For the second time this week a group of believers in Singapore met up with local bases for Broadcast Media Ministries. After a quick lunch outside the Eunos MRT station and finding out who made up our "group du jour" we made our way to CVC's office in Eunos Techpark. Today's gathering was a bit of a challenge as one in the group spoke no English, and another in the group spoke no Chinese! We muddled through with translating and switching around and asking alot of clarifying questions. Hopefully I've gotten my facts straight!
CVC, previously known as Voice International, started its operation in May 2000. Here's a description of their comprehensive mission work from the CVC UK Website:
Christian Vision is a UK-based international charity. Our mission is "To introduce people to Jesus and encourage those who acknowledge Him to accept Him as the Son of God and become His true followers." We run projects working with local churches in training leaders and church planting. These include education, healthcare, skills training and humanitarian projects, aimed at making a positive impact on the local community.
Christian Vision's media projects use the most appropriate format, in the major languages of the world, to establish relationships with audiences and introduce them to Jesus. Christian Vision is both a producer and distributor of media content, and seeks to be contemporary and culturally relevant.
The local office here in Singapore was set up in mid 2008 and has a focus solely on broadcasting to the Asia Pacific Region, namely: India, Indonesia and China. They work closely with the region's main office, the Asia Pacific Broadcast Centre (APBC) on the Sunshine Coast Australia. These offices put together all the programming needed for the work of CVC in the region.
According to Hui Fang, a friendly energetic and articulate young Singaporean (with perfect Mandarin), our visit came during the first month of a huge transition for CVC. At the end of March 2010, only a few weeks ago, they have all but stopped shortwave program production and broadcasting, and are ramping up for doing all broadcasting via the internet. For now there is still an hour of shortwave broadcasting daly to China, and CVC continues to monitor it's effectiveness to determine their shortwave efforts in the future.
Their target audience for their pop music programming is young people aged 15-35. To be even more specific, Hui Fang and her team are now fervently studying how to reach the demographic of 18-25 year old Chinese nationals.
Theirs is not the traditional form of "gospel radio" where Bible classes and the message of salvation through Jesus is preached on the programming. Instead, their aim is to reach those who would not tune into Christian Radio, but might enjoy a station that plays pop music with positive messages with practical advice and help about life and listeners felt needs. Local record companies are providing CVC with their latest releases and then playing music with positive messages, the DJs will use this platform for developing a listener base. Listeners can tell, if they listen long enough, that the DJ's or talk show hosts are followers of Jesus and are part of a local church. There is encouragement via radio to call and write in, and counseling available, which is clear to the listeners will be from a Christian worldview. When listeners do show an interest in following Christ or learning more about the teachings of the Bible, CVC refers them to the programming resources of other Media Ministries such as HCJB, FEBA, FEBC, TRW.
NEEDS FOR MINISTRY PARTNERS/HELP/MENTORING: According to Hui Fang, "We are in the transition stage now where we are moving into 100% Internet Ministry and outreach to Chinese youths in China. Anyone who may have prior experience in China youth work or Internet-related ministry experience could contact us. It would be awesome if we could then learn from experienced folks who could give us some pointers on what we are doing currently. We are also looking at improving our website as well as to start producing video which are short, relevant, may/may not be evangelistic content on our own so we could use these clips to reach out and to impact the intended online audience."
Should you know of someone who might be able to assist/freelance/or take a position with CVC, contact leehuifang@cvc.tv
Here's what the others had to say about our visit to CVC:
Ray Arsenault My impression of CVC is that they are a small but professional organization with a huge mandate! They are trying to bring the Good News to most of Asia which encompasses more than half the world's population. Yet their staff is very, very small. During my time there, I really got the sense that the "Harvest is great, but the workers are few". Even so, God is always in control.
Rita Cao
(Worked in broadcasting in Mainland China before becoming a Christian, and is looking for what God would have her do now. Her child is starting school and her husband is in seminary here.)
Learning about these new trends in Christian media is eye opening. I am challenged to think more creatively concerning program making when I start to get involved in media again.
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