Where is Best Market to add Christian Music Station?

[joshzz]

There are many regions in the US that are well-served with more than enough local, Christian Music Stations, but there are some areas that are underserved.

I have started investigating this as we may be interested in growing.

We're looking for a somewhat populated area, possibly Arbitron 100 - 200 market. A market that has no Christian AC broadcasters or has only a national broadcaster such as K-Love - this would be an ideal situation.

A place that is starving for great Christian music with a huge local presence.

your recommendations are appreciated. josh

 

[anotherguyTN]

There are many regions in the US that are well-served with more than enough local, Christian Music Stations, but there are some areas that are underserved.

I have started investigating this as we may be interested in growing.

We're looking for a somewhat populated area, possibly Arbitron 100 - 200 market. A market that has no Christian AC broadcasters or has only a national broadcaster such as K-Love - this would be an ideal situation.

A place that is starving for great Christian music with a huge local presence.

your recommendations are appreciated. josh

I'd think Memphis would definitely qualify. They have K-LOVE, but haven't had a local CCM station in close to 5 years.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Houston has no CCM station at the present time, only praise and worship. Is that a huge enough opportunity for you?!

 

[R.D.P.]

How about setting up shop in a more rural setting. I've been wanting to bring a top notch and quality based CCM station to my area for years now. This may be a golden opportunity for you to assist me. Yes my hometown has less than 50,000 people but I believe this station would work out, if it was given a chance to be heard.

All we get is the same old five to six talking points with little or no music. (Moody and AFR) It's very boring and dull indeed. Need some real excitement, in a place that has none. Hope someone will see this need and help me get something going.

This type of presentation would be a potential goldmine in an underformatted city like mine.

R.D.P. <><

P.S. If you were lead to assist me, we could fish for a 50,000 watt station at 93.3 FM. This spot would be the best place for us to set up shop.

 

[amisdead]

Houston has no CCM station at the present time, only praise and worship. Is that a huge enough opportunity for you?!

Wrong again, Bruce, and I think you know it.

KSBJ is most definitely CCM. Just because they play some songs that you don't like doesn't mean they don't qualify.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Houston has no CCM station at the present time, only praise and worship. Is that a huge enough opportunity for you?!

Wrong again, Bruce, and I think you know it.

KSBJ is most definitely CCM. Just because they play some songs that you don't like doesn't mean they don't qualify.

I know the difference, I did a show on a praise and worship station. KSBJ - it is praise and worship primarily. Whether I like it or not is immaterial. There is nothing wrong with praise and worship as a format, it is just a different format than CCM. It is a misrepresentation to call KSBJ CCM, because it is not. I stream real CCM, which admittedly may be more HOT-AC / CHR than what you mean. KLTY, which I heard when I was in Dallas, is more AC CCM and darn sure more cutting edge CCM than KSBJ. It would be a rare person that calls KLTY "cutting edge", since they play pretty mellow stuff, but compared with KSBJ it is. My point was that this market would be absolutely ripe for a Christian CHR station - with several mega-churches that have relatively young memberships. I don't think a CHR variety CCM station in Houston would even cut into KSBJ's ratings, since the potential audience is not listening to Christian radio now. I would expect it to cut into the ratings of KRBE and other secular stations, as previously unreached Christian listeners discover that Christian music can be entertaining, cool, and relevant. If I was a secular investor, not even from a Christian perspective, I'd do it in a heartbeat because there is a lot of money to be made.

 

[amisdead]

I agree with you that KSBJ is kind of lame sometimes compared to KFSH or even KLTY, but you are absolutely wrong about everything else. KSBJ is, without any doubt, Contemporary Christian. "Praise & Worship" isn't even a recognized format.

Look at KSBJ's file at Arbitron: http://www1.arbitron.com/sip/displaySip.do?surveyID=FA09&band=fm&callLetter=KSBJ

You do realize that a lot of modern worship music gets played on CCM radio? Even something more aggressive like Way FM mixes in some songs you might hear at church regularly. KSBJ is not playing hymns.

Don't be ridiculous: KSBJ is just as much CCM as K-LOVE or any of The Fishes.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

I agree with you that KSBJ is kind of lame sometimes compared to KFSH or even KLTY, but you are absolutely wrong about everything else. KSBJ is, without any doubt, Contemporary Christian. "Praise & Worship" isn't even a recognized format.

I think our disagreement is a definition of terms. To me, the term "Contemporary Christian Music" is pretty much an umbrella covering everything that isn't hymns of centuries past, gregorian chants, and the like. I could give a rodent's posterior about what arbitron says on the KSBJ listing, they probably don't know a thing about Christian music, much less what formats it entails. To them it is such a minor player it doesn't warrant any sort of serious analysis. I ran into this working in Christian radio, there is no established definition, no charts, no standardization. Just a lot of folks out there doing their own thing under the banner of CCM.

CCM as I said is the broad general category. Under it --

Praise and worship (KSBJ, Calvary Chapel, AFR, Moody, and stuff like that.
AC - KLTY the vast majority of "CCM" stations K-LOVE, some of the WAY-FMs
CHR - more like the old pre-raid WCIE, perhaps Z-88 Orlando on occasion, some of the WAY-FMs like Colorado
Christian rock - power-FM in Dallas, Radio U, maybe Air-1

Now those are my categories, others may disagree, Arbitron sure doesn't track in that detail. And most Christian stations are a mixture of approaches with teaching and sponsored shows on Saturday night. Even KSBJ has a Christian rock show on Saturday night. But --- PW and AC are generally your female 25 to 54 demographics, ranging to Christian rock generally male 18 to 34. Most kids I know aren't really tracked that closely, but probably cluster on CHR because it is close to top-40. Especially if the Christian CHR includes Christian dance / party mix and Christian hip-hop / rap shows.

It is Christian CHR to Christian rock that would probably rate well in Houston. Based on the experience with Power FM, I think 30,000 supporters is not out of the realm of possibility for such a station in the Houston area. That's a lot of donations, maybe enough to support a small but dedicated staff. You got to go where the support is, if there is enough demand in an area, and enough people to support it financially, it will succeed. I'd worry, though, about a rural area unless you are going to satellite and automate with minimal intervention. It would probably be a one man station, more of a hobby than a living. Still, if you got the funds for equipment, and enough support to pay the satellite feed, it could be viable. Just make sure your business plan makes sense. It is a "count the cost of a tower" type of thing.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

A place that is starving for great Christian music with a huge local presence.

your recommendations are appreciated. josh

Josh - we would sure love to have you start something in Houston. I've already been talking to area youth pastors, I think there would be immediate and substantial church financial aid for such an initiative. The kids hate the station that is on the air here, and youth pastors are desperate to have something to recommend to them. Contact me off this board and I'll start sending you emails of youth pastors if you want to try for Houston. The need is HUGE, the fields ripe for harvest!

 

[R.D.P.]

To Mr. Bruce:

You're spot on again!  There's a major difference between CCM and P&W music, as you so pointly stated.  The CCM stuff is more upbeat and entertaining.  The P&W stuff is a bit slower and bland.

To Josh:

I want to start up this radio station for these reasons: (1) To help bring another voice for uplifting and positive programming to my area. (2) To help revive a community that's dying.  (3) and to take a stand against these evil forces, that want to hold us down and keep us from reaching our true potential.  If you wish, you can contact me off site and I'll explain to you what I'm fishing for and why we have such a need for it. 

R.D.P. <><

P.S. As I stated earlier my hometown may be small but this station would be a potential goldmine in an underformatted city like mine.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

To Mr. Bruce:

You're spot on again! There's a major difference between CCM and P&W music, as you so pointly stated. The CCM stuff is more upbeat and entertaining. The P&W stuff is a bit slower and bland.

I've given this a lot of thought, traveled a lot of the country listening to what people are doing. The one constant is - there is no constant. Only large networks like K-Love or Calvary Chapel or AFR have any sort of consistency, and that is only because a single entity programs each network and each station is just a satellite feed. They don't even agree with each other on what music constitutes "CCM".

So it is probably reasonable for KSBJ to claim to be "CCM", they are just the praise and worship version of it. So I think we need to stop using the term "CCM" because every station will say "yes, we are contemporary", when in reality they are just one narrow interpretation of the broad term. They usually use that term to justify music that is anathema to kids - and let's face it kids are the only future the church has. So they play it safe and go for adults who write big checks for support. In that regard I think Christian radio may have to abandon the non-profit model if they want to have any sort of youth audience.

I've followed some threads here and other boards about hybrid models for Christian music stations. I think the vast quantity of PW stuff out there has effectively taken over the AC side of CCM to the point there isn't enough material to attract a youthful audience. So that leaves CHR and Christian rock - these are the formats where there may be a significant potential to attract youth. But they have been badly decimated by the lack of support among broadcasters. I think KLTY may have a viable model to get enough material. They play music by artists who are Christians, and whose music has Biblical themes - but is not released as Christian music. I remember howls of protest when I was playing a CCM station - until "How to Save a Life" by "The Fray" came on the station. Unknown to me, this was a crossover to secular charts and after that, the kids were willing to listen to the station for an extended period of time. KLTY has quite a list of crossover songs they are playing. I think there is another source of music by Christians, courtesy of Disney. Selena Gomez just released a CD chock full of songs that have Biblical themes, yet are not preachy. Perhaps - a hybrid format, composed of what is left of the CHR / Christian rock business, mixed with secular charted songs from artists that are Christians whose lifestyle is exemplary, and the songs are Biblical themed, and combined with enormously popular Christians discovered by Disney like Miley Cyrus, Jonas Brothers, Selena Gomez, and Demi Lovato might just attract and keep a teenage audience. No church would want to support it, unless they are really forward looking, so it has to be commercial. Sell ads to stores the kids frequent in the malls, etc. Top-40 stations are successful marketing to those stores, so can we be.

That's all I can think of to do get something on the air that kids will listen to. Praise and worship - forget it. There is no alternate version of reality where they will like that stuff. It sucks, they know it, they hate it - it is NOT a spirit of rebellion, it just isn't very good music. It certainly is no fun. In a church worship setting, maybe. On the air - forget it if you want to reach kids. I've been in front of kids trying to advocate it to see what would happen. I was greeted with either laughter or open hostility. Forget it. Kids and PW - do not mix. Never did, never will.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

There is a difference between Praise and Worship Music and CCM. One is designed as a form of worship to the Lord for use in a church service. Much like the Gregorian Chanting of Psalms that is used in a Lutheran Mass. These two forms of Christian music were not designed as entertainment, but as an expression of worship.

CCM, on the other hand is Christian oriented form of modern music that generally has either lyrics that do mention the Lord or lyrics that have a very positive uplifting message. There are even some CCM songs that have become the "Jesus is my boyfriend" type song, obviously aimed at the female part of the audience. CCM music, for my ear generally, is more oriented towards "G" rated entertainment than worship. That's not to say that some of the CCM music can't be worshipful, but CCM provides a Christian entertainment factor that can't be found anywhere else on the radio dial, which seems to be its main purpose. "A positive choice", as many CCM stations promote during their spot breaks.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

There is a difference between Praise and Worship Music and CCM. One is designed as a form of worship to the Lord for use in a church service. Much like the Gregorian Chanting of Psalms that is used in a Lutheran Mass. These two forms of Christian music were not designed as entertainment, but as an expression of worship.

CCM, on the other hand is Christian oriented form of modern music that generally has either lyrics that do mention the Lord or lyrics that have a very positive uplifting message. There are even some CCM songs that have become the "Jesus is my boyfriend" type song, obviously aimed at the female part of the audience. CCM music, for my ear generally, is more oriented towards "G" rated entertainment than worship. That's not to say that some of the CCM music can't be worshipful, but CCM provides a Christian entertainment factor that can't be found anywhere else on the radio dial, which seems to be its main purpose. "A positive choice", as many CCM stations promote during their spot breaks.

Very good post. I gave a nod to the PW crowd by attempting to put them into the CCM category. I'm not going to convince the PW fans that their music isn't "contemporary" - you can see the post on another thread blissfully thinking they are reaching masses of kids with PW programming. Yeah - right - collateral listeners who don't have a choice in the vast majority of cases. Most kids I know are more fun that that plodding, stodgy old PW cr@p. Most women 25 - 54 are more fun than that, too. PW is fine for worship inside churches. If it is upbeat - I can get into it a bit. But on the radio - suckish. But I still say - it is "contemporary" only because most of it was written within the past 30 years. A lot of it isn't very good, either. If I could only listen to they hymns of old, done by classical musicians, or PW done by church wannabes, I would pick the hymns in a heartbeat. They are so much better than the PW mediocrity that it isn't even funny. Fortunately, I don't have to make such a choice. There is Christian CHR and rock available. Soon - - VERY soon - I'll be streaming it. And thank the good Lord a lot of the kids at church have iPhones, now I have a way for them to hear Godly music that doesn't suck!

 

[gr8oldies]

I dunno...just trying to transport myself back to when I was a pre-teen and teen. There certainly was some limited "Jesus rock" then, but I'm thinking if some youth leader would have thrown albums at me and said "these guys sound just like Led Zeppelin, Chicago, Marvin Gaye and the Beatles except they have Christian lyrics" I wouldn't have had the slightest interest in switching over. I've actually exposed my alternative-loving son to Radio U and he has no interest.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

Very good post. I gave a nod to the PW crowd by attempting to put them into the CCM category. I'm not going to convince the PW fans that their music isn't "contemporary" - you can see the post on another thread blissfully thinking they are reaching masses of kids with PW programming. Yeah - right - collateral listeners who don't have a choice in the vast majority of cases. Most kids I know are more fun that that plodding, stodgy old PW cr@p. Most women 25 - 54 are more fun than that, too. PW is fine for worship inside churches. If it is upbeat - I can get into it a bit. But on the radio - suckish. But I still say - it is "contemporary" only because most of it was written within the past 30 years. A lot of it isn't very good, either. If I could only listen to they hymns of old, done by classical musicians, or PW done by church wannabes, I would pick the hymns in a heartbeat. They are so much better than the PW mediocrity that it isn't even funny. Fortunately, I don't have to make such a choice. There is Christian CHR and rock available. Soon - - VERY soon - I'll be streaming it. And thank the good Lord a lot of the kids at church have iPhones, now I have a way for them to hear Godly music that doesn't suck!

In fact Praise and Worship music is contemporary music, especially when talking church music. Many hymns are at least 200 years old and older. Martin Luther wrote a number of hymns besides being a great Bible Scholar, translator of the 1st German version of the Bible, starter of the Protestant Reformation (which eventually started Lutheranism), and as a Pastor. That was 500 years ago, and Charles Wesley and his brother John Wesley (founder of Methodism) wrote bunches of hymns where they used popular bar songs of their day for the music (hey the music of their day didn't rock or even swing). Even a song written 40 years ago in terms of musical styling and format (even if the drum beat is not as popular today still fits a contemporary musical style of Rock (could be pop rock, country rock, R&B rock, heavy metal rock, etc, etc.) unlike swing / jazz music with its syncopated beat and rythum or Classical Music which is altogether a different breed of musical expression.

Praise and Worship music is a form of worshipful expression, especially for a contemporary church service vs hymns / Gregorian Chants that are another form of worshipful expression especially for a more traditional church service. I'm a Lutheran and our church offers both a Contemporary Lutheran Mass and a Traditional Lutheran Mass. I see both younger (18-30's) in both services and older folks (40-80+) in both services. I've asked the younger folks why they go to the traditional Lutheran Mass rather than the contemporary Lutheran Mass and they all have said that for them, this is church, their form of worship. Even though they like Rock music, Country, or whatever, when they come to offer their sacrifice of praise and worship at God's altar these particular younger folks have chosen the hymns/Gregorian Chants over the modern. The younger folks in the contemporary Mass prefer the modern PW music over the hymns/chants so choose to worship at that service.

Now many churches are targetting the younger teen/college demo and most are using PW music, but their praise bands have a rock flavor to them so that even when they play the Praise Oldies from the 1980's (they are new songs to these kids) they have the same modern sound as the newest praise song. The praise bands even do an occasional hymn in the same musical style. Unless it's a really well known hymn you might not realize it's a hymn until you note some of the archaic (Elisabethan English) words used.

You mention church wannabes as sort of second rate musicians. In my experience, most organist's (who quite often is the choir director) and choir directors are paid musicians, who have at least a bachelors degree in music. Praise bands, on the other hand are quite often all volunteer, so you may have a leader who isn't as knowledgeable as they should be, but many smaller churches can't afford to pay both an organist and a praise band leader. Many times, I've been to contemporary services in charismatic churches (these are small to medium sized churches, not the mega churches) where the pastors son/daughter or relative is the leader. They have some musical knowledge, but not to the level of the choir director/organist. I guess my point here is, most are volunteers who are offering their limited gifting in music to serve the congregation and as part of their worship to the Lord. They are giving all they have musically. Many small churches do not have even that, so they use CD's and DVD's of PW music as they don't have any musicians to play in a praise band, or some of limited ability that don't want to be condemned for not being as good as something heard on the radio. Church is never to be a performance, it is worship, and in that spirit is how we in the congregation should recieve the music, be it hymns/chants or PW/CCM music. We're not singing songs, we're worshipping the risen Christ.

Getting this back to radio or specfically CCM radio. I used to work at a CCM station back in the 1980's. I'd stick in an occasional praise song (once an hour). I'd usually piggyback that praise song with a scripture verse and quick thought. The audience noticed and I'd recieve many phone calls (we were a small station and I was the only person in the building so I was the one to answer the phone) with no one complaining, but saying that the praise song and bible verse blessed them. Of course, balance was the key. So I'd actually say, that PW music could and should be a part of a CCM format, sparingly as a forum for refocusing the audience on their savior. Sort of a spot break from the normal CCM music to refocus their thoughts on Christ.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Getting this back to radio or specfically CCM radio. I used to work at a CCM station back in the 1980's. I'd stick in an occasional praise song (once an hour). I'd usually piggyback that praise song with a scripture verse and quick thought. The audience noticed and I'd recieve many phone calls (we were a small station and I was the only person in the building so I was the one to answer the phone) with no one complaining, but saying that the praise song and bible verse blessed them. Of course, balance was the key. So I'd actually say, that PW music could and should be a part of a CCM format, sparingly as a forum for refocusing the audience on their savior. Sort of a spot break from the normal CCM music to refocus their thoughts on Christ. [/color]

We all have to do "crash and burn" songs once in a while, or the format gets monotonous. There was a song called "Love Song" or something by Third Day that got tremendous audience response, so we played it. We also had a regular listener who always requested "Friends" by Michael W. Smith. We actually had the original, not the awful remake, and it was popular. But those were the crash and burn type of songs, along with stuff by novelty Christian artist Carmen. The rest of our format was Christian rock.

I think the confusion is church music vs. radio music. There are many songs that have great meaning in the context of a worship service that are not radio cuts. And vice versa. So there is no conflict with liking praise and worship in church and Christian rock on the radio. A preference for either variety has no bearing on ones spiritual condition.

As for kids - some are reached by PW, some by hymns, some by Southern gospel. Maybe if you hand a Christian rock CD to a secular rock oriented kid, they will have no interest. But if the music is good, and a kid gets tired of the same old 400 song playlist on the rock station - eventually they might pop the CD in and give it a listen.

We had what might sound like a strange attitude. We didn't want Christians listening. Well, it was OK if they listened, but they weren't our target audience. Our target audience was unsaved kids. We were after the "seek button", and if a kid had a radio stop on our station, we wanted them to hear something that sounded familiar to them. We would often get requests for secular songs, and our operators were trained to tell the caller that we didn't have that song at the station, but we have _____ by this new artist that sounds the same. We would ask them to listen, then call the station back with their opinion. We got many call backs, and there was never a negative comment among them! We got many kids "hooked" on the music - and the more they listened to the music, the more they got the message. There were probably many hard core secular kids who didn't like Christian music, and of course we never heard from them, but our ratings grew to the point it attracted interest from secular advertisers. We were non-profit so we couldn't sell advertising, but we did get some underwriting announcements. My experience was that Christian rock was tremendously effective at reaching kids. We even had a stroke of genius - we interned kids from high school. Popular kids, who were also Christians. The interest level in our little show skyrocketed. We had a huge percentage of the kids from their schools listening every night they were on! And our talent also attracted secular interest. We had secular stations attempting to hire our kids, because they were really good on the radio. I'm proud to say none were interested in doing secular radio.

 

[William_Yeager]

Speaking of P&W, I think there is or will be an opportunity somewhere to add a P&W station that actually caters to the 25-34, or even 15-24 set. The playlist would look very different from the Inspirational format as we know it (which is also branded as "Soft AC" on some charts, including this site)-Crowder, Hillsong United, Gateway, Passion, etc.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

We all have to do "crash and burn" songs once in a while, or the format gets monotonous. There was a song called "Love Song" or something by Third Day that got tremendous audience response, so we played it. We also had a regular listener who always requested "Friends" by Michael W. Smith. We actually had the original, not the awful remake, and it was popular. But those were the crash and burn type of songs, along with stuff by novelty Christian artist Carmen. The rest of our format was Christian rock.

I think the confusion is church music vs. radio music. There are many songs that have great meaning in the context of a worship service that are not radio cuts. And vice versa. So there is no conflict with liking praise and worship in church and Christian rock on the radio. A preference for either variety has no bearing on ones spiritual condition.

As for kids - some are reached by PW, some by hymns, some by Southern gospel. Maybe if you hand a Christian rock CD to a secular rock oriented kid, they will have no interest. But if the music is good, and a kid gets tired of the same old 400 song playlist on the rock station - eventually they might pop the CD in and give it a listen.

We had what might sound like a strange attitude. We didn't want Christians listening. Well, it was OK if they listened, but they weren't our target audience. Our target audience was unsaved kids. We were after the "seek button", and if a kid had a radio stop on our station, we wanted them to hear something that sounded familiar to them. We would often get requests for secular songs, and our operators were trained to tell the caller that we didn't have that song at the station, but we have _____ by this new artist that sounds the same. We would ask them to listen, then call the station back with their opinion. We got many call backs, and there was never a negative comment among them! We got many kids "hooked" on the music - and the more they listened to the music, the more they got the message. There were probably many hard core secular kids who didn't like Christian music, and of course we never heard from them, but our ratings grew to the point it attracted interest from secular advertisers. We were non-profit so we couldn't sell advertising, but we did get some underwriting announcements. My experience was that Christian rock was tremendously effective at reaching kids. We even had a stroke of genius - we interned kids from high school. Popular kids, who were also Christians. The interest level in our little show skyrocketed. We had a huge percentage of the kids from their schools listening every night they were on! And our talent also attracted secular interest. We had secular stations attempting to hire our kids, because they were really good on the radio. I'm proud to say none were interested in doing secular radio.

Sounds like you had a unique radio station and apparently what you were doing was reaching a segment of the Unsaved Youth in your market. Did your station do any sort of followup to help any of these newly reached kids for Christ to get planted in any local churches in your city?

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Sounds like you had a unique radio station and apparently what you were doing was reaching a segment of the Unsaved Youth in your market. Did your station do any sort of followup to help any of these newly reached kids for Christ to get planted in any local churches in your city?

Oh absolutely! The phone volunteers were equipped with a list of churches and a map of the area, so we could direct them to local youth / singles ministries. There isn't much a radio station can do to follow up on its own - you don't do an altar call to come down to the station for security reasons (unfortunately a very real consideration). Had we been big enough to sponsor our own events like concerts, we could have done it there. That was coming as we grew, but circumstances changed - I got a different "day job" and had to move. The station went back to praise and worship and preacher tapes, and almost total obscurity.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

Sometimes God opens up an opportunity like that for a season. You were apparently sensitive to that opportunity and used it to make disciples for the Lord during that season. It's ashame that this particular radio station didn't continue on serving that community in that manner after you left that town, but think of the people God gave you the privledge of ministering to and blessing during that time. The Lord may have had a reason for you being at that radio station at that time and then moving you on later to another town. That experience or training if you will, may be of use some day in the future in your walk with the Lord. Be sensitive to what the Lord calls you to do. You at least were willing to follow his lead in your last town. How many of us miss those special opporitunities, be it in radio or in life, to serve the Living Christ, because we aren't willing to get out of the boat?

Sometimes we forget that our timing isn't always the same as God's. Remember that there was a period of about 16 years from Paul's Damascus Road experience to when he left on his first missionary journey. If Paul had gotten ahead of the Lord's timing, he'd have been a major flop, but he followed God's plan and was used mightily by God to bring many people in the then known world to Christ. So be open to God's calling and be willing to get out of the boat when he says, Come ! But, be sure it is God saying come. All in his timing. He does the saving by giving away his grace and love freely, he may use us as instruments in his will, but he does the saving. It's always exciting to be used in such a great way to reach people for Christ.