TV Evangelist Dies

CONTROVERSIAL TV EVANGELIST TAMMY FAYE MESSNER DIES

Sources: BosNewsLife, Christian Etailing

Controversial television evangelist, singer and author Tammy Faye Messner (formerly Bakker) died in her home the morning of Friday, July 20. She was 65. Messner had surgery for colon cancer in 1996. By 2004 the disease had spread to her lungs, and this May doctors stopped her treatment. Messner appeared on CNN’s “Larry King Live” show on Thursday, the day before she died. She told King she couldn’t swallow food, weighed only 65 pounds and looked forward to “going straight to heaven” after her death. A family graveside service was held at a private cemetery where Messner’s ashes have been interred.


Born Tammy Faye LaValley in International Falls, Minn., to Pentecostal preacher parents, she married Jim Bakker in 1961. Together they co-hosted “The 700 Club” and began “The PTL Club” in 1974. Praise the Lord (PTL) expanded and became a network with 13 million cable subscribers, bringing in close to $130 million annually at its height in the 1980s.


Tammy Faye was a fixture of her first husband’s ministry, her heavy mascara running as she tearfully beseeched television viewers to open their hearts to Jesus. After being convicted of fraud in 1989, Jim Bakker served five years in prison, and during that time he and Tammy Faye were divorced. In 1993 she married Roe Messner, a contractor whose company built the now-defunct Heritage USA theme park in Fort Mill, S.C., which became a popular attraction.


“Our family is deeply saddened by the news of the passing of Tammy Faye,” Bakker said in a statement. “She lived her life like the song she sang, ‘If Life Hands You a Lemon, Make Lemonade.’ My heart aches for my two children, Jamie Charles and Tammy Sue, who loved their mother dearly. They both told me their mom was so full of life that it is hard to believe she is gone.”

(HCJB)

A Mass of Holy Pirates

In June of last year Ireland's regulator ComReg introduced a Wireless Public Address licensing Scheme which  allows religious and community organisations to be licensed to transmit services or events from their public address systems for the benefit of people in local communities.

Two bands of 40 channels each 10 kHz wide between 27.6 and 27.995 MHz were allocated for this purpose.   The base station can run 1 watt AM or 4 watts FM with a vertically polarised antenna.

Many churches throughout Ireland are now using this scheme and, if licensed and operating within the terms of the licence these transmissions, are legal.

However, the Irish Radio Transmitters Society has been notified by the German National Radio Society DARC that transmissions of church services, which seem to be originating from Ireland, have been taking place in the 28 MHz (or 10 metre) amateur radio band. Recorded audio files of such transmissions being made on 28.105 MHz have been provided to the Irish society and to the Irish Regulator.

Members of the Irish society have been asked to listen out on 28.105 MHz at appropriate times for church services in their local areas to see if unauthorised stations can be identified.

The 28MHz band is dedicated internationally to the use of Amateur Radio and use of any frequency within it by churches or other organisations is illegal. This becomes an even greater issue when interference is being caused to stations in other countries.

It has now been established that a Church broadcast is being transmitted on 28.105 MHz FM in the Dublin area. Some further work is required to identify the Church concerned although a Roman Catholic Mass is transmitted at 0900, 1000 and 1100 local on Sundays and at 1000 on weekdays.

Irish Radio Amateurs in the greater Dublin area are being asked to listen on this frequency at these times to see if the location can be positively identified.

Stations located outside Dublin are also asked to listen on the lower end of the 28 MHz band generally to see if any unauthorised activity is taking place in the band in their areas.

Reportof any such illegal activity can be notified to Thos Caffrey (EI2JD) with a copy to Sean Nolan EI7CD at QTHR or to ei7cd at “gofree dot indigo dot ie”.

Reports should include date, time, frequency, possible location of station if identified, beam heading in degrees from true north and other relevant information. If the station is identified from an announcement of local events, details should be given. Should you hear anything, no action should be taken other than forwarding a report as requested.

GrootNieuws Radio 1008kHz

In the Netherlands the mediumwave frequency 1008 kHz is being taken over by Christian oriented radio station ‘GrootNieuws Radio’.

Radio 10 Gold will continue broadcasting for two or three more weeks on AM 1008 kHz (currently operating on low power to reduce costs).

GrootNieuwsMedia, the company behind GrootNieuws Radio, is owned by F W de Groot from the Dutch town Goudriaan. Arjen de Heer is one of the initiators of the project.

GrootNieuws Radio will start broadcasting religious oriented music in a few weeks’ time on AM 1008 kHz with 200kW power and by December should be fully operational.

The station is targetting protestants and evangelicals, but also Roman Catholics. GrootNieuws Radio plans to focus on news that is ‘relevant’ to the Christian community. Opinion, information and music programming will also be broadcast.

The new radio station has no connections with other media organisations such as Family 7 or Bright FM, but is open for co-operation and the possibility for organisations to hire airtime to reach their audiences.

De Heer states that there are no concrete plans to broadcast also on other platforms such as cable, but is interested in broadcasting in DAB+ which may become available in the near future.

GrootNieuws Radio is the first religious oriented radio station to broadcasts terrestrially on AM or FM 24 hours a day in in the Netherlands.

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Upgrading DAB

A new DAB+ upgradeable radio has been released by Pure.

In the opinion of some, all existing DAB radios will become obsolete in a few years time when the existing DAB compression standard (MPEG2) is replaced by the new DAB+ standard of AAC+.

Pure Digital has released its first DAB+ upgradeable receiver, called the Siesta, a clock radio with an recommended retail price of £50.

The software upgrade will be via a USB socket on the back of the radio and should become available later this year - at a small cost (in the region of £7 or £8).

Officially, the UK has no plans ever to move from, what some regards as, the low-quality MP2-based version of DAB the manufacturers are currently selling.

If the expected upgrade of the DAB system goes ahead, all current DAB radios could be unable to receive anything in a few year's time due to use of the new AAC+ audio codec instead of the old MP2 format.

Pure Digital recently announced their intention to switch over to DAB+ receivers by the end of 2008 and other manufacturers are expected to follow suit.

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UCB Ireland to launch on satellite

The Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) has signed a ten year contract with United Christian Broadcasters (Ireland) Limited for the provision of a satellite radio service, which will be available on the Sky digital platform in Ireland and the UK.

UCB Ireland will be a dedicated Christian radio service which will give an Irish perspective of news, issues and life in Ireland.

Programmes will have an interdenominational focus and the primary target audience will be 25-55 year olds.

The service will broadcast 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, from January 2008.


From the UCB Ireland Website

On Monday 16th July, the contract for the first Christian satellite licence ever awarded in Ireland was duly signed at the offices of the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) by Peter Bradshaw and Richard Willoughby of UCB. After many years and much endeavour, UCB Ireland now has a licence, and work is underway to prepare the building, programming, acquire staff and equipment, all before we launch early in 2008.

This is a cause of much celebration for us, and we are supremely grateful to God for all His mercies to us. We also thank all our supporters who have enabled us to get this far through their prayers and financial support.

For more news, or ask to go on our mailing list for regular updates, please contact:
Peter Bradshaw in Dublin on 00 353 1 4299 899 or email pbradshaw@ucb.ie.
Or contact our Belfast office on 00 44 2890 282 000 or email ucbbelfast@mail.com.

Weblinks

• UCB Ireland
  
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Radio interview questions pope's ways

Calvary’s Pastor Chuck Smith disputes Pope Benedict’s Catholic ways

We can come to God directly through Jesus Christ. We confess our sins to Jesus. - Pastor and Calvary Chapel founder Chuck Smith

By ALEXANDER
TheScroogeReport.com

July 16, 2007

COSTA MESA, California - Evangelical pastor and founder of the Calvary Chapel movement, Chuck Smith, fielded several questions about Pope Benedict XVI’s recent approval of a Catholic-centric document during the radio show Pastor’s Perspective today.

Chuck Smith

The document implies that the Catholic church is the only true church and the only true path to salvation.

“I really can’t understand why a person who is reading the word of God and believing the word of God can embrace the teachings of the Catholic church in this matter,” said Smith, who is the pastor of Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, Calif.

In answering a caller to the radio show, who asked why the Pope would make such a statement about the Catholic church, Smith said, “The Catholic church believes your righteousness and salvation is by good works. As Christians, we believe that it is by God’s grace you are saved, not by works.”

The Pope has had a wide spectrum of reaction to his recent approval of a document that states other Christian communities such as Protestants “cannot be called ‘churches’ in the proper sense” since they don’t have what’s known as apostolic succession – that is, the ability to trace their bishops back to the original 12 apostles of Jesus.

It was “difficult to see how the title of ‘Church’ could possibly be attributed to them,” said the statement from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, purporting Roman Catholicism was “the one true Church of Christ.”

While discussing the practices of the Catholic church, including praying to Jesus’ mother Mary, Smith said, “We don’t believe Mary has any value toward praying to God. They also, pray to saints, and we don’t believe that has any value either.

“We can come to God directly through Jesus Christ. We confess our sins to Jesus,” he said.

Pastor’s Perspective can be heard on local Christian radio and KWVE.com.

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Democrats propose return to censorship

In the USA, leading Democrats have indicated they want to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine – a 1949 policy that once required broadcasters to offer airtime to opposing viewpoints concerning controversial issues of public importance.

A White House adviser yesterday announced that President Bush would veto such legislation if it reached his desk.

Allan B. Hubbard, assistant to the president for economic policy and director of the National Economic Council, issued a letter indicating the president's position. He recalled that the FCC dropped the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, largely because of the explosion of outlets for information. "Since then, the multiplicity of voices has significantly increased and the case for the Fairness Doctrine is weaker than ever," Hubbard wrote in the letter. "Reinstating the Fairness Doctrine would muzzle political debate and free speech."

Ashley Horne, federal policy analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said it should really be called the "Un-Fairness Doctrine." "It would amount to government censorship of the airwaves," she said. "The government simply has no business dictating radio content."

Christian radio is a prime example. If a program offered a biblical perspective on homosexuality, stations would be compelled to offer airtime to a voice from a pro-gay point of view.

When the Fairness Doctrine was in effect, many broadcast outlets – especially Christian radio stations – chose not to air issues programming, thereby avoiding the restrictions. Horne said it is very likely the same thing would happen again. "Christian stations would simply refuse to discuss the important issues that we need to hear," she said. "This is simply a liberal scheme to silence the conservative viewpoint."

Craig Parshall, spokesman for National Religious Broadcasters, called the veto announcement a "very positive sign from the White House." "If you are a Christian broadcaster," he said, "you have the right and the high privilege to be able to broadcast the truth and to be able to do so in a way that is relatively unfettered."


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UCB Canada to extend broadcast range

The United Christian Broadcasters Canada (UCB) is negotiating to locate a repeater sttaion to strengthen its signal in the Cobourg/Port Hope area.

Broadcasting from Belleville on 102.3 FM since 2003, the stations signal can presently be heard as far west as Port Hope.

The new repeater at 100.9 FM will make it much clearer for about 35,000 potential listeners in the Cobourg/Port Hope area

Licences for repeaters for Cobourg and Brock were authorized last October and the company has since been looking for the necessary sites for the equipment. A few options are currently being evaluated and UCB hopes to have the new repeaters up and running by the end of this year.

Web Links

• UCB Canada

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Hope at New Wine

Community Christian radio station Hope FM, based in the Bournemouth area of southern England, have tied up a deal with the major summer conference New Wine. Hope FM will be broadcasting live from the the major summer conference New Wine being held at the Royal Bath & West Showground.

The New Wine event now attracts 20,000 people and this year takes place from 5th to 11th August.

The live programme can be heard on 90.1fm in the Bournemouth area and across the world using the streaming facility on Hope’s web site between 7.00pm and 9.00pm daily, and will include the Evening Teaching and Worship celebration from New Wine’s main venue.

New Wine’s theme this year is CRY FREEDOM - Freedom from injustice and freedom as an expression of the Christian faith.

Bible school by radio

In Latin America, there are many church leaders who have no access to Bible training, due to cost or travel restrictions.

Without qualified instructors and training materials, it's difficult to grow the next generation of leaders - which is TWR-Venezuela initiated School of the Bible three years ago.

TWR-Venezuela Esecuela Biblica provides a radio curriculum, complementary Bible correspondence courses, and CDs.

The appeal of this format has been steadily growing. This spring, TWR reports at least 50 leaders who have formally registered to receive the lessons on CD and in print, in addition to the radio broadcasts.

Courses are designed to accommodate the registrant's learning pace, and many pastors have little formal education. The fourth installment was recently completed, and now all four courses are available.

Once participants successfully finish the course, they receive a certificate from RTM-Venezuela.

In an effort to further encourage more church leaders throughout the region, the program now airs from TWR's facilities in Uruguay, Bonaire, Venezuela, Chile and Cuba.

Radio broadcasts plant churches

Five churches have been planted in northeastern Brazil as a result of Avant Ministry’s broadcasts on AM-780, a radio station in the city of Nova Russas.

In 2003 Avant facilitated the purchase of the 10,000-watt station, the first Christian station in the region. Its signal is within hearing range of 1.2 million people living in small towns and isolated villages within a 150-mile radius.

Response has been tremendous with five new churches already formed as a result of the Christian programming.

The goal is for the station to become a commercially sponsored station, independent of outside financial support. Meanwhile, Avant is subsidising the station until it can attract enough local advertisers to become self-supporting.

Radio Lumiere - Haiti

Radio Lumière (French for light) in Haiti was founded on February 20, 1959, by West Indies Mission (now World Team).

As the country’s main Protestant radio station, Radio Lumière is known as the voice of the Protestant church in Haiti and covers more than 90 percent of the country with Christian broadcasting.

The station airs from 4 a.m. to 1 a.m. seven days a week. At any one time, Radio Lumière’s audience varies from several thousand to more than 1 million listeners.

The station’s programming is Christian and family oriented, with a strong emphasis on evangelism and Christian training. The network also provides educational broadcasting, Christian music and entertainment, a complete news service, and a personal announcement program in which Haitians use the station to send messages to family and friends in rural areas who do not have telephones.

The ministry of Radio Lumière is vital as more than 40 percent of Haiti’s approximately 10 million people are Protestant Christians. Most of the three to four million Protestants tune in to the station from time to time while many listeners never move their dial.

Radio Lumière is the institution behind which all of Haiti’s churches rally and which they all respect and depend upon. The radio is also a powerful tool for evangelism, often reaching into homes the church cannot. For instance, it is not unusual for a witch doctor to be converted as a result of the radio’s ministry. Radio Lumière also plays an important role in encouraging, training, and building up Christians, as the church in Haiti is growing very rapidly and there are not enough trained pastors to disciple each new convert.

In the beginning, there was only one station at Les Cayes on the southern peninsula of Haiti. This installation was crippled by a major hurricane in the late 1960s, prompting the station to move its center of operations to Port-au-Prince, the capital city of Haiti.

In the mid 1980s, Radio Lumière was nationalized and officially turned over to the Evangelical Baptist Mission of South Haiti (MEBSH), the Haitian denomination started by World Team. It is still owned and operated by MEBSH, but its ministry and support base include all of the evangelical churches and denominations in Haiti.

The Radio Lumière network now has nine stations, with the main station and studios and a television station located in Port-au-Prince. The network’s other eight stations are located at strategic points around the country.

Web Links

• Radio Lumière

Romainian Christian TV

Sunday, July 8, 2007
Alfa Omega TV, the first satellite Christian TV channel in Romanian, celebrates one-year anniversary
By Michael IrelandChief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

TIMISOARA, ROMANIA (ANS) -- The launch of the first Romanian Christian television channel, Alfa Omega TV, in June 2006, was the fulfillment of a long, 12-year preparation period. Now the station is celebrating its first full year on-air. Although the initial vision was cast in 1994, it was followed by 12 years of work during which hundreds of programs have been translated into Romanian. Christian program producers and distributors from all over the world have sown into the Alfa Omega ministry along the years through high quality program packages and television show series.

The satellite channel was launched in Timisoara, the spiritual capital of Romania. Timisoara earned this reputation during the anti-Communist revolution in 1989, and became a symbol of freedom for SE Europe.

According to the license granted by Romanian National Council of Audiovisual, Alfa Omega TV is a "thematic channel, of Christian education and spirituality" with the purpose of promoting Christian moral values in a post-communist society.

In the year after launching the satellite channel in June 2006, up to 2000 cities, towns and villages in Romania and Moldova receive Alfa Omega via cable TV 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The digital platform MaxTv is also included the channel in the basic package.

The channel airs weekly programs for minority groups in Romania (i.e. Hungarian, German, Serbian, Slovak, and Bulgarian). It is expected that in the near future the channel will include programs in the gypsy language and segments for Israel.

In addition to programs produced by Alfa Omega and by its partners world-wide, the channel also airs content provided by other Romanian producers from Romania, Moldova, and the USA.
Since January 2007, Alfa Omega TV channel has been rebroadcast on the Internet. In June 2007, three additional thematic web channels were launched, specifically one for the youth, a movie channel, and an educational one.

"Personally, the launching of the channel meant a genuine miracle. I’m so glad I was there when it happened. The outcome of many years of prayer and preparation suddenly revealed itself. Looking back, I understand that God alone worked beyond our insufficiencies and our lack of skills in such a way that we sometimes still wonder at the fact that our channel, Alfa Omega TV, is actually airing. For me it was also amazing and it meant I had to learn the lesson of trusting God in providing us monthly with the financial funds for the channel, without having any pre-established funds," said Adrian Fabry , broadcast manager of Alfa Omega TV.

Tudor Petan, president of Alfa Omega TV said the key scripture for Alfa Omega is: "Not by might, not by power, but my Spirit says the Lord.

"For us this means prayer and faith," Petan said.

More information about how to become a partner of Alfa Omega TV (prayer, providing programs, equipment, helping finalizing the new studio building) is available at: http://www.alfanet.ro/., http://www.alfaomega.tv/, or email to: Tudor.Petan@alfaomega.tv, tel/fax: +(40)256.284.912


ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA
www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: assistnews@aol.com

VIP coming to the Stoke airwaves

Valued Individual Person - or VIP - is an initiative in Stoke-on-Trent which reaches out to the young marginalised and homeless people of that city.

Through special Dinner events, giving free hair-dos, make up sessions, clothing vouchers, toiletry goodies and putting on quality bands and speakers, VIP builds value, significance, uniqueness and worth into these young lives.

And now they will get a voice too!

From October 1st Cross Rhythms City Radio in Stoke on Trent will introduce VIP - The Radio Show!

Presented by VIP director Dawnie Deaville with weekly contributions from local marginalised young people this programme will be giving a voice to those who rarely get heard; hearing their stories and sharing in their lives.

Web Links

• Cross Rhythms Radio

Equipment Stolen from US Stations

Thousands of dollars worth of broadcasting equipment was stolen from a Christian broadcasting company in Keavy, Kentucky, USA last week.

Radio station WVCT and station WVTN have been broadcasting for more than 20 years.
Sometime after they went off air last Monday night someone stole almost 20-thousand dollars worth of equipment from the transmission room.

Equipment was removed from shelves and stripped from walls. Everything else was thrown across the floor.

The thieves broke in by tearing out the air conditioner and climbing through the wall.

The stations are non-profit, don't sell advertising, have no immediate resources to replace what has been stolen.

They are, however, reported to be back on air.

Web Links

• WVCT

ELWA

ELWA is the callsign of a radio station opened by Sudan Interior Mission in Monrovia, Liberia, in January 1954.

In the last 17 years the radio station has twice been destroyed by civil war - first in 1990 and again in 1996. At times the campus of this ministry was a refuge for those fleeing the fighting - atothers, it was the battleground for the oposing factions.

ELWA most recently came back on the air in 1997 with a small transmitter on 94.5 FM.
In the year 2000, HCJB Global Voice provided the station with a one kilowatt shortwave transmitter transmitting on 4760 kHz in the 60 metre band, once again enabling it to cover the entire region.

ELWA broadcasts in 10 languages and plans to add more languages as resources become available.

The station is now operated by the ELWA Ministries Association (or EMA), an interdenominational Christian organization that comprises of ELWA Radio, ELWA Hospital, ELWA Services, and ELWA Academy.

Web Links

• elwaministries.org

Broadcaster changes Focus

Focus On The Family MEDIA RELEASE - July 09, 2007

Veteran Christian Broadcaster joins Family-Help Group

Cathy Jenke, a well-known name in the New Zealand Christian broadcasting arena, has left Rhema Broadcasting Group after more than 20 years to join leading family-help group Focus on the Family (New Zealand).

Cathy Jenke comes with a wealth of media and research experience, including producing and researching for radio and television news-based programmes and co-hosting NZ’s leading Christian radio breakfast show.

Her role will be keeping Focus on the Family (NZ) at the forefront of family issues in the media, as well as to keep families well resourced in terms of the best help practices and resources for issues that are effecting them today.

Focus on the Family’s Executive Director, Tim Sisarich, also a former broadcaster, says it is an exciting and bold move for Focus on the Family.

“It is a sign of the times, that a family-help group would need to employ a full-time media and research person. There is so much going on that has major effects on parents & families - the ground is constantly shifting”

Mr. Sisarich believes that most parents are doing their very best in bringing up their children, but also recognise that they don’t have all the answers.

He says, “Now that we have someone as experienced in family research as Cathy Jenke, Focus on the Family’s online resource Centre will be a place to find those answers.”

Focus on the Family has been nurturing and helping families around the world for 30 years, and has been working locally since 1999.

Web Links

• Focus on the Family (New Zealand)
• Rhema Radio

UCB UK coming to Derbyshire

Ofcom has today announced the award of a new local Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) radio multiplex licence, to cover Derbyshire, to Now Digital (East Midlands) Limited.

Sharholders in this group are Now Digital Limited (part of GCap Media plc), Sabras Sound Ltd and Chrysalis Radio Limited.

The new DAB network will provide Derbyshire with eight local digital sound programme services, in addition to BBC Radio Derby, and the programming line-up will include the output from UCB UK.

Ofcom estimates that this licence could achieve coverage of an area with an adult population of around 846,500 and is expected to be in service by July 2008.