Forward in Faith Continues Long Tradition
Cleveland, TN—While not as prominent in the overall ministry of the Church of God as it once was, Forward in Faith continues to garner consistent listeners.
Radio stations across the nation continue to carry the weekly message in a variety of formats, including 15 and 30-minute lengths. Church of God Communications announced this week the launch of a new website – www.cogforwardinfaith.com – where several weeks of the program are available for anyone to listen to at any time. Radio stations will use the site to download the desired program into their radio logs.
Since 1994, the voice of Forward in Faith has been Pastor Loran Livingston. The weekly programs are Livingston’s sermons delivered to the congregation at Central Church of God in Charlotte, N.C. where he serves as senior pastor.
The Forward in Faith radio ministry began in December 1958 and for decades reigned as the signature program of the Church of God. Prior to the rise of the Internet, Forward in Faith was a full department of the Church with several employees and a reach across the nation and several foreign countries. Such names as Ray H. Hughes, Floyd J. Timmerman, Bennie Triplett and Carl Richardson were synonymous as the voices of the Church of God with a weekly recorded message broadcast across the radio airwaves. Listeners had no choice but to tune in to their favorite local station at the time it was scheduled, usually on Sunday morning. In the mid-70s, Forward in Faith, led by Richardson at the time, produced full-length television programs, including “New World Coming,” and “Freedom Celebration,” which coincided with the United States Bicentennial.
In the early 1990s, Church of God Communications was launched and included the ministry of Forward in Faith, along with the successful Minister’s Tape Service (MTS), where for a small donation, subscribers would receive a cassette (or later, a CD) along with a written transcript of that week’s message. With an emerging Internet presence and the revolution that websites, and eventually streaming, brought to the forefront, consumers’ preferences for obtaining media changed with these rising mediums, including easily accessible videos and other advanced programming. Through the years, weekly radio as a primary source for enrichment lowered dramatically in popularity.
Today, the message of the Church of God is delivered around the world through a variety of means, including videos that can be produced within a few minutes or hours. They can then be placed on social media and/or a website, video channels such as YouTube and Vimeo, or emailed to the masses as a link. Occasional full-length productions take much less time, cost a fraction of what they used to, and the overall quality is much higher.
While the time-honored tradition of Forward in Faith remains, opportunities beyond radio abound for the Church of God to reach the harvest and FINISH the Great Commission.
—Cameron Fisher, Church of God Communications
