by Michael Chant, General Secretary of the Bible Society in Australia (South Australia)

AUSTRALIA — At the beginning of 2004 we were given the chance to host a four-hour Sunday Night Talk show on our local Christian radio station. Given that none of us – including our producer and news reader! – had had any previous radio experience, it might be considered a stroke of divine humour.

But a particular area of interest for us in South Australia is making God’s Word accessible to people from all walks of life, and with a listening audience of somewhere between 6,000 and 20,000 per week, we saw this as a chance to reach more people than any church in Adelaide and a superb opportunity to make the Bible heard across the city.

This year, my brother Luke, the state co-ordinator for the Alpha Course (an introduction to Christianity), has joined me on air as my co-host. We have the support of a team of volunteers, including some Bible Society staff members.

Each week we invite a guest to share with listeners, by phone, something of the work of the Bible Society in their own country.

We also have our own resident minister who enlightens us with his brief but humorous exposition of selected Bible words and phrases.

One of our popular monthly segments is Frequently Asked Questions (‘FAQ’) in which a panel of experienced ministers and theologians answer listeners’ questions about life, Christianity, the Bible, and just about anything, including whether Adam and Eve had belly buttons!

We inherited this segment from the former hosts and I have to say we stumbled on the best way of getting ‘listener interaction’ by accident. Originally all we did at this point in the show was to open the phone lines. But one night we were struggling to get any calls! Then, God suddenly gave us the idea of taking text messages. We gave out a mobile number over the air and we soon had more questions than we knew what to do with!

Some of the ones we get are a bit unexpected: “I’ve just left a homosexual relationship. Does God still love me?” Others require the gift of interpretation: “According to da prayer of jabez, its like as long we ask, god works. Wut r yor views of da hype around this prayer?”

Others, such as, “I’ve been sexually abused by someone close to me. What can I do?”, have given our panellists the opportunity to minister into the lives of some very hurt and confused people. Our answers always point people to God’s Word, and are a clear example of ‘helping people interact with the Word of God’.

We see Sunday Night Talk as a vehicle through which the Bible and its living message of hope is made accessible to many who might not otherwise hear, not only through the words of the Scriptures themselves, but through the dynamic interaction of God’s people with the local community. For anyone else contemplating the challenge of radio, be encouraged!