What Being 'Encouraging' Misses

Could your station BE any more encouraging? I typed that in the voice of Chandler Bing. If there was ever a guy who needed encouragement, it was him. K-Love got to NYC a couple of decades too late for Chandler and his Friends to soak in that positive encouragement. It's no accident our format's flagship station is built on Positive & Encouraging. Encouragement is the price of admission for any CCM station wanting a meaningful relationship with its audience. It's time to revisit HOW we encourage. Currently, we're halfway there. (Whoa-OH! Livin on a PrayyyyER!)

If I'm right (and I am sometimes...my track record is probably on par with Ross Geller's), when you think of how your station encourages, it's probably stuff like "God loves you no matter what." Verses, quotes, songs, and show content all aimed at keeping God's best for us front and center. Don't stop doing that. But also, don't stop there.

When we limit being encouraging to the most basic concepts of God's love, we limit our potential to push the darkness out of our culture (and even out of Christian culture). The world and the Church need more than Phoebe's ceaseless positive vibes. (Unless we want to end up like Ursula.)

Christians are stereotyped largely by what we're against, not Who we are for. How we got here and whether that's fair is for another time. It's simply the reality we exist in, like it or not. You've felt it from your own audience when you've received a legalistic complaint email.

It was one of those emails that recently got Matt Pelishek from KAXL, Brant Hansen from Cure International/himself, and I talking about what encouraging COULD mean. One of those guys suggested it might be OUR role to encourage a different way of living to our audience...to the person whose email was vexing one of us.

In a world (typed that in my Movie Trailer Guy voice) where Christians are just as cutting on social media as anyone else. In one where the line between politics and faith is so blurry it's barely visible anymore. A world where we hardly raise an eyelash as the headlines tell us of another life lost. Where we feel nothing when Christians are slaughtered in distant countries. In this kind of world, somebody with influence needs to speak up and model a better way.

What if we went beyond encouragement that sounded like "God will get you through" to encouragement that reminded our listeners "The meek shall inherit the earth?" Or "Blessed are the peacemakers?" To put it more bluntly: what if we dared our audience to not just rely on Christ, but to imitate Him in every part of life?

I totally get why we rarely go there. It could too easily come off as preachy. Like Monica when she's in clean freak mode. But somebody needs to step up, and nobody is better positioned than us. Chances are 30-40% of your cume does not attend church. And even of those who do, the most basic tenets of how to live as a Christian are clearly not being sent or received from enough pulpits. The proof is in the lack of love many Christians have for our own kind. (Jesus told us the world would know Him by our love for each other, after all.)

Your station on its worst day probably has an audience the size of your city's largest church. If you're moderately successful in the ratings, you may have a radio audience larger than all your market's congregations added together. In other words: your potential to influence Christians in your market is enormous. Especially if you have personalities who are trusted friends to your audience.

We NEED trusted friends to set us straight. Not to preach at us, but to be real with us. To speak truth in love. I don't quite know how this would play out on the radio. There are definitely ways we could get it wrong. The transformation we could affect if we got it right though? That's game changing. Actually, it's world changing.

Encouragement that dares and challenges must come from a spirit of humility. An admission that none of us have arrived yet. It's gotta fit the brand/vibe/mission of your station. It should ultimately be affirming, friendly, and even entertaining. (If people aren't entertained when they listen, nothing will get through.) "It's not what you said, it's the way you said it." - Joey Tribbiani

You might be thinking "Mike, she doesn't come to my station for that. I have research on the top 5 reasons she listens, and being told how to live her life isn't in there." What if this is a case where the customer isn't always right? Mark Seignious (rhymes with genius...like the dude Charlie dated before meeting Ross) from the University of Northwestern - St. Paul told me "Aaron took a survey while Moses was receiving some relatively important tablets and ended up making a golden calf...And well, Pilate gave the audience what they wanted- Barrabas. As soon as we totally give in to everything we think the audience wants, that's a dangerous path. Our identity is never in the audience. We certainly look to serve them but Jesus is the center of the universe. Seek the Lord's approval, not the audience's."

The true definition of encouragement, going by the Google hits I got: "to give support, confidence, or hope to (someone)." CCM Radio has that part down cold. This next part is where I'm hoping our format can go "to make someone more likely to do something, or to make something more likely to happen... to talk or behave in a way that gives someone confidence to do something." So, let's give our listeners the same confidence Rachel had when she walked out on her own wedding. The confidence to not only trust God's love, but to live it out.