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Christianity Today, April (Web-only), 2009 |

Some Preachers, Long Gone, Keep Preaching from Beyond the Grave

Pastors' messages continue through TV, radio, and the Internet, even as some listeners probably don't even know they're gone.

Adelle M. Banks, Religion News Service | posted 4/23/2009 10:20AM

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Quentin Schultze, a Calvin College communication professor and editor of Understanding Evangelical Media: The Changing Face of Christian Communication, said the Internet, especially, has given religious broadcasters a second lease on life, even as the first lease expired.

"In the age of the Internet, such ministers will not likely survive on pricey broadcast media," he said, "but they will continue to be available online and through computer downloads to iPods and other personal players."

Derek Prince Ministries has been doing just that. Prince, whose strong British accent permeates his discussions of the Holy Spirit, end-times theology and healing, died in 2003 at age 88, yet his "Derek Price Legacy Radio" airs on 35 stations and online.

"People will write to us or call us or e-mail us regularly and say, 'I just finished listening to Derek's message … and my life has changed,"' said Dick Leggatt, president of the charismatic Christian ministry based in Charlotte, N.C.

The Rev. Bill Skelton, president and CEO of Love Worth Finding, said the Tennessee ministry founded by Rogers runs on about 13,000 U.S. television outlets and 1,800 radio stations worldwide. His Internet sermons were downloaded 1.7 million times last year.

"His own words were, 'While the messenger's gone home, the message must continue,"' said Skelton, who also is chairman of the NRB board.

"It may sound a little bit macabre to say this: I think as long as people turn on their radio and turn on their television sets and hear somebody teaching and preaching truths that are relevant to this life, the fact that he is alive or not is really not the important thing."

Skelton said he's used his ministry as Exhibit A in workshops at NRB conventions about the importance of succession plans before a major ministry leader is no longer physically able to be on the air.

At least one evangelical broadcast ministry has made its decision already.

Focus on the Family, the Colorado ministry founded by the very-much-alive James Dobson, will continue to air Dobson's broadcasts after he dies, said ministry spokesman Gary Schneeberger.

"In addition to producing new shows, when such a time comes, with new voices, there will always be a place for the content that Dr. Dobson has poured his heart into for the last 32 years," he said.

Related Elsewhere:

Christianity Today has extensive coverage of transitions in evangelicalism in the news section and on liveblog.

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Doug B

Posted: May 05, 2009 3:10 PM

All of the teachers...preachers of the Bible are dead. They have not changed with the socially acceptable or religious correct... The truth does not change. These preachers.....caught the spirit of what Christ taught. That is what they taught. Although dead...in the physical sense....very much alive in the spiritual sense. The great ministers who have been with us since the radio and transcriptions began their broadcasts... They are proven...tested..tried and true.. God speaks to us in unusual ways. I have had several friends who were converted listening to Vernon McGee. (after his physical death. His words are recorded....and he has nothing other to gain.) I only wish the new ministers would be tried by fire...before they preach their own gospel. You shall know them by their fruit. They have no reason to try to be culturally accepted. The contaminated contemporary Christian music and words.... are for a temporary time. Not for eternity.

Pearl

Posted: May 04, 2009 10:34 AM


Gilbert Patterson of Memphis, Tenn. is still on Television and now on the internet. His preaching and teaching has been a blessing to many around the world. I am less pained when these servants of God die. To know that their teaching lives on is a trememdous blessing.

James T

Posted: April 27, 2009 2:05 PM

There are others, of course. Oliver B. Greene of the Gospel Hour can still be heard on the radio nearly 33 years after his death, and Lester Roloff can still be heard over 25 years after his homegoing. Fundamentalism keeps hanging on to the old timers--I hope that a new generation will stop hanging on to the past and to the dead traditions that make them seem irrelevant to believers and non-believers today.

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