Goodbye TV..Hello books!

It all started last summer.

We were visiting Marianne's parents in Tennessee. There was a book on the coffee table titled "When Joy Came to Stay" by Karen Kingsbury. Daughter-in-law Christine was reading it.
I looked at it, started reading..and got about halfway through before Christine and Tim had to leave for home in Easley, S.C.

Upon our own return home, first thing I did was order the book from Amazon. Marianne started checking Karen Kingsbury books out of the church library. Then..Terri Blackstock..Lori Wick..Francine Rivers..

Except for our Netflix movies that we get, we've both gotten hooked on reading again. Especially
the Christian fiction genre. It takes me 2 or 3 evenings to read a book all the way through. So
we've been using the church library quite a bit!

Even the fiction books in the Christian genre have a way of reaching deep into your heart. We
noticed that some books had not been checked out in several years.

That's too bad..there's some quality stuff out there!

MUSIC OF NEW LIFE..growing already

It's sometimes amazing how things work out when we least expect it.

In my last post, I explained how the classic Christian music program MUSIC OF NEW LIFE would be syndicated. Here's how it came about:

Several years ago I bought most of the music library up at WJEP up near Thomasville, Georgia.
This was back during some of my time at WCVC, which was airing a variety Christian format at that time. In 1997 I began airing a weekly classic Christian music show on Saturday afternoons.
It continued there through about mid-2001. When WCVC dropped all of its music, the program came to an end.

WCVC's music library vanished shortly after, sold to an ITEX businessman in Texas. When I learned about this, I tracked the collection down, ultimately talking with Mark, the gentleman in
Texas, who told me he was "disappointed, because he had been sold radio promo discs that he couldn't legally sell to the public." I made an offer, which he accepted, and back came WCVC's library - packed into 9 or 10 boxes in a UPS truck.

Acquiring all this music felt great, but I was still puzzled, since there was no station or signal to play it on. I tried it full time on a Live365 streaming station. It got plenty of listeners but was losing money and I couldn't continue to go into the red at that level. So I did nothing for the past year with it..

Until Musicbox 1610 signed on. When it did, I brought the classic Christian music back on Sunday mornings, giving it the MUSIC OF NEW LIFE name, a moniker originally used by WCVC back in the 1980s.

On December 26, an email from a station owner in Louisiana stated simply, "If you ever get the program up and going we would like to carry it."

The program originates on Musicbox 1610 from 7:30 to 9:30 am on Sunday mornings. The 7:30 to 8:00 am segment includes weather and local church announcements. The 8 to 9 am hour
is now generic, making it possible to tape the live broadcast and repackage it into a weekly
hour-long program, which I am self-syndicating to other stations and networks.

As of today, MUSIC OF NEW LIFE is on 4 stations: Musicbox 1610; KELB-LPFM 100.5 in Lake Charles, Louisiana; and the Radio Brandy network of 2 stations near Thousand Oaks, California.

I have felt a renewed sense of purpose and direction with this project. I've spent several hours this week researching the basics of syndication.

Thank you Lord for taking away the sense of floundering and doubt! I know MUSIC OF NEW LIFE is a quality product that will only get better as I get back into the groove of being on the air on a regular basis. After all, I've been off local commercial radio for three years now.

I'm planning to get the program on a streaming and satellite service, which should expose the program to many more listeners.

MUSIC OF NEW LIFE to be syndicated!

In some of the best news I've been able to share lately, I'm happy to announce that the classic Christian MUSIC OF NEW LIFE program will be released nationally via a self-syndicated version, starting this month.

MUSIC OF NEW LIFE is the classic Christian music of the 70s, 80s, 90s and early 2000s that
I once broadcast locally over WCVC-AM as the "Best Christian Music of All Time." Artists such as Dallas Holm, David Meece, Amy Grant, Evie, the Imperials, Twila Paris and many others
will be featured on the weekly broadcast.

MUSIC OF NEW LIFE will be broadcast locally on Musicbox 1610 and also over KELB in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Portions of the local broadcast will be recorded for use on the national
program. Hopefully we will add more affiliates and expand to a weekly two-hour program as
the bugs are worked out.

I'm delighted to be back hosting and producing a classic Christian program! The Lord truly opened the door to make this happen, including the provision of a brand new radio board for
producing the program.

May God be glorified through the MUSIC OF NEW LIFE broadcast.

No, I haven't quit blogging...

..but the computer crash in early December brought it to a screeching halt.

I got Marianne a new Dell computer for Christmas. I'm using it right now to blog for the first time in over a month.

So, for those of you who read this..we had a bittersweet Christmas. Marianne's sister, Christena,
passed away Christmas afternoon, and our much-loved neighbor, Frank Rabitaille, passed away Dec. 26. Marianne headed for Tennessee and Ohio. I stayed here and attended Uncle Frank's services. Unfortunately, these circumstances brought Christmas to a stop much too soon.
Our consolation is that both of these loved ones were believers, so we know they're with Jesus.
But we sure will miss them!