Doug Hannah “Christian Radio’s Best-Kept Secret..”

Christian Radio’s Best-Kept Secret? We’re Not Always Okay.
We have consultants for our stations, coaches for our shows, but who is looking after our souls.

I’ve got a lot of problems. If you know me, this isn’t a newsflash.

Buried among my hangups are those little red notification badges on my phone. Some app wants my attention, and I have to see it and clear it. I just need that red dot gone. I’ve spent more time playing whack-a-mole getting rid of those red dots than reading what they’re notifying me about.

And then it hit me while I’m on the air: I treat my spiritual life the exact same way. Maybe you, as a fellow radio traveler, are doing this, too.

Except these red dots expose something we’d rather not admit.

Since you work in Christian radio, you’re decent at sounding like someone who trusts God. If you’re like me, you can manage to come off as someone who doesn’t seem to need to trust God quite as much as the people listening.

You’ve found the words that encourage someone who’s afraid, comfort someone who’s grieving, or remind a struggling caller that God hasn’t abandoned them.

When the show is over, you’re all alone with the person who actually lives inside your head, and that is not someone listeners would enjoy getting to know.

The part of you that has too much credit card debt and is legit embarrassed by it or the part that obsesses over stupid stuff online or that drinks a little too much or that has a real problem with lust or is way too easily irritated by the littlest things, or…THE SUM OF ALL FEARS FOR JOCKS:

Not being liked.

Underneath all of it is the nagging suspicion that God is disappointed in you and that He wishes you were better at being a Christian.

That’s a lot of red dots to clear.

Our first instinct is to clear them by sheer resolve. Pray more, read the Word more, worry less, be more grateful. We push ourselves back onto the treadmill to produce evidence that we really are the “good Christian” someone in ministry is supposed to be.

It leads to the one red dot you shouldn’t ignore: looking to yourself—your outward good deeds, your inward disciplines—for evidence that you’re right with God.

God never told you to do that! It’s a dead end.

He points you to Jesus and what He accomplished, outside ourselves.

Your sins are real, including the ones your listeners will never know about. But so is the forgiveness Christ won for you.

We talk a lot about helping listeners, but not nearly as much about the care and feeding of those behind the mic. I’m not talking about the usual “accountability partners” or some struggle session where you confess your many sins – but walking together with someone who actually knows what it’s like to function on that on-air tightrope.

If you’re tired of performing, exhausted, clearing your own red dots, and need a safe place to just be who you really are, let’s talk.

I’ve been doing this for 43 years. At this stage of my life, there is literally nothing I care about more than being someone who points weary believers to the actual relief of the Gospel and not merely the bread and circuses of American Christianity. And there is a special spot in my soul for doing that, if I can, for those who work in Christian Radio.

So I want to be available to you for no judgment and no required fee – just a confidential conversation where you don’t have to have it all together.

Set up a time to do that, here:

God’s verdict was spoken on you at the cross and it IS the Final Verdict.

You oughta remember that, Christian.

You’re on the radio, after all.

Doug Hannah is a 40+ year veteran radio programmer, strategist, and air personality, currently heard on Christian radio across North America, including SiriusXM “The Message” and “Y2Kountry”. His podcast can be found at anchoredinchrist.org