Build Your Section of the Wall
In Christian radio, it’s pretty easy to tell who’s doing ministry – or at least we think it is.
The air personality talking about Jesus? Of course! The person praying with a listener? Absolutely!
But what about the engineer driving to a transmitter site? The person in Finance working on a spreadsheet? The production person working on version 17 of a promo? The person processing a donor’s gift?
Who’s doing ministry?
All of them!
I’ve been thinking about this because of a chapter in the Bible I’ve probably skimmed more times than I’ve actually studied: Nehemiah 3.
It’s basically a list. This person repaired this gate. That person repaired that section. Then somebody else repaired the section next to them. And there are a lot of names that are really hard to pronounce.
But when I slowed down and really looked at the chapter, I realized it gives us a pretty great picture of ministry.
Everybody Had a Section
Jerusalem’s walls were in ruins, and Nehemiah challenged the people to rebuild.
Nobody rebuilt the entire wall. Everybody had a section.
And they weren’t all builders. There were priests, goldsmiths, merchants, government officials and families. There was even a perfume maker.
I love that. Someone essentially said, “We need to rebuild the wall,” and a perfume maker said, “Okay. Give me a section.”
Different people. Different skills. Different assignments.
Same wall.
That sounds a lot like what we do in Christian media.
We recognize ministry when it happens behind a microphone or when someone prays with a listener. But ministry can also look like fixing a transmitter, building a budget, scheduling music, writing code, processing a gift or staying late to get something finished.
We’re all doing ministry.
We’re just building different sections of the wall.
Your Section Isn’t the Wall
There’s a phrase that keeps showing up in Nehemiah 3. Someone repairs a section, and then someone else repairs the section “next to them.”
Their work was connected.
So is ours.
Think about everything that has to happen for one listener driving home to hear the right song at exactly the right moment.
Someone keeps the signal on. Someone researches and schedules the music. Someone creates the imaging. Someone raises the money. Someone processes the gift. Someone keeps the technology working. Someone puts the right person behind the microphone.
Eventually, someone sitting alone in a car hears something that reminds them:
God hasn’t forgotten me.
Most of the people who helped make that moment happen will never know about it.
But they were part of it.
This is also something I have to remind myself of as a leader:
My section isn’t the wall.
My department isn’t the wall. My station isn’t the wall. My strategy isn’t the wall. My idea isn’t the wall.
It’s a section.
It matters. I should build it well. But it’s still just one section connected to everybody else’s.
None of us gets to say, “I built this.”
We get to say, “I got to be part of this.”
God Notices Faithfulness
This is probably my favorite part of Nehemiah 3.
God could have summarized the whole chapter with one sentence:
“The wall was rebuilt.”
But He didn’t.
He recorded the names of the people who built it.
Priests. Goldsmiths. Merchants. Families. People most of us have never heard of. Some of them never show up anywhere else in Scripture.
But their names are there.
God notices faithfulness.
We tend to notice the finished wall.
God noticed the people laying the stones.
That’s worth remembering in an industry where we measure almost everything. Ratings. Streams. Downloads. Followers. Donors. Revenue.
Those things matter. We should measure them. We should learn from them. We should always want to get better at what we do.
But not everything that matters shows up on a dashboard.
God sees the overnight personality encouraging one listener. He sees the engineer keeping the station on the air. He sees the person taking extra time with a donor who really just needs somebody to listen.
He sees the work nobody else sees.
Make Sure Your Team Knows
And for those of us who lead people, I think there’s a challenge here too.
Make sure your team knows their section matters.
From the janitor to the CEO.
And don’t assume they know it.
Tell them.
Then tell them again.
Connect what they do every day to the mission.
Tell the engineer why keeping that transmitter running matters. Help the person staring at a spreadsheet see the listener on the other side of those numbers. Remind the person processing donations what those gifts make possible.
Tell the stories.
Connect the dots.
And recognize the work that usually doesn’t get recognized.
People shouldn’t have to guess whether their work matters to the mission.
And those of us in leadership need the reminder too. Being the CEO, GM or PD doesn’t make our section of the wall more important. We may carry different responsibilities, but we’re still building a section.
Sometimes people simply need someone to come alongside them and say:
“I see what you’re doing. It matters. Keep going.”
If God thought the individual builders were worth naming in Nehemiah 3, we should probably make sure we’re noticing the names around us too.
We’re Building Next to Each Other
I think this applies beyond our individual stations and organizations too.
As an industry, we’re building next to each other.
Different call letters. Different networks. Different markets. Different strategies.
And sometimes the exact same song at the exact same time.
We may compete for listeners. We may disagree about strategy. We should absolutely push ourselves to be excellent at what God has given us to do.
But we’re not building different kingdoms.
We’re serving the same King.
Your station has a section. Mine has a section. The station across town has a section.
Most days, building that section isn’t glamorous.
It’s meetings. Music logs. Budgets. Production orders. Donor conversations. Technical problems. Emails. Deadlines.
I imagine Nehemiah 3 felt pretty ordinary too.
Stone after stone.
Day after day.
One section at a time.
And God used all of those individual sections to rebuild the wall.
So don’t underestimate your section.
Don’t spend so much time looking at somebody else’s section that you forget to build yours.
Build it well. Build it faithfully. Build it for Jesus.
You don’t have to build the whole wall.
Just take care of the section God has put in front of you.
Then, trust Him with the rest.
Jeff Evans
VP of Radio / Hope Media Group
