Pastor Chuck Smith’s The Word for Today radio program now airing in Spanish
Cary, NC, June 7, 2007—Hispanic listeners are now receiving in-depth Bible teaching in their heart language. Thanks to a strategic partnership formed between international Christian broadcaster Trans World Radio (TWR) and well-known Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, Calif., people in Latin America are hearing Spanish broadcasts of Smith’s The Word for Today program. The broadcasts began airing June 4 from TWR’s high-powered AM transmitting sites on Bonaire and in Uruguay. The 30-minute program airs five days a week.
Already, TWR’s transmitting sites on Bonaire and in South Africa broadcast the English version of The Word for Today. A Mandarin Chinese adaptation is beamed via shortwave from TWR’s station on the island of Guam.
“Pastor Chuck Smith and Calvary Chapel are committed to fulfilling the Great Commission, which calls us to make disciples of all nations. That certainly includes Spanish-speaking people in strategic places like Cuba and Venezuela,” says Ralf Stores, TWR’s director of Ministry Partnerships. Stores adds that The Word for Today’s solid discipleship programming coincides with TWR’s global strategic plan of taking God’s “unchanging message to a changing world.”
Most sources estimate that Spanish is among the three most spoken languages in the world (besides Mandarin and English, respectively) with some 322 million native speakers. Another 100 million speak Spanish as their second language.
“From the standpoint of sheer numbers, it makes sense to air more Christian programming in Spanish,” says TWR’s U.S. Hispanic Ministry Coordinator Jim Munger. “It also has strategic importance because of the great spiritual need in the Spanish-speaking world–primarily Latin America. Not only are there hundreds of millions without Christ, but the church suffers from a lack of leadership that has had the opportunity to study the Scriptures in depth. Pastor Chuck Smith’s Bible teaching provides a consistent, systematic study of the whole Bible in a form that is easy to understand and apply in a practical way.”
Pastor Chuck Smith’s church, Calvary Chapel, is a nondenominational Christian congregation established in 1965. Smith became known as a leading figure in the “Jesus Movement” of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Calvary Chapel has more than 1,000 congregations in the United States with hundreds more overseas, and runs affiliate ministries such as Bible colleges, Christian camps, retreat centers and pastoral training programs.
The Word for Today English program is aired on 350 stations worldwide and is available on the Internet. The partnership with TWR will enhance the effectiveness of The Word for Today’s ministry and further the spread of the gospel worldwide.