I wanted to share little about our vision for City on a Hill Radio. I am excited for the opportunities having a local FM radio station will create for Christ and our community. I have been hoping to put a video together to discuss what our roadmap and goals look like, but events have conspired against me to prevent that from happening yet. I thought I would go ahead and lay out our current plan for everyone.

Right now, we are in “Phase 1” of our plan. We have established a 24/7 online stream with Gospel music and sermon recordings from our church. The online service we are using is fairly limited in capabilities, so that is about the extent of what our programming will look like for now. We are using this time to build up our music library and develop the character of our station. We hope to be involved in a few small promotional events soon.

We are probably a few months away from “Phase 2” beginning. Instead of relying on online services to host our station, we will be purchasing equipment and software to manage our broadcasting locally. This will give us greater flexibility and management over our programming and allow us to integrate syndicated radio programs, such as Thru the Bible with J. Vernon McGee, and news updates. As our capabilities grow so will our promotional efforts.

“Phase 3” is the biggest step for us and will be the implementation of our FM broadcast. We do not have a timeline for this. Our technical partners are aiding numerous local Christian stations get started from this latest filing window. Our FCC permit requires us to be broadcasting on our FM signal by March 2027, or we will forfeit the license. While the range of our station will be limited by the confines of our LPFM (Low Power FM) license, we believe the fact that we will be broadcasting over the air will add validity to our station. While we may be limited on the FM side, we are practically unlimited via online streaming. At this point we envision creating opportunities for community partners to have access to our station. One thing we hope to eventually offer is broadcasts of local high school sports.

There really is no finish line for this project. Once we our FM broadcast is up, we hope to continue to grow our station and reach more people in “Phase 4”. We truly feel that our local community will benefit from our station and its programming. We believe that the Gospel music and Christian programming will bless many people.

We are looking forward to the journey that this radio station will bring. Personally, I cannot help but feel that many roads in my life have led me to this. It could be my attempts at podcasting. It could be the appreciation and knowledge I have developed for conservative Christian and Southern Gospel music. It could be the out of the blue phone call I received about this opportunity. It could be God’s providence in bringing me to Faith Baptist Church. I truly believe we stand at a “such a time as this” moment with City on a Hill Radio. We are just getting starting but, oh, how bright the future is when God is leading the way!

Matthew Gage
Pastor, Faith Baptist Church