Here we are.  In the last few days before what we hope is the ‘often talked about, long anticipated’ announcement of our new studio location. As I write this letter we have progressed to the point of ‘getting pretty close’ to announcing the location but being unable to do so because of putting the finishing touches on the contracts. Hopefully, by the time you read this letter, we will be within days of making that announcement.  It has been a unique and interesting process. We’ll ‘talk about it’ some day very soon.

Moving the studios will, as long as listeners partnership with us, secure the future broadcast of this ministry.  It will permit us to grow, not only physically, but also to grow by being able to place this Gospel of Grace into the public market place in new and interesting ways.  We have imaginations and visions of future events that we will increase the encouragement from WBVN and provide new services for our listeners. Recently, we have been working on bringing a Christian ‘off-Broadway’ musical to the area for the first time. We are excited about the possibilities.

As we continue that process, we are aware of the original purpose of this ministry.  It is a singular vision.  We started broadcasting on January 8^th, 1990 as a ministry to the Body of Christ. However, the day we started broadcasting was not the true beginning. The start of something that God gives a vision for begins when that vision is placed in the heart. That started a couple years earlier on an October day when the first conversations were had about the faint possibility of a Contemporary Christian Music radio station in the area. An ‘idea’ that seemed impossible in the beginning. Now, some nineteen years later we have a ‘family’ of WBVN listeners that have been encouraged with the message found in CCM.  The driving force behind what we’ve done is a confidence in the Grace of God as true ‘change-agent’ of God. The revelation of God’s Love never leaves anyone the same as they were before.  When we see Him for who He really is we are changed, each and every revelation of Him. 

That confidence comes from the knowledge that God does not abandon us because of our stupid acts and He is surprisingly not overly impressed with the acts we get right! God provides a Grace that over comes our errors. It is also a Grace that doesn’t depend on our self-righteousness to bridge the distance between a Holy God and man. It’s an unconditional Love not dependent upon our performance, on our good or bad, but depends on the blood and resurrection of Jesus. It does not ‘hinge’ on us being lovable; rather, it’s that He Love’s so much!  This Grace is not earned; it’s granted, or activated, by our acceptance of His Love. 

It has been a seventeen-year span of encouraging our listeners. We encourage them that it’s not what they’ve done for God that matters, but it’s what God has done for them that matters.  I know we all want to do good and we want to be good; however, to do and be good, we need to realize that those are the results of God’s Grace, not the pre-requisite of God’s Grace. God is not responding to what we do. We should be responding to what He has done. That’s the Christian life.  It’s a ‘Responsibility” granted through Grace. The ‘ability to respond’ to His Love has been granted to us. That ‘ability’ is the enabler for us to live that Christian life. That gift of Grace creates results we cannot expect from taming our flesh, but only by the living Spirit of God in us.

Paul, who learned of this Grace from no man but directly from the whisper of God, shocked the religious people around him by teaching a justification apart from performance.  Performance should not be motivated by fear or shame, but by a Grace that transforms through a revelation of God’s Righteousness, the free gift of God. We should never ‘hope’ that our performance will motive God to give us what we deserve.  Why?  Because what we deserve, even the best of us, is separation from a Holy God.  This Grace, this salvation, is through a Faith apart from our works.  It is the great Wisdom of God that works follow Grace not the other way round.  We will perform ‘better’ with a revelation of His Love rather than a revelation of right and wrong.  That tree of right and wrong was the knowledge that got Adam and Eve in trouble. It was then and is now the tree of Life that provided a way of life apart from that knowledge tree.  Most unbelievers I know already know they are wrong; they don’t need a revelation of that.  Most just don’t see any way to ‘get’ right.

Paul was not teaching or promoting ‘ungodliness’ as some have accused. He was teaching that the way to escape ‘ungodliness’ is empowered by a revelation of His Love.  That revelation will drive us toward God.  Simply, if we are alienated in our minds from God because we do something stupid, we can’t find our way out of the problem. That’s the first thing Adam and Eve did. They ran and hid themselves from God because of their revelation of good and evil.  Discovering themselves to be in error, their answer to the problem was to separate themselves from God.  That was a mistake then and it is a mistake now.  The ‘grace’ thing would be to run toward Him, not run away from Him. He’s the answer, not the problem!

If people ask me where to start reading the Bible, generally, I tell them to start in Colossians. It is a ‘past-tense’ book.  There, we discover that Christ has already accomplished much of what we think we need to be accomplishing.  The ‘victory’ has been won!  It’s not ours to win, but ours to benefit from and enter into its ‘Peace’. Understanding what has happened already ‘in Christ’ pulls the teeth of that old lion and quiets (or at least mutes) the word of the accuser.

At WBVN, it’s a message that finds what we have in common in our listening community, not what are differences are.  It’s a message obligated to the ‘captain of our Faith.’ Peter’s great mistake was not so much what he said but that he ‘looked away’ from Jesus, and the result was a great ‘sinking’ feeling in Peter’s life.  This ministry is about keeping our eye on Christ and not looking to the right or the left.  That’s what being ‘single-eyed’ was all about.

While our location will soon change, we still remember that original ‘vision’ from early on in 1988.   Nothing about that purpose has or will change in the future. That new studio will not change our message. It will permit even more of that message to be proclaimed in new and exciting ways.