Flashback to 1986! I attended Evangel University. I was a grown-up preacher’s kid and I had found my calling because I definitely did not want to be a preacher. I wanted to be a DJ! Woo Hoo! I was working on the campus station and at that point I knew I wanted to be a Christian radio DJ! I wanted to play Petra, Whiteheart, Rez Band, and all of my favorites. I wanted to do ministry. But again, I really just wanted to be a DJ.
What a ride it has been!
Over the past 35 years, I have been blessed to be involved in Christian music (CCM) radio. I have talked about my faith on the radio. I have met people at concerts and listened to amazing stories about how the station and the music have impacted them. Sound familiar?
When I started with WayFM in 2002, I thought I had hit the jackpot. I was now working for a CCM network that was growing, and impacting lives all over the country. Later, when I became a part of the WayFM leadership team, we were so excited because we were ministering to so many!
Uh, but wait a second…
In 2016, our leadership stumbled onto something. Our prayer wall on our website was literally getting hundreds of prayer requests, and some of them were not even being prayed for!
We were deeply convicted.
We were running promos and inviting people to visit the prayer wall, but errr, uh, nothing was really going on over there. We were too busy doing our radio things. We had to ask ourselves… are we serious about ministry?
In Jan 2017, we hired our first Prayer Pastor at WayFM and it was not an easy decision. We really didn’t have the budget to do it. We had lots of other needs, like a new transmitter, repairs were needed on our station vehicles, etc. But we made an important decision to take our role as a ministry more seriously.
On his first day on the job, Pastor Dave (Our new Prayer Pastor) came into my office and showed me a prayer request that he had just received….
Dear Wally and WayFM,
I had an affair on my wife over the weekend with her best friend. Please pray for me.
I was blown away. This listener just spilled his guts to a radio station. Who would do this? And why? Because, we were his ministry. He needed more than just the radio signal, more than just a fun-loving DJ. He needed prayer. So, we prayed for him. Pastor Dave wrote to him…And we ministered to him.
And that was just the beginning. In the first year, we counted 10,000 prayer requests, the next year it was 20,000, the next year even more. We are still growing! And we are committed to praying for every single request. We are as serious about our behind-the-scenes ministry as we are about promotions, DJs, and other radio things.
We are not the church. We point people to church. But we are a ministry.
By the way, check out this article from Bethany Bravery at the CMB website, asking “Would You Be Willing To Wash Your Listener’s Feet?” She gets it!
What about you? Are there things you can do to increase your ministry in 2021?
2 Timothy 4:5 says this, But you should keep a clear mind in every situation. Don’t be afraid of suffering for the Lord. Work at telling others the Good News, and fully carry out the ministry God has given you.
I’ve recently moved into a new role as VP of Ministry at WayFM. I’d love to chat with you more about this. Let’s learn together. fdice@waynation.com
Faron Dice
VP of Ministry, WayFM
fdice@waynation.com
Faron Dice has worked for WayFM for the past 18 years and in CCM Radio for the past 35. He loves Jesus, his family, and still wonders why his band Timothy never made it big in the 80s.