KGLJ Business Plan Rev 1

8/13/2019 KGLJ Business Plan Rev 1

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Business Plan for

KGLJ radio station at Greater Life

Church

Greater Life Church685 Juniper St.

Elko, Nevada 89801

Pastor Bill Killion775-738-3982

Rev. 1 - January 9, 2014


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Executive Summary

This is to my Fathers glory,

that you bear much fruit,

showing yourselves to be my disciples.John 15:8

John 15:8 tells us to bear fruit to Glorify the father. Bearing fruitdoing works of loveis thetangible sign of the discipleship that brings glory to our Father. There is no higher calling. Thisexecutive summary describes a ministry that can compliment and instigate those acts of love towhich Greater Life Church is dedicated.

This plan discusses the reasons for and the process of establishment of a Low Power FM (LPFM)radio station at Greater Life Church. Our intention is to establish a station that focuses on localissues and life in a manner that will bring The Good News to the generally young families and

individuals of Elko and Spring Creek. As Disciples of Christ we can use the power of new media asa way to deliver an old message of Truth. This will be radio mostly for non-Christians that willengage, involve and invite them to accept and participate in the greatest adventure for a greater life inJesus.

This is an essential ministry because the Christian church in America is in dire circumstances.Mainline Christian denominations have been losing 3% of their membership a year for 40 years.They stand at less than 50% of what they had just in the previous generation. The Elko Spring Creekarea is in even worse condition. Christian Church participation Nationally stands at only 13%. InNevada that shrinks to 9%. In Elko County it stands at less than 6%. All this in a Nation that self-identifies itself as 90% Christian. Good people have made valiant and dedicated attempts to stop thisdrift away form the Truth to little affect. We intend to change that in our local area.

Since all Christians would agree that the problem is not in the message of love and Salvationcontained in the Bible clearly something else is amiss. Marshall McLuhan said, The medium is themessage. Our message is eternal but the medium has changed drastically and that has an impact on

the message. We still mostly depend on the old paradigm of an evangelical Sunday church service.That is not reaching new generations born after simple tradition ceased to be effective. This shouldcome as no surprise since in our contemporary world of electronic social media - Facebook, Twitter,radio and the Internet, the church has generally not kept up in communicating with them using meansthey relate to.

Radio communication is one way we can begin to reconnect with these post tradition generations.

But not just any radio. Elko is filled with Christian radio stations. But given the statistics of failureat evangelism we are suffering here even they are having very limited success. Our proposed stationwill be a local station that integrates as much modern social media, music and local content relevantto our young demographic in Elko County. Ours will be a low wattage station that is inexpensive tocreate and operate. We currently are streaming online and will, by the 2nd quarter of 2014, have thelicensing and equipment installed to begin On Air FM radio broadcasting. This will have the greatestpossible effect and take us outside the walls of our church to bring the Great News of a Great God tothe people of the Great Basin.


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Needs and Solutions

Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Sonand of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

(Matt 26:19-20)

Where we are and how we got here

All the gospels end in The Great Commission and are followed by The Acts of theApostles that details the story of how the first Christians went about the work of bringingthat Great Commission to pass. Our instructions and the privilege it bestows are clear.But while the progression of Go, Baptize and Teach is clear, the trials and struggles of theapostles as chronicled in Acts shows that the exact method of Christian evangelism is notso simple. Factors like culture, resources and technology determine the approach oneuses to present the The Good News. And culture, resources and technology change over

time.

The canon of the Bible was developed over a period of centuries beginning with oralhistories, through written records of Old Covenant times, to the writings of the Apostlesand others in new Covenant times. These were canonized into a Bible of Gods HolyWord. This saw very limited hand transcribed translations by a few monks for hundredsof years. Today we have scores of translations and commentaries printed in suchnumbers they make it by far the most reproduced book in mans history. But today evenbooks are slowly being replaced by an electronic media that will someday make hardcopy books obsolete. As evidence of this the Encyclopedia Britannica ceased publicationin 2013. Their stated reason for this change? Wikipedia - the ultimate in networkedelectronic collaboration.

"The medium is the message" is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that theform of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship bywhich the medium influences how the message is perceived. McLuhan's point is that themeans of communication legitimize in the mind of the listener that which iscommunicated. Even the best made case for Christ will have difficulties being heard ifthe medium we use to make it is so dated those on the receiving end conclude themessage is as irrelevant as the medium. They in a very real sense don't even hear it. Themedium of today is electronic; radio, television, smart phones, computers, ipads, theinternet, Facebook, texting, email, photos and video. These are how modern mancommunicates. This is what he listens to in the broadest sense of "listen".

At odds with this is the persistent belief that the proper way to Evangelize and present thegospel is in a church, at a worship service, by a Pastor, on a Sunday. Its true enough thatthis is Christian worship and is not only proper but vital to a Christian life - but is itEvangelism? More to the point, is it effective? Does it lead people to Christ? Does itsave people from continuing down their path to eternal damnation? Any fair look at thestatistics of the current success of traditional Sunday-go-to-church evangelism in


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America says no. Indeed it screams no. Locally we have less than 6% of the populationgoing to church. And these are almost all Christians already. Nationally churches havebeen bleeding a straight line steady 3% of their membership every year for 40 years. Atthose rates the Christian church will be dead in America in 25 years.

As Bob Dylan said, And the first one now, Will later be last, For the times they are a-changin' Traditional Sunday worship evangelism that was first and worked fordecades seldom gets the result of making disciples today. One look at our world says,yes, the times they are indeed changing, and not in a good way. Clearly something isamiss. Something different must be done because whatever we are all doing is notworking. They arent coming.

Radio as an option

In the search for the most relevant medium to deliver The Good News there are someconsiderations that must be taken. On the cautious end one should note that while the

tech penetration into items like reading the Bible online is certainly an efficient way todeliver the message, its value is limited since it still is reading a book. Reading books isitself receding as a common habit and depending on people to read their way to Salvationis getting less likely every day. On the other end,just because its techie does not mean itwill succeed. MySpace was the ultimate social media powerhouse just a couple yearsago and now it has been completely replaced by Facebook.

The lesson here is that a balance between old school and cutting edge just may be the bestplace to operate. In the opinion of many including advertisers whose survival depends onknowing what works, radio hits that spot. Radio has been in existence for a hundredyears. Everyone has one in any location in which they are likely to becar, home, andwork. It is extremely inexpensive to purchase the equipment needed to use radio andvery undemanding to use. It is a medium that lends itself to casual use since no visual orinteractive inputs are required. It can now also be broadcast over that ultimate newtechnology, the Internet, with the same equipment used to perform terrestrial broadcasts.Finally, it still has enough freshness to impact that most hard to reach demographic, theyoung. In view of the need to move to electronic methods of dissemination the creationof a radio station is an answer. Certainly not the only answer but an answer.


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Low Power FM Radio

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, andthrough us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him

2 Cor 2:14

Low Power FM Radio History

In 2000 in response to citizen demands for low cost public access to the airwaves the U.S.Legislature passed the Radio Broadcast Preservation Act of 2000. This permitted theFCC to begin licensing of Low Power (less than 10 watts) FM radio stations which theybegan doing in 2001. Almost immediately the commercial broadcast industry broughtsuit to stop this claiming it had the potential to physically interfere with their broadcasts.Some 450 licenses were issued before the FCC declared a moratorium on new licensestill the suits were settled.

Licensing

In late 2012 compromises were reached and the Legislature reauthorized issuing licenses.Government being government this has drug out into 2014 but as of January 2014 LPFMradio applications (including ours) have been accepted and the necessary permits to beginconstruction will likely be issued in late January 2014. After the completion and testingof the broadcast equipment has been completed the FCC will inspect our station and issueus our final license to operate.

The Station

Our radio station is being constructed and operated in two phases. As a beginning wehave constructed a studio and equipped it with the electronics to begin over the internetstreaming broadcasting. Greater Life Church has been streaming for about one year nowand this system is running efficiently. After acquiring our LPFM license this exactequipment will be used and only needs to be expanded with a transmitter and antenna tobegin over the air broadcasting.

Our station will be a 100 watt maximum power station. At that wattage and with theproper antenna we will cover all of Elko and hopefully some of Spring Creek. Thestation can not reach beyond these areas except through internet reception or by buyingonto translator space in other communities.

Location and basic structure

Radio stations consist of three basic components, an audio source originating from astudio, a transmitter and an antenna. As with any radio station one must have a studio.Further requirements by the FCC demand that any studio be a lockable separate space.The space requirements are minimalthe audio processing and transmission end of a


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radio station can fit on a single small table. Our studio currently operates in ourSanctuary in an 8'x16' space. While this might seem small it has proven to be entirelyadequate for our needs. The signals from this studio will be fed to a transmitter and thenprocessed through a link (usually a small dish transmitter) and beamed to our antenna onone of the local towers in our area to then be transmitted over the air topeoplesradios.


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Management and Staffing

Minimum staff

Much of the staffing needs, like the equipment needs, are dependant upon what level ofbroadcast penetration one wants and can afford. Our over the air station is only requiredby the FCC to broadcast a minimum of 36 hours per week. Since even this could all be,for lack of a better term, canned purchased programs, the station could theoretically beoperated by one person (required by the FCC) termed the Chief Operator. This personwould show up occasionally to make certain the equipment was operating properly andkeeps the station in compliance with FCC regulations as to minimum broadcast times,licensing requirements, Emergency Alert System and any programming. In effect thiswould simply operate as a translator for other broadcasting.

This is not suggested as a desirable option worth the investment, it is just to show that

there is no real lower boundary to how minimal a staff one could get by on if the needarose.

Full Operating staff

For the station to be successful in any meaningful way as a local radio station adequatestaffing would be needed to could keep equipment maintained, plan programming andpresent an on the air presence. Moving up from a re-broadcast model to more local livestation would clearly require more staff. At a minimum we would need at least a GeneralManager, one Engineer (person knowledgeable in the mechanics of the station), aProgram Manager, a Board operator (disc jockey in common parlance), a ProductionDirector and someone to keep the books. Any of these positions can be filled by thesame person.

Staffing as Evangelism

In addition to the basic staff needed to operate our station we will not only be open to, butwill promote and use the attractiveness of and involvement in this ministry as itself anevangelical tool. Greater Life Church will have no requirements that staff people bemembers of or attend our church. Certainly if they ultimately did we would be thrilledbut from a policy viewpoint and a ministry viewpoint being open to the movement of theLord in bringing people to us will not be something we will try to second guess.


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Programming

Programming radio stations has been a necessary and fundamental part of their operation sincethe invention of radio. As such it really is not necessary to re-invent any wheels to get a station

that works in a manner that successfully presents the Word. In general, to effectively be aministry tool of Greater Life Church requires programming consisting of all audio material suchas Church services, music shows, special interest programs, interviews and live programming.

Studies and experience have shown that the best (most successful at engaging the communityand presenting The Word) stations are those that have as much LOCAL programming as theycan possibly produce. Our broadcast engineer when asked about partnering with an out of townstation was adamant in his words that, Your station should be as unique to you and to Elko as

possible.

To that end as much of our programming as possible will be developed around local events and

local interests that directly relate to the lives of the local population. It will also be taken fromother like minded churches and organizations from our area. It can also be broadcast live fromcommunity events using equipment no more complicated than a microphone hooked to a smartphone with an interface. Again, it is recognized that this live local programming will be limitedat first as personnel will be limited at first. This is a planned intention not an immediaterequirement.

Radio programming is done around a weekly schedule with programs announced and advertisedahead of time or consistently scheduled for the same time each day, such as live broadcasting ofour Sunday worship service. Generally music is most easily obtained from commercial musicdistributors such as TM Century. For a specific fee per song they will deliver any number ofsongs from their 20 million song catalog. While costing a great deal considering the number ofsongs we need to establish our basic music library, once established all that need be done then istoo keep things updated.

In addition we will do locally produced and DJ'd music shows. This is a labor intensiveundertaking so the quantity of these shows will be limited at first. Also our church facilityalready has the capability to produce and broadcast live sound. Inviting local music groups -bands, choirs, soloists is something that will certainly be part of our programming schedule.

A wide variety of other pre-recorded Christian and non-Christian programming is also available.These include music and talk radio from easily available sources. The costs for this ranges frompaid monthly satellite feeds to free internet based feeds to organizations such as Focus on theFamily who under some circumstances would pay us to run their programs. Ultimatelysomething is available that will keep our station on the air 24/7 for whatever budget we decideupon right down to no cost at all if necessary.

Finally, in order to take advantage of all the interconnection and networking of todayselectroniclandscape our radio station will have tight integration with social networking mediums likeTwitter and Facebook.


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Marketing Plan

My food, said Jesus, is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Dont

you have asaying, Its still four months until harvest? I tell you, open your eyes andlook at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wageand harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad

together. John4:33-36

Demographics

The Elko/Spring Creek area currently has a population of approximately 30,000 people -2/3 of the population of Elko County. Median age is a *very* young 31 years. TheNational average is 37. It cant be stressed enoughjust how young this makes thepopulation of this area. To even be 3-4 years under the National average is significant. 6

under is overwhelmingly young.

Average income is $60,000 which is well above National orNevadas average. Elkosdemographics also show very strong family orientation and a large number of 20 to 30year olds. Contrary to popular belief, housing is quite affordable by National standards.Elko has a growing economy with very low unemployment well regarded schools, wellfunded local governments and exactly National average crime statistics. In other words,welcome to the good life.

Or is it? Elko religious breakdown is 41% Catholic, 31% Mormon, 10% SouthernBaptist and 14% other. But breakdowns dont really tell the story. The story isreflected in two things. First, the number of what we would consider likemindedevangelical Christian churches is very low. In consideration of the fact that we shouldnot care who brings people to Christ as long as they get there, these numbers do not bodewell for Christian Evangelism. If we fail to pursue the Great Commission there is verylittle out there to pick up the slack.

Secondly, when one looks at all the non-Mormon churches in Elko, the attendance atthem is underwhelming to say the least. Even with 31 churches in Elko not more than1500 (6%) people consistently attend Christian churches. Spring Creek is even worse.Only four churches are located in Spring Creek and their combined membership onlyamounts to 2 % of that areas population.

While attendance at church does not necessarily equate to evangelism it is an excellentmetric by which to measure the penetration of the Christian life in our area. This isbecause in a remote area like ours if the overall membership of all Christian Churches isgrowing faster then the population then this suggests people are moving from being non-Christian to Christian - successful evangelism. Unfortunately this is not the case as thesemembership numbers have not changed in decades. NOT the percentages, the absolutenumbers have not changed. This means evangelistic efforts in our area are not even


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keeping up - we are losing ground. The best that can be said about this situation is thatour area is not in short supply of opportunities for evangelism.

No commentary on the demographics of the Elko area would be complete withoutmention of the cultural and political elements at play in this area. The West has a long

history of what most term proud self-reliance. This is rooted in a philosophy that says thefirst principal of life is freedom. This is at odds with what most Christians see as aresponsibility to have their lives first informed by a belief in God and Salvation throughChrist. The Christian perspective views man as fallen and sinful, not perfectible throughhis own efforts as fervent attachment to self-reliance preaches. The Freedom vs. Virtue,Libertarian vs. Conservative, and Humanist vs. Christian argument has raged forcenturies and, if anything, is more on the front page now more than ever. Breakingthrough this to bring Truth to the lost in our area will be a very difficult task and willrequire enormous prayerful effort and perseverance. As difficult as it will we willsucceed if we, Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may becomeblameless and pure, children of God without fault in a warped and crooked

generation. Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly tothe word of life.Phil 2:14-15

Competition

Besides the nine commercial radio stations broadcast in Elko we also receive 3 Christianstations by radio translator. Certainly a fair question to anyone suggesting establishinganother Christian radio presence in Elko would be, we already have three, why spendthe time and effort on a fourth. Excellent question. And the answer to that is crucial tounderstanding what we want to be as a Christian radio station.

The key is in seeing the nature of Christian broadcasting and why to a large extent itmostly fails as an evangelical tool. It should come as no surprise that for the most partChristian stations broadcast Christian music, Christian sermons, Christian talk shows andChristian educational programs. They all do a fine job of this. Good stuff for Christians.And even a few come to Jesus through this approach. But if this list sounds familiarthats because it is the same list of activities that every Christian Church in America

offers every Sundaythose same churches discussed previously that are failing tosignificantly bring the population of Elko to Christ. So as Dr. Phil likes to say, Howsthat working for you? The short answer is great, for Christians. As it pertains toevangelismnot so much.

And unfortunately the news for Christian radio in Elko is not even that good because allChristian radio in Elko is IN Elko but not OF Elko. What none of the Christian stationsavailable in Elko are able to provide is the one thing that local churches and KGLJ localradio will provideintimacy through local content. In the realm of GO and makedisciples, radio with no intimate knowledge, interaction or personal presence is like Jesuswithout apostles. When Jesus told them, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and inall Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.(Acts 1:8) He said it not becauseHe had no power to do such Himself. He said it because he wanted the ultimate devotion


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and fulfillment of the Christian life to be to help bring others back to God and save themfrom hellfire through Himself. That was the Great Commission. He meant that theywere to *personally* set about evangelizing the world in an upfront and intimate way.For all its blessings, the impact of Christian radio with no direct interaction is verylimited because it is very impersonal. We, on the other hand won't be. That is our

blessing. That is the reason for a KGLJ."

Station Marketing

As addressed here, marketing refers to the ways in which we can establish and increase alistening audience for our radio station. Conversely, marketing, in our case, does notextend to the selling of Jesus. This is because there are major limitations to anybusiness modeling as it relates to Gods economy. For one, it would require sellingsomething people either dont know they need or are completely hostile too. Secondly,the consequences of a failure on our part are suffered by the customer, not us, if we fail tomake the sale. Third, selling people a belief is a completely different reality than selling

a physical product. Finally, the acceptance of the sinner of Salvation through Jesus (thesale in the crassestbusiness sense) is scripturally an act of a gracious God, not throughanything we or the sinner does. In light of these realities marketing as referenced hererefers to the marketing of our radio station, not marketing in the sense of selling peopleThe Good News.

In the realm of the physical process of selling people on our station, our marketing willtake much of the low cost methods of Jay Conrad Levinsons classic, GuerrillaMarketing. Guerrilla Marketing has established itself over the last twenty yeas as THEreference tool for small business startup marketing. Through a varied combination ofmailings, brochures, posters and most importantly the modern power of social media, wecan, on a shoestring budget, successfully market our station.


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Financial Plan

Estimated startup costs

Engineering and feasibility

KaraTek International has done the preliminary studies and equipmentengineering for KGLJ. The studio is bought and paid for and is currently installedand operating online. The second phase of purchasing and installing theterrestrial broadcast hardware and studio hardware improvement is currentlyunderway

Phase 2 - over the air broadcasting capital costs.

KaraTek tells us that the addition equipment for terrestrial broadcasting will push

the final cost to around $20 thousand dollars. We have already investedapproximately $9,000 in our studi0 and streaming equipment. They have givenus a figure of approximately another $9,000 to complete the phase 2 purchase andinstallation of FM broadcast equipment. With a need for remote broadcastingequipment, hybrid telephone system and music production/DJ equipment we needa total of $12,000 to complete the station. Finally with music library costs,copyright origination coverage and other miscellaneous the final figure isapproximately $15,000 needed to complete our station. Through a single largedonation and the investment by the church of approximately $9,000 of existingfunds we have that $15,000 in hand and ready to go.

Estimated Operational costs

As has been noted elsewhere the existing steaming studio can at worst be operated for nomore than the cost of the electricity to run a computer and a soundboard - currently lessthan $100 per month. This of course is not ideal and there will be additional costsassociated with any truly successful LPFM operation. These would be based in the costof music copyright licensing ($100-$150 per month), music content purchases ($40 permonth ongoing) and Tower rental for our antenna ($200-300 per month). In total thestation will need a monthly operating budget of $400-500 per month.

Funding KGLJ.

Since by FCC regulations we can not operate as a profit making operation we arerestricted from offering paid advertising on our station. Fundraising could be done by thetraditional methods that all non-profits use. These include your typical pledge-weekcampaigns that Public Radio successfully uses, requests to individuals making our casefor supporting and sponsoring this ministry and sponsorships from local businesses inexchanging their financial support for a mention of such on our station.


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Risk Analysis

As with any new venture there is an element of risk. Businesses and churches both fail. Aninvestigation of possible pitfalls in the organization and execution of this endeavor is undertaken

here with the intention of identifying and addressing these pitfalls before they appear with theintent of not having to address them in the first place.

Personnel shortages

For our station to be declared a success it will need to produce a significant level ofunique and local programming. This requires people. Lots of people. Since as a generalrule lots of people is not something that plagues most church ministries this will need tobe very intentionally dealt with. For a couple of reasons, the most likely source of peopleto populate our operations will be from outside our church. For one, the qualificationsfor these operations are quite specific in many cases and the likelihood of happening to

have just the right fit from someone from our Congregation are slim. The good side ofthis is that adding people to our churches ministries would be a positive development.Caution, of course, would demand vetting of these folks but we have the system in placeto do that already. In any event, any difficulty in integrating new people is a problem weshould welcome.

Time constraints

People are busy and adding new demands on their time can be difficult. On the otherhand, most of our Congregation is not involved in any ministry and needs to be educatedto the fact they should be in order to fulfill their spiritual gifts. Pastors Pieces classspeaks to this but the power of prayer for workers should not be underestimated.

Added Expenses

The idea of operating costs has already been addressed but one thing should be added.To whatever degree money becomes a problem the operation and cost of running thestation can be reduced to a point where they would be negligible. As long as we keepthis a pay as we go project we take on no debt that we cant reduce payment on.

Burnout

The operation of KGLJ will be a large undertaking. Eminently worthwhile but still a lotof added work for the Congregation, Pastor and other leadership of our church. Requiredfor any success will be involving as many new people as possible in this ministry.Options for doing this include personal contacts with prospective interested parties, apresentation to the Congregation of this ministry and acquiring the interest andinvolvement of people outside the Congregation to get involved.


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Divergence of Opinion

As with any undertaking that brings change to a church some will not see the need forthis effort and may reject it. As Paul points out in Ephesians, no undertaking in a church

succeeds without the unity of the body so these can not be ignored. Explanations,mitigations and compromise are to be expected. However, at the end of the day,decisions must be made and one just hopes and prays for people to be gracious in notgetting all they want. In all cases we will do our best to, Get rid of all bitterness, rageand anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.AndBe kind andcompassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.(Eph 4:31-32), as we move forward.

KGLJ Business Plan Rev 1

Documents

Transcript of KGLJ Business Plan Rev 1