Until All Have Heard
Until All Have Heard
The Big Idea (Ep. 292)
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The world is changing and we all know we need to prepare for the unexpected coming around the corner. In this episode Ed and Wayne invite you to a front row seat on an insider conversation about the next big idea for FEBC that will take us to 2050. In this 80th-anniversary year we remember the bold steps our founders took to use radio to reach the world. But technology is changing and so are the ways people use it. How do we prepare to step through this door of opportunity to use radical new methods to present the age-old message of salvation through Jesus?…Until All Have Heard.
Morning, Joe. Well, Joe, we got a little impromptu session here for you. So uh we're going to uh go ahead and record one of these them their podcasts. Thanks for joining us now for Until All Have Heard from the Far East Broadcasting Company. I'm Wayne Shepherd with Ed Cannon, president of FEBC, and I'm so glad that we could get together for these podcasts, Ed, which isn't easy because you have been traveling nonstop almost for several months now, haven't you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, maybe for several years, maybe a little over a decade.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I wanted to ask you, back when you your career early on was in the oil industry, and you traveled the world then. I did. Could you ever have imagined you'd be traveling the world for Christ at this point in your life?
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell, Jr. No, never in a million years, Wayne, would I have dreamt that I'm going to be doing this. And it's interesting because I was just talking about this the other day. People said, well, you used to travel the world, and so it must be the same traveling with FEBC as it was working for a big oil company. I said, No, no, no. You don't understand. Traveling the world with a major oil company was very different than traveling with FEBC. We had limousines and stayed in fancy hotels and conference centers. Now I have the privilege of being picked up by our staff at the airport, staying in their homes, uh worshiping in thatched roof churches where frogs and lizards are hopping along the floor. It is very different. And I must say, it's much more of a joy to serve the Lord traveling the world with French.
SPEAKER_00I'm not surprised to hear you say that. That really says a lot right there. Well, our topic here for the next few minutes, we like this to be sort of the inside story of the Far East Broadcasting Company. So we have so many friends who are eagerly anticipating what's what's the next move for Far East Broadcasting. Let's talk about the future. You've been giving that a lot of thought. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01I have. You know, Wayne, for the last five years or so, I have been saying to our staff around the world look, guys, in 1945, Bob Bowman had a big idea. And his idea was that because radio has been such a valuable tool to pull the Allies together in the Second World War, we can use radio to pull Christians together to take the gospel inside the bamboo curtain of China. That was the big idea. It was very visionary for its time, wasn't it? Trevor Burrus, Jr. It was. And it worked. And it expanded. Once the the world, the Christian world, saw how valuable this radio tool was in China, FABC expanded into Indonesia and Japan and Korea and now all across Eurasia, using radio as, to use Bob Bowman's term, a portable missionary. So that's the way they talked about it. This is a missionary in a box, or they even called them PMs. What's a PM? It's a portable missionary. It's a wooden radio that we built in our offices in the Philippines for decades so that we could hand those radios to people so they could pick up shortwave radio. And I I don't know the number. Heaven alone knows the number, but there are tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people who heard the gospel for the first time through these shortwave broadcasts of FEBC. And um it's to no credit of our own, to God be the glory for all of it. It's his work through many, many, many broken but yet passionate and dedicated staff around the world who work tirelessly to put these broadcasts on the radio. But my question to the staff is what's the next big idea? That was a big idea in 1945.
SPEAKER_00It served us eighty years ago. Yeah, I think. And we're grateful for the the platform it's given us all these.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And here we find ourselves today. So what's the next big idea that's gonna take us to 2050? And the world is changing so rapidly, Wayne. Um even in your and I work together with FM radio and AM radio, today's young people don't even know what FM radio is. And if you don't believe me, ask your own children. Ask your grandchildren. Do they listen to FM radio? And they'll look at you like, I don't know what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_00Well, the latest statistics bear it out that there's more online listening now than actual radio listening in the U.S. And I'm sure that's true around the world, too. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01Oh, absolutely. The numbers that we are receiving on online listening, these are social media platforms, uh web-based platforms, cell phone apps that FEBC is using in more than a hundred languages, those are where we're seeing the most responses, the most people, the most engagement. Trevor Burrus, Jr. And one of the things I've said about that that that really makes me happy is shortwave radio, FM radio, we were broadcasting to our listeners. We were speaking to them. On these platforms, Wayne, cell phone apps and social media, we're having a conversation with the listener. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Very important. Trevor Burrus, Jr. They respond. We can answer, we can engage them. And when it's on a public platform, someone asks a question, we're not answering that question for one person, but for everyone who's on that app. So it is a wonderful gift from God to give us the technology to be able to engage audiences in a different way.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Before we talk more about the future, as best as we can tell what it's going to be, and as best we can prepare ourselves for that future, what about things like shortwave and the future of shortwave radio?
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Well, there's some very difficult decisions probably looming in the near future. We've done quite a lot of research lately and determined that the listenership internationally of shortwave radio has declined so significantly that most people in the countries where we've been broadcasting to for 80 years don't even own shortwave radios. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00We've moved on to cell phones, really, haven't they?
SPEAKER_01Trevor Burrus, Jr.: They've moved on to Yeah, everyone has a cell phone. I think I told you a story the other day where we had some of our people in a very remote region going in to deliver radios because we had heard from this local group. Uh it was actually in a remote section of the Philippines that they were responding a lot to our radio station. We wanted to give them some radios. So this is typical of FEBC. We'll go and hand out radios to people that are fixed-tuned to our stations. We'll worship together with them, have some music, we'll have some of our pastoral staff praying with people, answering their questions about the gospel, handing out tracks, uh having some refreshments, and really building a relationship with a listener. And when they got into this village, everyone there was asking them if they could be their Facebook friends. And so here we are thinking we're doing a great service to these people by handing them fixed-tune radios, but they've advanced to the next level. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00We're definitely in transition time, are we?
SPEAKER_01Trevor Burrus, we're in transition time. And so we're going to s well, we've we've done a lot of research in the shortwave radio. We've prayed about what the future for that looks like, and we're going to make some decisions here in the next year or so about how much longer we will be broadcasting on that platform. It's a very difficult decision, but it's also a very important one because the expense of operating these huge shortwave transmitters and antennas is enormous.
SPEAKER_00But you know what encourages me, and we've talked about this before as well, it encourages me that we're talking about the delivery method. We're not talking about the content of the message. The message remains exactly the same as it was 80 years ago. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's right. And for a lot of those radio professionals, everybody knows the phrase content is king, right, Wayne? And we have coined our own phrase at FEBC. We say content is king when the king is the content. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Trevor Burrus, Jr. And that's what we adhere to. Our strategy is not to just do radio and put broadcasts out. Our strategy is to introduce our listeners to Jesus Christ, his gospel, his message in its entirety, with the hopes that the Holy Spirit will drive them through that message to become dedicated followers of Jesus Christ. And we've even incorporated into that strategy. Now that you're a disciple, now that you're a follower of Jesus and a disciple of Christ, we want to use you with the content that we can offer you on your cell phone to be a disciple to others. So it's an expansive strategy. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00Well, just as you and I and so many other people couldn't see where we are today, you know, twenty or thirty years ago, we couldn't have predicted where we are today. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right. We can't see twenty or thirty years into the future necessarily, but we can do something about it now, can't we?
SPEAKER_01Trevor Burrus You are exactly right, Wayne. I mean, we think about uh what is that big idea for 2050, and we might settle on one. Uh, for example, a year or so ago, we thought, wow, Facebook is the thing. Everybody's on Facebook. Within one year's time, people are dropping off of Facebook and going to platforms that I can't even pronounce or remember. I was just chatting with one of our Chinese men the other day, and he told me they're on uh red dog. And I thought I don't even I've never even heard of that. But you know, it replaces WeChat and Facebook Live and some of these other uh platforms that people are using. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they don't die out immediately, but they kind of phase out over time, don't they? We're beginning maybe maybe the the beginning we're seeing of that transition. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01And over time has become a shorter and shorter and shorter period. New stuff pops up in the middle of the phone. Well, information.
SPEAKER_00I wish I had the statistics in front of me how fast information is changing. It's unbelievable.
SPEAKER_01So therefore, I don't know the answer to the what are we gonna be doing for for 2050. And I ask our staff around the world, what is our big idea? And everyone looks at me like, well, we're not sure. So with that ambiguity in front of us, not knowing exactly what platform people are gonna be listening in the future, we say we adapt a strategy that's nimble and agile. We don't care what the platform is, we're not locking into a platform. Just like you said, Wayne, we're locking into content distribution. We provide the content that's gonna be on whatever platform people are listening to, so that we'll be on the cutting edge of delivering our content where people are.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Ross Powell Well, there's something to be said for uh being nimble, uh being ready to respond when the opportunity arises. So that that takes some even financial planning to have the resourcing to do that in the future.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, you know, there's a phrase, uh well, it's actually a quote that I absolutely love. We've talked about this a lot at FEBC as we're in a kind of an ambiguous position. But the French scientist Louis Pasteur, I'm sure many of you have heard of him, he said chance favors the prepared mind. And I think that fits so much where we are today. If if we're thinking, wow, what's the probability of something? What is the ch chances of this happening? If you don't know, having a prepared mind is an advantage. And so we think about what can we do to give ourselves a prepared mind or a prepared organization so that we'll be favored in the unpredictable future. So what do we do about that? We're training young leaders in leadership. We're we have a leadership academy, we're we're developing the future leaders of FEBC, teaching them how to lead, how to build a strategy, how to think about data acquisition that's real, following up with what have we broadcast that makes a difference and what doesn't, moving quickly to dispose ourselves of the of the bad luggage that that we're hanging on to from the past and move into the future. So what we're doing is preparing the future. We're creating an organization filled with people, well-equipped, well-trained, and well prepared for an unforeseen future. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00What I like about that, Ed, is it isn't just based in North America. We have an international organization. We have strategic thinkers all over the world. So we're not dependent on just what we can, you know, uh get motivated about here where we live. It's it's gonna it's gonna serve people elsewhere, and we need to keep that in mind, and they need to be a big part of that, and you encourage that.
SPEAKER_01Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah, absolutely. And the more people we bring in, the more minds we've got, the more ideas we have, the more opportunity we have for these emerging leaders of F EBC to bounce ideas off of each other. What about this? Could we use a Starlink application in someplace like China to develop hubs where content could be distributed to people who don't have access to those kinds of things? How can we get our content onto a cell phone? And if it works in Indonesia or it works in Vietnam, guess what? It's probably gonna work in Pakistan or in Ukraine. And so having that breadth of minds and diversity of opportunities to think about what these ideas are, I think will be in the right place. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00Well, the thing about something like Starlink is the fact that, you know, governments will shut down the Internet in their country. They're not gonna shut down Starlink unless they shoot the satellites out of the sky, and there are hundreds of them up there. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01And actually, we've had people tell us, well, that might happen. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, anyway. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: But we need to be ready. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Just imagine, I know you do because you've you've think about this a lot, but just imagine how radical it was eighty years ago for Bob Bowman and John Broger and all the rest of the men and women behind the Far East Broadcasting Company to do what they did. Let's be bold in doing that for the future, huh?
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell That's exactly right. And it doesn't look like the past. No. It doesn't look like the past. It can model the um courage and innovation that they had at those times to do things that were really difficult to do. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Which is why I love one of the phrases that Dr. Bob Bowman used all the time. It's like FEBC serves the God of the impossible. If it's not first impossible, then you don't need God to do it. So we depend on God entirely through prayer and our minds being shaped by what is his will. Therefore, you're not unwilling to take on impossible tasks. Right. And sometimes I look at this social media world, we have no idea what it's going to look like five years from now. But we don't back down, we don't curl up into a ball, but rather we go forward. What are we going to do based on what we know today, what we can see today, how are we going to do things? You know, you mentioned just a minute ago, like people could shut down Internet. Well, they can't shut down shortwave without a huge amount of money. So many people I talk to say, well, Ed, you need to keep going with shortwave all the time because they can't shut it down. Well, I I dispute that because if nobody's listening to it, if they don't have shortwave radio. It shuts itself off. We're using technology today that, yes, it's possible governments could shut down the Internet and they could shut down social media. But what we've seen so far is they're not going to do that. And as long as those platforms are up and running and people are listening, we're going to get the gospel on that platform, even if it's only for the next year. And a year later, we'll do something else. And so this is where we say chance favors our prepared organization. We're doing our best to prepare FEBC for a future that we can't see today, so that when it comes, we will be ready and able with the gospel where people are listening.
SPEAKER_00Trevor Burrus, Jr. Let's invite our listeners to pray to those ends. Aaron Ross Powell That'd be great. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, uh so join us as we go before the Lord. Lord, we have a lot of people listening today who uh are going to join us in this prayer because they too have a passion to reach the unreached with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Guide our young staff to have prepared minds, to be nimble and agile and ready and equipped, so that when an unforeseen future comes, they will know exactly how to take your word through those media platforms into the hearts and minds of our listeners around the world. And as we think about that future, Lord, we pray that you would open the hearts of those people who have yet heard, so that when through technology, FEBC gets the gospel to them, or anyone gets the gospel to them, that their hearts will be open and ready and they will accept your Son as Lord and Savior of their life. Amen.
SPEAKER_00Amen. Thank you, Ed. Great conversation today. I really uh get inspired talking about this stuff, and I'm sure our listeners do as well. Uh while we wait for the Lord's return, this is what we need to be doing. We need to be thinking about how to reach the world for Christ, right? So thank you. And we will continue to do that until all have heard. Until all have heard. Yeah, well, that's a that's a phrase that we should use. And we do for the title of this podcast. So thank you for listening. More information, of course, where you can keep up with the exciting details of what's unfolding in the future here for FEBC. Go to FEBC.org. All right, I'm Wayne Shepherd with Ed Cannon. Thanks for listening. Always a pleasure to be with you here on Until All Have Heard.