Highfields Church in Cardiff was able to share the hope of Christ with around a million people as they hosted BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Worship on 17 November.
The live broadcast lasted 38 minutes and was split equally between singing and speaking, giving Lead Minister Dave Gobbett a great opportunity to share Christ with a worldwide audience. He said: ‘The main thrust of my message from Ephesians 2 was that Jesus uniquely brings people together because Jesus uniquely brings people to God. Only Jesus can pull our troubled world together.
Uncensored
‘All the words of my sermon needed to be agreed before the broadcast and I felt sure I would be asked to tone it down. In the end, the script only received a minor revision – and even that was just stylistic, it wasn’t related to the content.’
Numerous people have been in touch with the church since the broadcast, with Dave receiving emails about his sermon from as far away as Belgium and South Korea.
Hosting Radio 4 was 11 months in the making and meant a busy weekend for the congregation, requiring some flexibility from the wider church.
To start with, there were three hours of rehearsals on Saturday afternoon – including an ‘as live’ recording in case anything meant that the broadcast couldn’t go out on the following day. Then the congregation had to be in their seats for 7am on the Sunday, ahead of the programme at 8.10am.
‘It meant we were finished by 8.50am,’ Dave added. ‘And then we continued with our regular second morning service at 11.15, so it was full on.
‘But it was such an encouraging time. All of our members were so excited that the church was going to be on national radio. I mean, why wouldn’t you tell people about that? So we had lots of our non-Christian friends listening in, and it was a great opportunity to introduce them to the church and for them to hear the gospel via this “air-drop”.’
For Highfields, it meant a bit of a departure from their normal Sunday morning. They sang well-known hymns and were accompanied by a small orchestra pulled together by a church member who is a senior musical director.
As everything is agreed beforehand, there is little option for spontaneity. That said, Dave is looking forward to doing it again in the future.
‘Our mission statement for Highfields is “Spreading a Passion for Jesus”, and this enabled us to do a bit of that, on a slightly larger scale than normal!
Massive privilege
‘We’re talking with BBC Radio Wales about recording a couple of services in 2020 and then doing another live broadcast for Radio 4 in 2021. It’s a lot of work but we’re looking forward to being involved again. But it was a bit like doing open-air preaching to a million people – it was a massive privilege.’
