There are many powerful stories about Kingdom impact that are resulting as HCJB Global expands its “radio planting” ministry, a term coined by former president Ron Cline.

Through radio planting, the mission works closely with local churches to establish and develop Christian radio ministries around the world. HCJB Global provides any or all of the following: broadcasting/studio equipment, technical support and training. Each location has its own local governing powers, programmers and follow-up also required are broadcasting licenses and financing.

Since 1990 HCJB Global has worked with local churches to plant radio ministries in more than 80 countries with some 300 partners throughout Euro-Asia, North Africa/Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia Pacific and the Americas.

“We’re sharing our passion to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ to all nations so that people are transformed and become an active, vital part of the body of Christ,” Cline says. “Our partners around the world are catching the vision to use the radio to share Jesus Christ.

“Many churches are growing because of these new radio ministries. In other cases, churches are being planted as a direct result of the broadcasts.”

HCJB Global President David Johnson says radio planting was not the brainchild of anyone on the staff. “We were never clever enough to see that we should do that. God pushed us into it!”

With the fall of the Iron Curtain in the late 1980s, long-time shortwave radio listeners—many who came to faith in Christ through the broadcasts—began saying, “We would like to have our own radio station. Can you help us?”

“We started out simply by helping our friends,” Johnson says. “We knew that for years radio played a role in helping start churches. We often heard stories of people listening to the broadcasts who would start meeting together and form a church.”