When it comes to the Mission’s longstanding allies, Lifeword Broadcast Ministries is among the stalwarts, airing its dynamic teaching broadcast over TWR for more than 25 years.
Lifeword’s humble beginnings date back more than 40 years, when missionary Harold Morris returned to the United States because of health problems. In 1965, he started the Harvest Gleaner Hour as a way to continue preaching the gospel. Partnering with Ashford Conrad, the two men began recording programs in Conrad’s garage. In 1988, the organization’s name changed to Lifeword Broadcast Ministries.
Today, Lifeword reaches 19 language groups across the globe, some of which have never before heard the good news of Jesus Christ. Lifeword’s goal, according the ministry’s Web site, is to “communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ through radio in the heart language of the hearer.”
“The concept at Lifeword is to prepare the way in advance for ground missionaries to come and organize churches among the people,” says George Reddin, executive director of Lifeword. Reddin insists that Lifeword has depended on TWR’s ministry to help the Conway, Arkansas-based ministry expand its global outreach. “We couldn’t have the outreach we do without TWR,” he adds. Together, these two ministries have reached at least 11 different language groups in areas such as India, Africa and Europe.
One people group Lifeword reaches is the Marwari of northwest India. These isolated nomads are mostly illiterate, making it difficult to reach the already resistant people with the gospel. “TWR challenged us to reach the Marwari people but warned that we might not get a response,” Reddin recalls.
In spite of possible indifference, Lifeword produced Jeevan Re Vani in 1996, the first radio program to bring the gospel to the 7 million speakers of the Marwari language. Instead of the expected unresponsiveness, however, Lifeword has received regular responses from the Marwari, and many of them have accepted Christ as a result of the broadcast. Reddin says it is this type of lasting fruit that continues to make Lifeword’s ministry so rewarding.
“It makes sense to walk with people who are given to the same goals and work with them as we seek to fulfill the Lord’s commission to go into all the world with the gospel,” he says.
TWR-Americas’ Public Relations intern Nathan Bauder, a rising senior at Asbury College in Wilmore, KY, is majoring in media communications.
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Lifeword Broadcast Ministries Web site