Mark Gillmore: Hello, I’m Mark Gilmore here once again with the Go Mission podcast.

It seems like we live in a world of just increasing technology, all sorts of avenues of communication and influence, social media, and I believe that we can use some of these means for the gospel, for gospel advance.

And sitting with me here today is a friend of mine who God has been using in a very special way when it comes to the use of technology and gospel advance.

And his name is Brother Gene Sharp, and it’s a privilege to have him with us and share regarding the ministry God’s given him in media and in radio.

And I’d like to just welcome him here.

Yes, sir.

Good to have you here.

What a privilege to be here.

Thank you so much.

And your story, could you just share it for our audience?

How did God get you into the ministry that you have now?

Maybe even summarize what that is.

Gene Sharp: Well, our ministry is called Independent Baptist Media, and it deals with using technological tools to help the message of the gospel and the word of God get to people who need to hear it.

And so our motto is using technology, we preach theology.

And it’s really that simple.

If there is a medium or a way that enables churches, missionaries, and Christians to communicate the gospel, we want to help use that tool to do that.

It’s simply another tool in the arsenal to do God’s work, really.

And so that could be as simple as a microphone in a church and a set of speakers and an amplifier.

That could be as complicated as an entire facility for editing and producing video or distributing radio programming and content over a network or over a terrestrial station or to satellite.

So it can be simple or it can be complex.

It’s just if it uses technological things, it’s kind of our calling and our burden in our ministry.

Let’s really kind of take it to the world.

Let’s really kind of not just do it in a very linear sense as far as sharing the gospel.

Mark Gillmore: Let’s try and do it in a multiplication sense, in an exponential sense.

Just recently, I was in Uganda, and I happened to be at one of the places where you had installed a radio station.

And as I even had opportunity to speak on it and then go out from that local city work out into the surrounding villages, I was able to meet a man who personally had begun to interact with gospel truth over the radio.

Then he began to communicate back to the broadcasters, and over time he became a believer.

He was trained to plant a church, and there this man was now himself training other young men to plant more churches.

Gene Sharp: It’s exciting.

That’s the potential, and really that’s kind of the thrill of it for me.

When I’m soldering the wires together on the microphone and when I’m hooking up the coax and climbing the tower at a Christian radio station, installing the antenna, and I look out and I know as far as my eye can see, those houses are going to have the potential to know my Lord and Savior.

Those houses are going to have the chance to hear the gospel, the good news.

And you see how life is for a lot of people, especially overseas.

It’s not good.

They don’t get to enjoy all of the niceties that the West gets to enjoy.

So they’ve already got a tough life.

And to have a tough life and then to go to a Christless eternity, it’s awful.

And we should have a burden for those people.

And really the gospel is good news.

So whatever you’re experiencing in this life, it is temporary because he’s preparing a place for you if you’ve trusted in his son.

And it’s thrilling to be able to connect those dots.

And we’ve had the privilege to do that all over the world.

And much to my amazement and shock and surprise, really, God has opened doors.

He has guided.

He has directed.

He has enabled.

He has provided.

And we’re very, very thankful for that.

Mark Gillmore: We’re living in a world that its population is now just crossing over into 8 billion.

And you think, how can we get the gospel to 8 billion?

And certainly part of that answer is technology and is radio.

And I can see that there’s, you know, I can just see there’s young people who really are connecting.

They’ve got technology, and they think, you mean the Lord could use this area that, you know, I’ve kind of begun to broadcast in, whatever, on the social media.

But you’ve especially used radio.

And what is the benefit when we think of reaching out into these, you know, population centers, broadcasting the gospel, and especially radio?

What does radio bring to the gospel?

Gene Sharp: Well, radio is great because if you’re kind of ugly like I am, it kind of hides your face.

And so it’s got to benefit immediately there.

No, on a serious note, really, radio is efficient and it’s an effective medium.

It’s efficient from the standpoint of to use radio, whether you’re renting time on somebody else’s radio station or if God has burdened a missionary or pastor to start their own Christian radio station, it’s not that much money.

It’s money, but it’s not that much money in comparison to a lot of things you can do.

If you build a church building and pave a parking lot and put a steeple up, you’ll know what money is spent.

Radio is not that much money.

It can be an addendum to an already existing ministry that is efficient in its initiation and operation.

But it’s also not much money for the listener.

Pretty much every car has a radio in it.

Transistorized radios in developing nations are abundant and they’re not very expensive.

And so if you think of something back in the day, you’d compare it to like a tape deck or a CD player.

Well, those all have motors and they eat through batteries very quickly.

There’s no moving parts with the transistorized radio.

And so the batteries last a lot longer.

So from that aspect, it was an attractive idea for people.

We’ve seen people in huts have a car battery in there and then attach a radio to it because they want to hear from the outside world.

There’s a curious nature to people.

They want to know what’s happening.

And even though they’re living in a very rural, rustic setting, they still want to know.

And radio is that tool to help them know.

And hopefully that inquisitive nature will be an open door for us to say, you want to know what’s happening?

Well, this is the most important thing that could happen to you.

You could trust Christ as your Savior and be born again.

Mark Gillmore: I know that I believe you work in concert with CRI, Christian Radio International.

And one of the reports I received from them was that at some point in recent months, the potential listening audience to the different areas in which they’re broadcasting was about one billion souls.

Not like they’re all tuned in, but they all could tune in.

Gene Sharp: Well, and that’s all we can do.

You know, as a broadcaster, you’re reaching into the bag of seed and you’re casting it abroad.

And that’s you want to you want to make sure there’s as much potential soil within reach.

So you keep going to areas and trying to make that happen.

And so radio is a great tool for that.

And of course, radio isn’t the only tool.

And every every electronic form of communication has its day in the sun.

Right.

And so and it varies from time to time, which is more popular radio, television, Internet, all these types of things.

But I’m not against using any of it.

My point is that’s what our ministry is called, Independent Baptist Media, because we’re for it all.

And radio, we love radio.

It was kind of our first endeavors.

We’re in radio, and we’re still seeing fruitfulness in radio.

And radio has some unique advantages over some of the other mediums.

But we’re for get involved anywhere.

And it can happen at the corporate level, like we’re involved in helping ministries to initiate these type of technological communications for ministry.

But it can happen on a personal level.

You’re on Facebook.

Be a good testimony on Facebook.

It’s okay to say, we had a vacation this year.

We went to Florida.

Thank the Lord for the beautiful weather.

Our Creator should be magnified.

That little gospel witness can work together.

And then, hey, coming up on Christmas, take your phone and produce a video and say, this is Christmas time and our family is celebrating the coming of the Messiah.

And take five minutes and explain a simple version of the gospel.

Use technology to share your faith and to share your Savior.

If we’d all do that, that’s where people are.

You know, the marketplace today, you know, my wife and I were just doing something the other day, and, like, we had to go shopping, and guess where we went shopping?

On our phones, you know.

We went to the local Amazon store on our phone and got what we needed.

That’s where the marketplace is.

And so we’ve got to get in the way of the people in that marketplace and challenge them about eternity.

That’s really part of our calling, should be part of our burden.

We see people around us, and if we really believe what the Bible says, People without Christ will go to eternity in hell, and we should take that very seriously, and we should be thankful, so thankful for our salvation that we really want to try and do something, by God’s grace, to help others know.

Mark Gillmore: That’s so good, especially the opportunity we have on a personal level to engage.

Gene Sharp: Everybody can be a broadcaster these days.

Literally, you can have an audience.

I follow different YouTube people for cameras and technological things that I’m interested in, And these guys have audiences of hundreds of thousands and millions of people who watch their content.

And, you know, whatever, they’re somebody who lives in Canada in an apartment.

They’re not some high-end producer with an entire studio behind them.

But, and we’ve talked about this before, content is king.

They’ve got something that I want to hear.

And people in their heart of hearts, they have the witness of creation.

And there really is no such thing as an atheist.

Everybody knows God exists.

Now, some people choose to deny him.

Some people choose to look the other way.

They choose to not retain him in their knowledge.

But everybody knows there’s something in everybody that knows what you’re saying when you speak the gospel is the truth.

And they need to have that clarification.

And the power of the word of God can, with the Holy Spirit of God, do a work that we couldn’t imagine that would surprise us and hopefully bring some fruit.

Mark Gillmore: I think that personal sense of need in people’s lives is growing.

So you take that creation witness, then you take the chaos around you.

That’s an open door for the Lord to enter in if we’ll be that voice.

Gene Sharp: If you hear people’s testimony, it’s always one or more people that have worked together.

Some plant, some water, God gives the increase.

If you hear a story on the Unshackled broadcast, a grandma was praying, and the spouse was witnessing, and the guy at work dropped a witness.

And then finally, years later, somebody invited him to church, and that person trusted Christ.

It was this process.

And sometimes when we don’t see the whole process happen immediately, we become discouraged or disengaged.

And that’s really not the way it should be.

It’s God’s work.

And we need to trust that his word will not return void.

And he is working no matter what.

So we have to continually be that willing conduit.

And it’s never been more easy to be a conduit to more people than today because of technology.

Mark Gillmore: Are there any just neat open doors that you’ve got right in front of you We look at the global scene of radio broadcasts.

Sure.

Gene Sharp: Well, you know, with radio and having your own radio station, the biggest piece of that puzzle is licensure.

You’ve got to have the license from the government in that country to say you can use this frequency as a radio broadcast station.

And so over the years, you know, we have permission to put a station here or a station there or permission to put in a couple cities here or there.

Never have we had what we have now in the Philippines.

In the Philippines, we have Project 7107, and they’ve been granted a franchise license with Brother Rick Martin, and he can put a Christian TV station or radio station anywhere there’s an open frequency on the 7,107 islands of the Philippines. 100 million souls in that country, and we can broadcast anywhere that we can raise the money and install the station.

So we’ve put five stations in.

We’re hoping to put five more in.

We’ve got the money raised for those, but we could put 35 more in if we had the funding for that and God continued to open those doors.

So big time opportunity.

And we haven’t even really scratched the surface of the television side of that.

And then also the Philippines culture, as much of the world is, is very technological savvy.

So a lot of these guys are simulcasting on their Facebook channel, on YouTube, and on their websites and getting the gospel out.

As they’re going out on radio, they’re taking that same programming and putting it on other outlets and reaching a lot of people.

And so very thankful for that opportunity.

And great, great men of God that are working there that we have the privilege to work with.

Thank the Lord for that.

Mark Gillmore: That’s amazing to hear about that project.

Gene Sharp: And on the Philippines project, last time we were there, just on a whim, the pastor of one of the churches there said, hey, we’ve got our station here.

We’d like to put people on the air with phones.

We have people call in with requests, and we like to put them on the air.

And I said, you know what?

I think we’ve got one of those devices here.

And I wasn’t there for that purpose, but I looked, and sure enough, there was one there.

We hooked it up and tuned it in and showed them how to use it.

And so they could put people on the air. 24 hours later, he sends me a text.

Bro Sharp, thanks so much for the help.

We love it.

People have been calling in.

Last night, we led somebody to the Lord on the air.

They called in.

While they were on the air with us, that tool was used to lead somebody to Christ.

And that’s happening on a regular basis in these stations.

And it’s just not only is it an effective form of communication, you talk about your ministry, you talk about Falls Baptist Church to people because this is our ministry.

Well, this is another ministry.

It’s another talking point with people.

So maybe you’re talking about the church one day and maybe somebody else, you talk to the, hey, do you know about our radio ministry?

Have you heard our podcast?

And it’s a way to bring up a form of communication that they can then partake of and you can influence them because we believe faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

Mark Gillmore: Yes.

When we think of the different key components of gospel advance, we definitely think of a missionary.

We think of making a disciple, planning a church.

We might think of Bible translation.

But I think this radio proclamation needs to fit into our strategy, the paradigm of what it means to get the gospel to every creature.

This broadcast definitely fits into that.

Gene Sharp: of believers long ago saw that potential, like the Lester Roloffs of this world, Oliver B.

Green, you know, J.

Vernon McGee, Unshackled.

A lot of these broadcasters in the 50s and 60s really saw the potential, even like the Billy Grahams of the world that did a lot of evangelism.

Those things, they used the tools at hand to not just talk to the people in their immediate surroundings, but to talk to people afar.

And they influenced a lot of people.

And some of them still have been in heaven and they’re still reaching out.

Their voice is still being heard.

The truth is still being proclaimed.

And that’s pretty special.

Mark Gillmore: Pretty neat to see that happen.

And you’ve become a resource so that some man who doesn’t have any of this skill can connect with you and put this into their ministry.

And maybe you’re listening and you’d be interested in getting in touch with this aspect of this equipping that Brother Gene offers.

And we’d love to hear from you if we can be of help.

We can connect you to Brother Gene in that way.

Just as we end here, I know that in your youth, you had a burden to serve the Lord and some also natural interests.

And how did that come to play as the Lord led you into this ministry?

And how could you encourage young people as they look at their own lives, their own interests, and how God might lead them similarly?

Gene Sharp: You know, as we say yes to God with the truth that’s been revealed to us, you know, you’re maybe a young person and you’re trying to read your Bible every day because you heard that’s what you’re supposed to do.

You’re trying to stay faithful in church because you believe that’s what you’re supposed to do and you’re right.

And as you obey God, as you delight yourself in the Lord with the light that you’ve been given, he’ll give you the desires of your heart.

And that doesn’t mean, wow, I really want a Lamborghini.

I’m going to get a Lamborghini.

I think that means he’s going to give to you what you are desiring.

So in your life, if you find yourself walking with the Lord, trying to keep sin out, trying to, you know, listen to the preaching of the word of God and respond properly, and you have a desire to learn how to do a new skill, I think that desire comes from the Lord.

And I think that was really the way it happened for me.

I really was just trying to, again, in no way, shape, or form perfect, but as a young person, I’m just trying to do what’s right.

And I don’t want to go out into the world.

I want to stay right with my parents.

I want to stay right with my preacher.

I want to stay right with the Lord.

And as I did that, God worked in my life, and I had just a unique interest in technological things.

I made a studio in my house.

Oh, very neat.

Mom let me clear out all of the clothes and stuff from my closet.

I put carpet on the walls.

I put a microphone in there.

And I’m just some geeky teenager who didn’t have other hobbies, and I learned how to do these things.

And then years later, I became a manager of a Christian radio station.

Years later, I helped start putting Christian radio stations around the world.

But that desire, I believe, came from God.

I was delighting in the Lord, and he gave me the desires of my heart and then used those desires for his honor and his glory as my creator who created even those desires.

And so sometimes if we’re not walking with the Lord, though we’re not really delighting and focusing on him, we don’t know what to desire.

We don’t know what these desires are for.

We’re not tuned into that purpose and that frequency that’s coming from him.

So I’d say stay in church, stay right with the Lord, And then just see where God’s leading you and, boy, I’m really interested in this.

Think and find out a way that that could be used for him because he deserves all the glory as our creator.

And that desire, that information, that skill has come from him in the first place.

Mark Gillmore: What a great challenge.

And young people, I hope you’re encouraged to think of how God’s shaping you for the ministry that he has for you.

And in an increasing technological world, let’s look at that as at the gospel ramifications that are in some of those interests.

There’s definitely pitfalls and strongholds that can come in that region, that area.

And some of our podcasts are actually designed to help you deal with that.

And may God protect you from those wrong uses, misuses, but there are correct uses.

And in a world of eight billion souls, the broadcasting of the gospel across just multiplying and massive audiences is definitely something we should expect to see God doing.

Gene Sharp: And I would say if you look at the hurdles and you see and you feel the fear or the inadequacy or you see the problems, I would say that thought process isn’t coming from God.

That thought process is the same thought process that says, oh, I’m scared to hand this person this track.

What if they say no?

I would say just get in it.

You’ve got the tool in your hand.

Everybody’s got a smartphone for the most part that costs between a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars.

And that has the tools in and of itself to reach many people for God’s glory and for the sake of the gospel.

Get after it.

Mark Gillmore: Yep.

Start where you’re at.

Make your own little studio.

Don’t make the channel about you.

Make it about Christ.

Tell your story.

Give a gospel word.

And don’t be ashamed and expect God to do great things now and in the future.

So remember, the only way to stay at peace in a world of turmoil and uncertainty is to stay on mission with Jesus in his Go Mission.