The argument for keeping radio in cars is often made in the language of emergency alerts and storm warnings. But radio’s role as a lifeline often runs quieter and deeper than that. This piece, first published in the March issue of Radio Ink magazine, explores just one of those stories. We’re making it available to all readers today at no charge. – Editor-in-Chief Cameron Coats
The woman was alone, in her silver Honda Accord, parked on the shoulder of a Georgia highway. Her name, for the purposes of this story, is Teresa. And Teresa was dying.
What we do know is that she had swallowed a bottle of the prescription nerve pain medication gabapentin and was waiting for her life to end. What we don’t know is what prompted her to call the phone number she heard on the radio. That voice on the other end of the phone was with her. Calm. Present. Asking her to stay.
That pastor worked for Educational Media Foundation, the Nashville-based owner and operator of K-LOVE and Air1, two of the most-listened-to Christian radio networks in the United States.
And in the moments that followed, while that pastor kept Teresa talking — kept her conscious, kept her tethered to the sound of another human being — a colleague quietly and quickly contacted the Georgia Highway Patrol. No location. Just a name and the description of a car. An all-points bulletin went out across the state. As minute after precious minute ticked by, through what can be described as something beyond coincidence, a highway patrol officer found her. Tapped on the window. And after a brief moment, Teresa opened the door.
“You can see why my emotion was there in the moment,” Pastor Bill Corbin, EMF’s Chief Ministry Officer, says, his voice catching as he recounts it. “Literally her life was saved through just the quick thinking of our pastors.”
A Ministry of Radio
You know radio as a lifeline during hurricanes, wildfires, and tornadoes. But what about the call that comes at 2 a.m. from someone who’s lost hope?
Behind many Christian radio stations is a prayer team of volunteers and staffers who answer phones, listen to pain, and sometimes talk people back from the edge. They are first responders for the private battles that can be just as much about life and death as any public crisis.
Educational Media Foundation runs a pastoral care operation of massive scale. On any given day, approximately 800 calls come through their prayer lines. On an average day, three of those 800 calls are what Corbin classifies as a crisis, defined by the ministry as a situation in which someone has been harmed, wants to harm another person, or wants to harm themselves.
“Our ministry is literally on the front line saving lives,” Corbin says. “Not just through prayer, but through life crisis intervention.”
Pastor Corbin has been with EMF since 2016, having come to the ministry from a career in engineering consulting. He now oversees what he describes as EMF’s spiritual engagement strategy — a framework built around three ideas: be a soft shoulder, a listening ear, and a biblical guide.
The prayer line is staffed in tiers. At the front, a care team handles intake, which entails receiving the call, praying with the listener, and assessing their needs. If a situation calls for deeper pastoral counsel, it escalates to one of EMF’s ordained and licensed pastors, trained specifically in crisis intervention. If a caller cannot be safely stabilized, which is to say they cannot make what Corbin calls “a contract” to stay safe, EMF is a mandatory reporter. They contact local authorities. They do welfare checks. They do whatever it takes.
“We want to connect them to digital resources, communities of faith, biblical verses; whatever will help them in their time of need,” Corbin explains. But sometimes, that time of need is right now.
Fighting an Age of Disconnection
“We’re a very busy culture,” Pastor Corbin says. “We’re very preoccupied and distracted. And so few people actually take the time to listen and care and to be fully present in the moment with a listening ear and a caring heart.” From the calls, EMF can glean a kind of real-time emotional weather map of the country, understanding where people are struggling, what they’re afraid of, and what they’re asking God for. Health crises top the list. Marriages. Grief. Fear.
Corbin notes that many callers in crisis to the EMF prayer line have simply exhausted their relational resources. Friends have drifted. Family has grown distant. “Through social media and whatnot, a lot of people feel connected,” he says, “but actually are truthfully isolated. And they just don’t have people to turn to in their greatest times of need.”
This is the paradox of the digital age, and analog, intimate, stubbornly human radio sits in contrast to it. When Teresa called that prayer line, she wasn’t reaching out to an algorithm. She was reaching out to a human voice she heard.
What changes everything? “When they know you care,” Corbin says simply.
A Medium’s Meaning
“The name K-LOVE is very purposeful. Love is the mission statement and the operational philosophy. “Our vision is to inspire people to move closer to Jesus,” Corbin says. “Everything we seek to do is to do just that: to inspire them and encourage them to understand what a relationship with Christ looks like.”
But even beyond the theology, there is something in EMF’s model for radio as a whole, and a challenge to take that capability seriously.
Radio’s power is relational. The on-air personalities at K-LOVE and Air1, like their secular counterparts, build genuine connection with their audiences over years. That trust, Corbin argues, “is priceless, important, and fills a very vital role in the well-being of our nation,” he says, speaking to the radio industry at large. “Don’t ever take for granted listening. And don’t ever take for granted the power of not only the medium, but the power of being that caring and listening ear.”
In an era of broadcast automation and increasing AI, algorithmically optimized, and stripped of the human margins that once made it feel alive, that message carries weight.
Somewhere in Georgia, a woman is alive. She may not remember the name of the pastor who stayed on the phone with her. She may not know the name of the highway patrol officer who tapped on her window. But she knows that someone from the radio refused to let her go.
More information about Educational Media Foundation’s 24/7 prayer line can be found at klove.com. If you or someone you know is in crisis, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available by calling or texting 988.
This story ran first in Radio Ink Magazine. If independent broadcasting journalism matters to you, subscribe today and stay ahead of the stories that define the industry.
