20 November 2024| Budva, Montenegro [David Neal]
When Faith FM’s national content and promotions manager, Robbie Berghan, measures Hope FM’s ministry success, he looks beyond audience listening figures and Facebook likes. Responsible for the evangelistic side of the work and content creation, Berghan insists that the “most important part of mass media evangelistic work is to create leads.” As one of the lead speakers at both GAiN Europe ’24 (15–18 November) and the following Hope Channel European Media Summit (19 November), his message is clear: “If those listener contacts don’t connect with local church communities, we haven’t done what we should do.”
While evaluating whether media content is successful using a metric based on views or the number of listeners is easy, Berghan questions how realistic those metrics are regarding the radio ministry’s real effectiveness. “I think it is reasonable to describe them as vanity metrics. What does it mean if I can get 1 million views — if I pay for it?”
“For Faith FM,” continues Berghan, “we asked, ‘What is really important when it comes to its effectiveness for ministry?’ The most important metric in my world is how many listeners I can connect with a local person. We’re planting seeds, but we are in a business here to see how we can be effective.”
With a growing radio network that spans Australia, Berghan stresses that it’s all about creating a network of people who would be local representatives to connect with listener responses. “After much trial, error, and prayer, we ended up with ‘Ambassadors’.”
Ambassadors
“Ambassadors are vital to our ministry,” says Berghan. “And—don’t miss this,” he continues, “our content is driven by its usefulness, as it creates leads for our ambassadors to connect with listeners.”
At this point, Berghan reflects on a challenge many Adventist media outlets face in many parts of the globe and questions whether we are designing content to generate leads for our church. “For sure,” Berghan muses, “we are good at creating resources leading people to decide for Christ, but where is the material from our multiple Adventist publishers that connects with secular listeners who know little or nothing about Christianity?” The only solution to this problem, Berghan believes, is for the numerous church departments to climb out of their silos and work together and put as much effort into making content for people far away from Christ as they do for those who already know Christ and the Adventist message.
In an appeal to all in the room, Berghan says, “If you can change just this one little pivot, you will change the effectiveness of your ministry. Take off your Adventist hat and think like a Londoner— and then think about what would get me interested in engaging with you?”
In July of this year, at the Hope Channel Network Conference in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Berghan shared more about Faith FM’s ministry with tedNEWS.
Photos: Tor Tjeransen/AME (CC BY 4.0) and David Neal.
