A TIME TO SING

Several years ago I was inspired to create a radio show called The Bridegroom Songs. The show features songs, scripture and exhortation around the theme that Jesus Christ is our Bridegroom and He is coming back again. I have often shared the testimony of where the inspiration for this show came from over the airways. Now I would like to share it with the Haven Highlights.

Sometime in 2008 I was at work preparing for a music segment that followed Bishop Todd’s Tuesday Morning broadcast. As he closed the message he began singing “For you I am praying, For you I am praying, I am praying for you.” It was an old song, but I knew it because I had heard for many years at Greater Refuge Church (32nd & Montgomery Ave).

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​Normally for that music segment I would just grab the nearest gospel music CD in the studio and put it on, but that Tuesday I was led to find “like minded music” to follow Bishop Todd’s closing song.

​As I scanned my pile of music, my eyes fell on a complimentary CD I’d received in a registration packet at a conference in New Brunswick two years earlier. The name of the CD was The Bridegroom Songs Vol. 1. It was produced by Bishop Moses E. Butler and the First Church of the Apostolic Way, PAW in Columbus OH. I put the CD on. The rest is history.

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Each week after that first Tuesday, I played songs from that first CD. Early on I requested permission from the station manager to launch an official music show in that time slot. He said yes. That was the birth of The Bridegroom Songs Radio Broadcast. Then I went online found out that Bishop Butler and his church had produced a second CD, The Bridegroom Songs, Vol. 2. I ordered it and began playing those songs. Next I discovered that the organization to which I belonged at the time, COOLJC (Church of our Lord Jesus Christ) had a recording from a live concert called Vintage Apostolic Worship & Praise. I ordered that CD and began airing those songs as well.

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God continued to bless me to find “like minded music” both traditional and contemporary. He also blessed me to expand the show to include scripture readings and exhortation as well as music. Over the years, as churches changed their time slots to better suit their ministries, the length of broadcast grew from 15 minutes to a full hour.

Who but God knew that a few years after that first broadcast I’d be a member of Christ Haven and Bishop Todd would be my pastor? Coincidentally, the first time I visited Christ Haven was in August of 2011. The sermon that morning, preached by Elder Fraser, was The Bridegroom is Coming. Isn’t that something?

From that first Tuesday until now God has truly blessed this broadcast. It has become one of our “staples”, and serves as yet another clarion call to remind all who tune to get ready and stay ready because Jesus Christ is our Bridegroom and He is coming back again. And it all started with the song “For You I am Praying” ministered by my pastor, Bishop Todd.  

To God be the Glory 

Pat Middleton, Morning Host, WTMR 800 AM  

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