Ministry Spotlight - Don Shenk

Don Shenk, joining the Ministry Spotlight, serves as director of The Tide, a radio ministry that broadcasts in India, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Nepal, and Romania. He came on The Matt Friedeman Show to talk about The Tide's outreach in other nations. Below are the "CliffsNotes" of his interview.

What is The Tide about?

Basically, we're trying to share Jesus Christ and bring people into a relationship with him.

Our mission statement is "Creatively sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ worldwide through media and partnerships."

What is the power of radio overseas?

Here we have so many different mediums of media, but in other places people rely very strongly on the radio.

There's an element of authenticity to what they hear on air. That can be dangerous, if there is false teaching, but it gives us authority in their eyes when we preach the gospel.

The Tide doesn't own any broadcasting services, so we purchase air time from other broadcasters. We use indigenous speakers, not a translated program from over here in America.

We broadcast in the heart languages of the countries. It becomes culturally relevant to the people who hear it.

What is a heart language?

When we talk about a heart language, it is the language that they were born to speak, that they grew up speaking. 

The importance of that in radio is that they can identify with Christ as a God who knows them, rather than a foreign God

We are doing in Zimbabwe, the Tide has a daily program. So we have some programs there that target youth, others that are specifically for men.

We deal with issues that they are facing every day. In Zimbabwe, that is family.

There are many single-parent families, because a spouse often has to go into another country to earn a living. The Tide is focusing on how to help these families that are broken.

One of the things as a ministry, The Tide doesn't want to be guilty of sending out a ministry on the air and then just leaving the listeners hanging. 

We provide literature; we have Bible correspondence programs that they can enroll in.

When we have an area where we have received responses from many listeners, we will hold a Seekers Conference about what it means to accept Christ.

What is the area you are most excited about?

That's a hard one to answer. I would have to say right now I'm most excited about Bhutan.

We had a ministry there, and we had to withdraw. But another door opened, and by March we will be going back in and broadcasting.