PROGRAM – W-1707
It’s the day before Christmas Eve and everybody is busy getting ready for this special holiday. Hopefully we’re never too busy to reflect on the reason we celebrate this day in history—the day God came down, Emmanuel, God with us, in the form of a baby, to become our redeemer, and pay the price for our sins so that we can become children of God. That’s the wonderful message of Christmas!
I want to tell you how God started this ministry over 33 years ago because I believe it will encourage you. Maybe some of you have a passion in your heart to do something for the Lord, but you haven’t yet moved out by faith to do it because it seems too big and impossible for you. Let me tell you, that’s how I felt back in the early eighties when this passion was birthed in my heart.
I was a Christian working woman, and I had begun a ministry at my church here in Chicago for workplace women like myself. I felt that our city church needed to reach out with a ministry especially designed for women who worked outside their homes. The elders of my church wholeheartedly supported that ministry, and I saw that it was reaching a need, as we began a monthly luncheon program.
As I listened to Christian radio stations, I felt that there was a need for a program on the radio that talked to workplace women, which would address our unique challenges and struggles, and inspire us to believe that we could be a light for Jesus on our jobs. So I began to pray about starting a radio program like that. Mind you, I had no experience in radio and no knowledge of how to start a program, so I truly felt foolish to pray about such an idea. But the passion would not go away; in fact, it grew stronger.
For over a year and a half I privately prayed about starting a radio program, never even sharing that prayer with anyone else because it seemed so ridiculous to think that I could ever do such a thing! Then on the way to work one morning, after praying about starting a radio program for workplace women, I thought, “Mary, you’ve prayed about this a long time. Isn’t it time to do something about it?” I had no idea how to begin a program, but I decided that day that I would put a sample program together and take it to somebody—I didn’t know who, but somebody! I just knew it was time to put some feet to my prayers.
When I arrived at work that day, a local business newspaper was on my desk. On the cover was the announcement that a powerful radio station here in Chicago had just been purchased and would become a Christian format. “Hmm,” I thought, “maybe I could get on this station.” So I decided I would call that station and ask how to present my program idea to them.
However, on that very day, before I could call them, someone from the station called me to ask me to participate in a panel discussion the next Saturday on the feminist movement. How they chose me as a panelist is still a mystery to me. I had not written a book or done anything that would catch their attention, except the ministry at my church. Nevertheless, I didn’t think this was a coincidence, so when I went to the station that Saturday, after the program I spoke to the woman in charge and told her about my idea for a program.
“That’s a great idea,” she said. “I think we’d be interested in airing a program like that.” From that, I talked to others at the station, and began planning to start a weekly Saturday program called The Christian Working Woman. That was May of 1984, and by August of that year, we began broadcasting on that one station once a week. It was a miracle and, truly, a dream come true!
I thought that was enough of a miracle and never dreamed that God had bigger ideas. But with some counsel from Bob Neff of Moody Bible Institute, I began to expand our weekly program to a few other stations. Then after a year or so, a woman came to work with me who had 30 years’ experience in Christian radio. Her name was Orva Koenigsberg, and she was a gift from God to get the program expanded to many more stations. She knew station managers personally and convinced many more stations to air our program. It was her idea to begin the short daily version of our program, which is heard Monday through Friday on many stations.
Now, over 33 years later, our program is broadcast in these two formats on over 400 stations internationally. Our office is in Wheaton, Illinois, and I have three wonderful women who make the program possible. You don’t hear their voices each week but, believe me, they deserve the credit for all the behind-the-scenes work that is necessary to produce the program.
I still shake my head in wonderment at all that God has done, and I hope I never lose that sense of wonder at God’s working. I’m not amazed that God can do great things; I’m just amazed he’s allowed me to be a part of it.
My objective is to simply share with you the practical applications which God teaches me as I learn how to make the Word of God become alive and real in my everyday life. Please understand that I don’t have all these lessons down pat in my back pocket. I am still learning, and sometimes I get discouraged to see how slowly I learn and how often I have to re-learn. But God is faithful even when I’m not, and I’m thrilled to have the great privilege of sharing with so many of you the practical truths of Scripture.