Mark Ramsey “How Christian Radio Can Change Young Lives”
Science journalist Donna Jackson Nakazawa travels the country doing worships with high school students in schools. In one exercise, she asked them to take a post-it note and write down anonymously something they wish they could tell the adults in their lives, but can’t. The students dutifully scribbled and passed their notes to the front of the room, where Nakazawa read them aloud, one after another.
“It feels like my whole life is made of mistakes,” said one.
“I can’t stop thinking about everything I’ve done wrong,” said another.
“I am a burden”…”I have to be perfect”…”Ninety percent of the time I smile, but I’m not happy”…”The future only holds more stress – it will never end”…”Ask me if I’m REALLY fine”…”You don’t know how hard it is to compare yourself to everyone 24-7” and on and on.
No wonder a 2023 study from the CDC showed that 57% of teen girls reported feeling “persistently sad or hopeless.”
There’s a crisis out there. It’s in your market. Social media is fanning the flames. TV doesn’t care. Local news media doesn’t care. The vast majority of radio formats don’t care. Neighbors don’t care. Too often, parents don’t care.
And then there’s you: The Christian music station.
Do you care?
How do you show it?
Is it simply by proclaiming your brand to be “uplifting” or “encouraging” or “positive” – especially for their parents?
By being in the community doing charitable events?
By playing popular Christian music with relatable personalities?
By being the Christmas station?
All of that is good and on-brand. But it’s not enough.
It’s not enough because young people are largely outside your target audience. While a storm of anxiety and depression affects all ages, it’s particularly acute among those who can tolerate it least: The young.
It’s not enough because there’s a crisis of anxiety in each of our markets, and everyone feels its his or her problem alone because we stridently and stubbornly refuse to talk about it with each other.
We – you – have an opportunity to help.
We can create content built by and for these young people (and not simply try to push them to their mom’s favorite Christian station).
We can acknowledge that you – out there in the vast expanse of our signal area – you are not alone.
We can develop an initiative to bring young people together, share problems, share solutions, share life-skills.
We can introduce young people to a powerful force called “Faith” that has and will continue to change lives.
We can develop initiatives to encourage and uplift young people in tangible ways in the real world, not simply from behind the dashboard of a car.
Here are several specific things your station could do to make a real difference, and every one makes you stand out in the crowd that includes media outlets who don’t care and digital media platforms that are either villains or indifferent:
1. Give the market a nightly two-minute counselor segment
Name it out of the notes themselves — “Ask Me If I’m Really Fine.” Same slot every night, hosted not by a DJ but by a licensed local counselor who answers one anonymous question teens text or DM in. Pre-record it, keep it evergreen, brand the bumper. It costs almost nothing, it’s endlessly repeatable, and it becomes the thing your station is known for. A teen who isn’t ready to call anyone will at least hear an adult take their question seriously.
2. Run the Post-it Note Project on air — “What I Wish You Knew”
Partner with local schools, collect the notes, and air a curated selection — each paired with a counselor’s response and a hope tag.
3. Launch a “Screen Fast” promotion — 7 days off social, with accountability
Social media is the accelerant, so give students an off-ramp instead of a lecture. A seven-day challenge with daily text check-ins, a prize that isn’t more screen time (concert tickets, merch, a pizza party), and on-air hosts modeling it publicly. This one practically sells itself to a local health system or hospital as a title underwriter.
4. Stand up a teen advisory board and stop guessing
Recruit 8–12 local high schoolers, meet monthly, and give them real input on imaging, promotions, playlist moods, and campaigns. Your question to them: How can we help?
5. Rebrand your imaging around belonging, not hype
Where’s this message: you are not alone, you are loved, you matter?
6. Fund and amplify Hope Squads in local schools
Have you heard of Hope Squads? Neither had I.
Hope Squads are a real, evidence-based peer-to-peer program: trained student-nominated peers who listen and refer classmates to qualified adults. Sponsor chapters, underwrite advisor stipends, and put those students on your airwaves. Concrete, measurable, and an easy sponsor story — you’re funding something that already works rather than inventing a new thing.
7. Build a parent track
A monthly “Ask Me” toolkit: a downloadable conversation guide, a recurring on-air moment, and one town-hall evening with a counselor. Parents are in your audience and are frequently in crisis themselves; healing the adults is one of the highest-leverage things you can do for the kids. Position it as help, never as blame.
That’s a list of 7 but there are dozens of things you could do to help bend this curve in your local community.
At the end of the day, folks will listen to you and embrace your brand not simply because they learn to love the music, but because you are enmeshed and embedded in their hearts and lives.
Now that’s a Christian media ministry that’s bigger than radio.
Mark Ramsey Media does audience research for Christian Media – Perceptual research, digital studies, donor studies, underwriter impact studies, music studies, etc. Learn more here. Call Mark at 858-414-4191 or email markramsey@mac.com.
And if you want a strategy to solicit major donors to pay for your research, look here and download this Listener Impact Study solicitation for donors from WAKW-FM.
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