Steaming So Far

Its October 26, 2015 as I begin to write this. The options for streaming Radio are pretty amazing for the person with Internet, router and cell phone. There are lots of great choices of things to listen to and enjoy. For Christians it is also a great time to listen to teaching and some great music from many providers that cover everything from Christian Rap to Christian Rock and all in between. Good ole Gospel and Choral music is also there if you search for it. My particular love is CCM before the 90s going back to the origins of it in the late 60s. Think Larry Norman, Evie and Dogwood. I can listen to several outlets that play this take on CCM.

As I have explored this topic and just shared what I have been doing. I am finding that not a lot about delivery of music has changed in the last couple of years. I think more people are streaming with cell data as the price of that is going down or plans are adding data. In the bad ole days of streaming you almost had to have a good computer and a pretty good connection to listen to Radio on a computer or even a streaming station. Well computers have improved and connections by and large are faster than dail-up. When I started this blog, I had been streaming on various sites with various programs to play music like windows media (still good) or winamp (have to search now, but still downloadable, just not not supported again, best I can tell.) But that meant all music listening had to be down around a computer, just like the days of gathering around the radio. Many ministries have been streaming for many years and many ministries do that quite well. I later got a internet radio that hooked up to small radio with inputs for phone or any other device with aux outputs. This radio used www.vtuner.com as a source of stations. That site can be accessed for listening for stations around the world by a computer with a good player program like winamp or even windows media. (it will not play some sound files for some stations, amp will play most)

In that time period some very nice internet radios came on the market, like squeezbox and you can still Google the rest.

Later I found that a ROKU TV box makes a great internet radio. Most TV's have good speakers or are hooked to home stereos so the ROKU makes pretty good sound. This is a box that gets a internet signal from a router (some wired) and then developers give you channels that have individual stations (Klove, Air One), or small batches of stations (Christian radio from Salem, CBN) or big market radio channels like Tune In and I Heart. Also Christian movies, music videos, networks and other religious ministries are on ROKU. Matter of fact a lot of ROKU stations are religious and of many flavors and types.

Eventually I began to to use and Android cell phone to stream a lot of Christian and other radio. They are becoming the new pocket radio for the next generation. Many are taking notice for this, as apple has put a lot of money into a customizable streaming station. I choose an Android because I got my wife's old one and they really are cheaper than apple. On most cell phones you can get the Tune In, I Heart and a host of other streaming music apps. Most of these apps have a tun of good Christian radio and ministry. Lots of apps are also just for one stations. If you are a fan of a particular station or group of stations you may want to check and see if they have a specific app or if they use any of the major streaming outlet.

Now this is not the whole streaming universe. Most major phone apps have a good PC equivalent so you can listen on a lap top or your phone. Podcast are huge too. Most preaching ministries have podcast for certain messages and usually they are free. The steaming service are numerous and they have huge listings. This is good for CCM and Christians because most stations will be some where on the net for you. I am listening to Lead Me to the Rock Radio out of California on my PC though a WinAmp program. The sound is a solid 128kb and sounds great. Some Christian stations are breaking that speed and sound crystal clear.

I have used steaming radio to go to trouble spots in the world in order to pray for people on the ground or use the info about other cultures to pray about evangelism.

Some closing thoughts. Do you have a type of music you like. Stream it. Do you have a church you follow. Try podcast. Do you like to hear new and pray over situations. Look up a local station and stream it. I would like to talk with any readers at scotttalbert1963@gmail.com

Would Jesus Like Commercial Christian Radio

This post is about commercial Christian Radio that is available to listen to and enjoy with the internet. Religious radio has a long interesting relationship with commercial radio. In days of old some musical content on radio was decidedly religious. Many popular songs were hymns and songs of faith. Country music artist still have hits with religious music today. Travis' “3 crosses”, Long Black Train” by Josh Turner, and Carrie Underwood's “Something in the Water” are examples of this type. Many radio stations in 30s to today allocated time to religious broadcasters who would buy time on a secular stations. 24/7 specific programming has stopped a lot of this broadcasting. Many teaching stations are still commercial outlets. Various broadcasters simply buy times on those stations. Thus, when somebody listens the station is rarely asking for money but the various ministries are asking for help to stay on the air. Gospel music in the south found various stations who still are commercial in nature and they do well in various markets. Contemporary Christian Music which began to evolve in the 70s and 80s found its way onto various outlets as a format or something that was played at a certain time of the week. My home town had a several commercial ccm stations that lasted a few years. Very quickly a large part of the ccm listening community realized to make a station that would not change formats quickly as needed to survive, they needed to have a non commercial station. Christians in Houston would form www.ksbj.org that still broadcast Christian music today. Dallas, some would say the buckle of the bible belt got KLTY over twenty years ago. WWW.klty.com is still quite active and is the leading Christian music station in a market loaded with non commercial religious broadcasters. I have found some commercial outlets of Christian music if you do not mind a commercial or two instead of pleads for donations. http://www.1faithfm.com/channel18.html is a service that plays a few formats of Christian music.

The mother of all Christian broadcasting is Salem Communications. This California Christian Based company owns conservative and religious broadcasting and publishing services all over the United States. http://www.christianradio.com/ This site has lots of online music and teaching.

As a Christian writer I have to ask the question is this a case of tables of trade in the temple. I am not sure. I do know when the commercial outlets are owned by well meaning Christians, things tend to be run well and content is pretty good. Salem has even raised funds for Christian ministries.

Most music services have a ccm or Gospel choice. I'm thinking of XM radio or Direct TVs music channels. Also online services like Pandora, or even I Heart have ccm choices. Try setting up an Imperials channel on I Heart. Do they have respect for what they are playing? I do not know.

Contemporary Christian Music has always been a strange blend of commercial interest and people wanting to reach other people by any means possible. Most large Christian artist work for multi-national labels who's sole motivation is making money. Even famous christian writers are carried by commercial book companies. On the same theme most Christian book store chains are owned by churches or christian groups. I just see the commercial or non commercial route as a way to get a message to an audience.

Great Classic CCM Music on the Net

El shaddai, el shaddai,
El-elyon na adonia,
Age to age you're still the same,
By the power of the name.
El shaddai, el shaddai,
Erkamka na adonai,
We will praise and lift you high,
El shaddai.

Do you remember Amy Grant singing this famous Michael Card song. Actually, quite a few artist covered it. Amy must have liked it, she had 3 versions of it. As I get older I find myself wanting to reconnect to music out of my youth and college days . Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) has been around since the 60s and has changed a lot. The early stuff tended to sound acoustic and like west coast rock. Some out and out rock was part of this new music. As CCM grew up it tried to sound like top 40 music. Later hard rock, alt rock and even hair metal music would all have their own CCM artist. Today praise music is a pretty pervasive part of CCM. As a fan from the 70s and 80s, I have began to want to listen to some of that era of music again. Like it or not, that music formed who I was spiritually. Did you sing Michael Smiths “Friends” at camp. How many names can you recall from 7^th grade church youth camp. Later I would see Pat Terry and Steve Camp at a National High School religious camp. Both performances still speak to me today. Later in life I would see Larry Norman, Steve Green and Rich Mullins before they passed.

I am also concerned that a lot of music from that era was put on vinyl and cassettes and has yet to be archived on digital or at least CDs. Sadly, we could lose or degrade some beautiful early heartfelt work of many artist. Also death is a factor, some of these artist are getting older and a window to capture this music is getting smaller.

Streaming radio will not solve all of these problems but it may at least get some of this music off the shelves and back into some old and even new ears. I have found a few good outlets playing CCM “oldies” or classics.

The station I feel has the most promise is http://classicchristian247.com/ This five year old outfit has a great website. It is apparently visited by lots of artist from that age. The stream is available on the tunein mobile app too. They are supported by gifts and some advertising.

I have also found http://www.ccmrewound.com/#! The website is not as cool at 247's but the music seems a little more diverse. They also seem to have really good audio at 128k. Some of the base material can be hard to get good sound from, but they seem to do it well. I also like the fact they are playing Jerry Bryant's 'Full Circle” shows on a regular basis. Jerry was a DJ with decades of experience and plays some very early, sometimes quite rare material. They are also listener supported.

Another station I checked out has been http://www.ccmbacktracks.com/ Their website is pretty much just a place to get the stream. Audio is good at 128k and you can get them on the net and with Roku and smartphone through the tune in app.

A multi site (has more than one stream) http://www.christianclassicrock.net This site considers any rock over a few years to be classic rock. They play a diverse list of artist from the history of Christian Rock. They are associated with 3 other stations that their parent non profit ChristianRock.net They offer Christian Rock, Power Praise and Hard Rock. Beware these streams have some really loud music in them. They have their own apps for smart stores and are carried by tunein.

Honestly I have only reviewed a few stations. Googling CCM Classics will get you a host of websites and streaming sites that play classic CCM. It seems to be growing genre that many are going into.

A face book site I have found is https://www.facebook.com/groups/jesusmusic/, They try to focus on the music. To their credit they ask posters not to comment on artist failures and theology. I am a member and have seen lots of album covers and other commits about finding music.

This January a group calling itself CCM United pulled together over 30 classic artist and had a mega concert called “We Will Stand” for some excellent charities. The DVD of the concert will be available at CCMunited.com later in March and through Lifeway book stores.

Back in the day this music helped build my faith and helped me find expression of my faith. I am thankful that so many are also apparently ready to rediscover this great stuff. As I end this post, I am listening to “Watch and Pray” by Twilla Paris on http://www.ccmclassic.com/ccm-classic-radio-station.htm a station I found randomly with a google search.

End notes: Tune in is a web site, smart phone app and Roku app that caries various streaming services. The Roku is a device for streaming apps that can be hooked up to a tv. I have listed the stations by their web adress for easy access from this article. You may need to hit a “listen Now' button or two.

Religious Broadcaster on Roku

2014 was a year of many changes for my family. I have accepted a pastorate in Anthony, New Mexico and am learning to lead and pastor a church again. Your prayers are gratefully requested and received. My relationship to streaming of Radio has also been altered a little too. In Houston, my previous town, we had Infinity cable and a pretty good net speed for streaming. In Anthony, we could not get Infinity's relative Time Warner cable due to the fact we live on a more non residential street. We also had Century link available in the community. They had a good price, but they do “cap” or limit the amount of data you can use monthly. If you go over the limit, they charge a bit more. Finally my son found a provider called Megaweb that allowed for a flat fee all you can get net service. The speed is not that great, but fine for radio streaming. Video streaming can be a little rough at times. This system consist of a small antenna that communicates with an internet node on a local water tower. This is a set up used in a lot of rural situations. We have managed to use a small Belkin router to supply this signal to a Roku, home computer, several phones, tablet, and two church computers. With this in mind I have managed to put up a few Of Faith and Radio blogs this year.

Lately I have come to believe a ROKU is still a great option for streaming radio and video. In the early days of streaming radio and video you had to have a computer handy. My computer is a great place to work but its not to great to watch movies and that puts speakers in a fixed place to listen to radio. Later, internet radios arrived. I could at least listen to a fairly large amount of stations in the comfort of the bed room or where ever I wanted to set it up. This is when I started writing this blog mainly in regards faith and radio streaming. You can still pick up a good amount of teaching and music stations on an internet radio. If you look at previous blog post I have given you many stations to listen to. I also have found some stations have moved into streaming, others have changed the way they stream and some may have simply gone dark. (Old radio phrase for going off the air.) Stand alone internet radios are still available. Most are portable. All must use a wifi signal.

A good while ago I purchased my one and only Roku and discovered a cheap streamer for Radio and some good video. A person of faith needs to understand that one has pretty good access to a variety of programming with this small box. This is the kinda of device that you can watch movies from subscription services like Netflix or see movies with ads for free. The box can access adult material but you can control what channels you put on the box. I think its safe for family use, should be monitored with teens and a little to much for kids. The Roku is a favorite of “cord cutters” who chose not to use satellite or cable tv. A lot of these folks just have internet and broadcast television.

I have become a fan of this little box. (Most are 60 dollars or cheaper if you get the stick version) As a believer I have access to several free music services like Pandora. I can program some of those stations to play non stop Christian music. I am listening to my Petra station on Pandora as I write this. Many Christian radio stations have there own Roku channels. Klove, KLTY, AirOne and few others come to mind. A huge amount of videos make there broadcast and podcast available too. Some also use the device to stream services live to shut ins or displaced members. Also the Roku has several good internet broadcasting channels that allow a consumer to listen to a numerous amount of Christian teaching and music. Tune In and IheartRadio come to mind, but there are plenty more. Like any internet connected device, the gate keeper needs to be responsible for watch channels they have on there system.

In the history of streaming the first adopters have been faith based. Faith based groups are less profit driven and willing to use new media to reach audiences. Lately I have been looking at various religious television broadcasters on the Roku scene. I have shied away from some religious Television broadcaster in the past because in the old days most Television broadcaster where highly Charismatic and “Seed based” guys like Oral Roberts. Now there where exceptions like Billy Graham or local churches who have fine local broadcast. Graham does have a small Roku channel. As I explored the the system I found the most impressive religious Roku channel is run by CBN, They offer news, a lot of talk and the CBN show with Pat Robertson. They also offer several music channels and a lot of material in a on demand setting. TBN also stream all of their stations. When multi-casting came to broadcast TV the TBN folks responded by creating a host of channels in addition to the TBN channel. They have channels in Arabic, Spanish, Russian and a few other channels. They also have a pretty good youth channel called JUCE. They also offer a pretty huge section of on demand stuff from their website. GOD TV also has a channel. It has their various live streams available. This religious broadcaster took off in Europe and is quite charismatic, but is a great place to view the growth of charismatics around the world. Day Star also has a channel and has its feed available. I have also found two fairly conservative stations. One is the His Channel. While most of the others I have listed have a terrestrial television network behind them, His Channel does not. They are into end times prophecy a lot. They also play great ministries from the Calvary Chapel spectrum, and other conservative bible teachers. They simply try to get their signal on lots of devices. They do on demand programming and a live feed like a television station. The station that I think is most appealing to me as a Southern Baptist and all that entails is the NRB channel. This station started on Directv many years ago, apparently has some affiliates on broadcast television and a Roku channel. If you have a favorite ministry that uses television you can probably find it on the web or on a Roku. With this Roku you can sit comfortably and allow the Lord to speak to you.