check...

Hey guys! Recording in the studio now -- in what is absolutely a bomb shelter. Just like we remember!

Took us a few hours (between technical error and incompetence) to get recording again, but we're back at it and we'll have some fun times and great music ready for you through April!

We'll be airing every week in April on Wednesdays at 5pm, so be sure to tune in!

Returning for a Second Season!

Hey guys! Winter -- and school -- have all but come to an end, and that means that Cliff and I will be returning to Mt. Washington for the summer! After some incredibly lengthy negotiations I'm happy to report that we will also return to the airwaves this month and even have our salaries doubled! Yeah!

Seeing as we won't physically be back in the Mount until May, some changes will be made to the format of the show for the first few weeks to get us back into the swing of things. So here's what the schedule should look like for April into May:

April: Four weeks of what amounts to a music hour. We'll speak briefly at the beginning and end of each episode to introduce things. We'll probably do two episodes and play them for two weeks to cover the month of April.

May: We'll take a break for the first week of May because that is final's week at the University of Kentucky, and then we'll be back for the second week of the month with the first full-blown episode of the season. Stay tuned for that!

I'll post another update again later this week announcing the times for our April shows. We'll have plenty of new stuff this year and some new music with it! Will be updating the website over this week and the next too -- I think I'm gonna be converting the season 1 audio and uploading it to Youtube... but we'll see.

Good to be back!

Shaun Groves Concert

Hey everyone, if you haven't heard yet Shaun Groves is going to be in concert at First Baptist Church Mt. Washington on August 22 at 7pm! He's working with Compassion International, going on tour around the country... be sure to stop in if you're free that Saturday for some great music!

If you've never heard Shaun's music, we'll be playing it regularly on our show for the next few weeks. Also, here is a youtube video of a live performance. Enjoy!

Chicago Mission Trip

Hey guys, busy show this week. I'm sure you've seen the announcement about the Shaun Groves concert we'll be having in August already if you keep up with the Reach 95 facebook group... in the meantime, I have a lil' blurb about a missions opportunity we announced last week.

Nathan Young will be leading a team to Chicago to work with C3: Chicagoland Community Church from July 30 to August 3. The cost to go is $100, and you can contact the church office for more information. The phone number for the church office is (502)-538-7361.

You can check out more info about C3 on their website at http://www.chicagolandcc.org/ Take care guys!

Some changes this week

Hey guys! Our new show this week is gonna air Sunday at 10pm instead of the usual time on Wednesday. Our guest will be Nathan Young, the Minister of Activities and Outreach at FCBMW. The Wednesday airing will be the rerun.

Also, if you're looking for something to do this Sunday afternoon, Tenth Avenue North will be holding a concert at Slugger Field. You can find out more information on their tour page.

We're taking requests for the show now -- if you ever want to hear anything played on-air, you can send it to us here or also on the Reach 95 facebook page.

See you guys around!

Upcoming

Hey guys! We've been having some difficulty getting on the air lately, but we finished up our show last night with no problems and should be back to normal. Jason Johnson and Bubba the Cat were on; good times. I'll get some clips up soon. We're thinking about putting full episodes up on youtube from now on... thoughts?

Oh yeah, and check this out. It's pretty sweet.

Ichthus Festival (June 10 - 13)

Don't know if anyone's planning on hitting up Ichthus, but if you're free from the 10th to the 13th and have some extra cash to spend, you should totally hit up this awesome event.



Ichthus is a giant Christian Music festival on a farm north of Wilmore, KY. I know the area well -- it's about an hour and a half from here in Mt. Washington if you go south and take the Bluegrass Parkway to Lexington. There's gonna be over 100 bands there! If you're interested in finding out more, check out ichthusfestival.org.

Seventh Day Slumber T-Shirt Contest

Hey guys! Hope you enjoyed our second show; it was a lot of fun to put on and I love getting to hear all of the work that gets put into it come out on the air. A lot of that work happens here at the blog by finding things to talk about on-air, and one of the newest things I've decided to get into is keeping up with the latest news from christian bands via a blogroll you can see off on the right sidebar. Since we are trying to spread the word about good christian music that appeals to us younger guys, I figure that we would do well to keep tabs on the bands too.

That lead has already bore fruit, in the form of this little gem:



Seventh Day Slumber is putting on a contest for fans to design their new t-shirt! You can find details at this link, and the winner gets the following:

• $800 in cash


• 2 Concert Tickets


• An Autographed CD

And the top ten runner ups also get autographed CDs. You can submit designs until June 8 at canvasthreads.com. Good luck!

New Episode Tonight!

Hey guys, we'll be airing our first two-hour show tonight starting at 8pm! We'll have Scott Slater and co. in the studio. We'll try to talk about how great it's gonna be to graduate (but I already know that, so I think I'll just rub it in Cliff and Scott's face!) along with some other... interesting things. Yeah, we can go with that.

The show will air again on Sunday at 10pm, so no worries if you miss it. You can also download the show right here from the blog whenever I get around to putting it online after it airs.

Also, there's no wow this week so if you're stuck with nothing to do come up to the FBCMW Sanctuary and check out the Children's Choir musical at 6:30!

Utilizing Radio Ministry

If you're a faithful listener of WFBR, you've probably heard us air occasional spots by Sean Dunn known as Groundwire. These 60-second spots are usually played between music on air and are often coupled with Taking a Minute by Jason Anderson, another similarly-themed spot. Both spots are designed to give a quick and memorable message about Christ and the good news that he brings to us. You can hear and download samples of these spots on both of the websites listed above, and I think they're really great.

After rooting through the directory while we were recording Saturday, I think these would be great to play weekly in between songs on our own show. Though Groundwire in itself began in an effort to reach a secular radio audience, the message is still very encouraging to Christians and I think it can still be a great tool to us as listeners to open up a dialog with non-believers.

As that last sentence implies, though, that requires non-believers to be listening to the message on WFBR. That's where you come in! If you are familiar with The Great Commission then you know that the ball is in our court as far as advancing the gospel is concerned. We are all witnesses -- and the radio ministry is a fantastic tool to that end! Spots such as Groundwire and Taking a Minute boldly proclaim the gospel, and the powerful messages displayed in the music we play are all great ways to introduce friends to the message of Jesus -- that we aren't alone in this; that God loves us, that Jesus is even now pleading on our behalf and he has given us a way into life with Him.

If you're still stumped on how to make the radio ministry into your tool for spreading the gospel, here are a couple of tips:

• As summer approaches, if you are having any sort of pool parties or gatherings, play the radio in the background. The music alone will provide a nice atmosphere, and can give you a more natural chance to talk about Christ than springing it out of the blue.
• If you're driving around with someone, keep the car radio on and what's playing would be a natural topic of discussion as you drive.

If you know of any others, feel free to comment to this topic and we can include them! Cliff and I are going to start including Groundwire and Taking a Minute towards the end of the hour on our weekly shows (which has changed times -- now airing this Wednesday at 8!) so stay tuned for that!

Water Balloon Fights

So I've had this blog for a while now and I've been thinking of all sorts of things that we should use it for. One of the things I would like to start doing with this blog is to share some of the funny or otherwise interesting stories that we will talk about on the air. That said, allow me to present to you one of the greatest water balloon fights the world has ever known:



The UK Christian Student Fellowship attempted to break the Guinness world record for largest water balloon fight last year in August. The entire event was put on as an attempt to reach out to the broader student base at UK where school was soon to start and to raise awareness about that particular campus ministry.

I thought it was great. I was there personally, and though they didn't break the record -- they were several hundred short of the current record, held by Microsoft -- so they're teaming up with some other groups and are going out again this August to try again before the school year starts. I intend on being there again, so I'll let you know how that goes!

It was a lot of fun for me and goes to show how making something innovative and fun into a method of outreach can really work!

As an aside, if you have any suggestions as to things we can include on this site please let us know! Thanks!

Learning Curve

So I have to say, I'm pretty impressed. I never expected that I would ever be in radio, much less be able to throw on anything decent. Especially considering some of the trials we went through to get here... I mean, look at this. That looks like a pretty unlikely couple to make it to radio to me. If you're looking for context, that's where we were trying to figure out which button would let you pay a bribe to the magical radio soundboard to get it to work.

Yeah, that didn't get anywhere.

To that end I'd like to take a second to thank Joshua Hoots -- he's been helping us since the start with the software and has spent several hours with us each week to get everything recorded. If you listen to WFBR much you've probably heard Hoots on Sunday mornings, heading up the airwaves as you make your way to church from 8 to 10am. He's been a big help and we couldn't have even started to put this on without his sage wisdom.

We finished recording for the second show tonight, and I'm pretty pleased with it. Things are sounding better with each take, and we're having a lot of fun doing this. This week we've brought on Scott Slater, a soon-to-be graduate of Bullitt East who is heading into ministry. Word on the street is that he's also a big Barlow Girl fan, so we'll have to touch up on that while he's in the studio.

Beyond that, there has been a lot going on concerning the show itself. Here are some updates:

• Episode 1 Online
  Episode 1 is now online and available for download for everyone who is competent enough to use WinZip! We will keep an ongoing episode guide on the sidebar and put them up for download as the dates pass.
  
  And don't worry if you're not computer savvy, it's not hard; There are instructions with the download.



• New Timeslot & Sunday Airing!
  Our pilot went so well that we're going to have an encore airing of the Wednesday episode each week starting on Sundays at 10pm, immediately following the CMM Radio Magazine! Our Wednesday show will also be beginning from now on at 8pm (immediately following the student ministry's family nights) and will last until 10pm.



• Blog Comments Enabled
  Comments are now enabled for users who don't have google accounts, so we may start utilizing the blog to reach out and gather content from fans who would like to have a say on the air! Stay tuned for that, and feel free to reply to one of our posts if you have anything to say!

Sneaking In

The door creaked of old age as I peered into the next room.

Silent.

The church staff had gone home for the day, unknowingly leaving my counterpart and I behind in the supply closet. Our pipe cleaner mustache disguises worked perfectly; though this wasn't always our intent. No, our being there was much less dubious: we were actually looking to water some flowers to help out a certain activities minister, but in our search we discovered something much more prosperous.

The radio room! And not a soul around! But something further disturbed me -- though it seemed silent at first, the gentle tune of music could be heard coming from the equipment. Gentle... I don't know, that didn't seem right. It didn't quite fit, and Cliff here agrees.

So let's shake it up. Let's say... Wednesday -- 6pm, something new will be up. Something different. Something pretty awesome, though pretty likely absurd too.

And the music certainly won't be gentle.

Check it! Wednesday at 6pm on Reach 95.3 FM!