In the 60 seconds others use to promote a automotive wash or eating spot on the radio, Lon Solomon offers listeners one thing else: a cultural remark tied to the Christian Gospel, one meant to spur deeper thought.
“Not a Sermon, Just a Thought,” heard within the Washington space for the final 26 years, is the now-familiar tagline for the commercials, that are branching out nationwide.
Starting in 1997 on Howard Stern’s former radio house, WJFK-FM, Mr. Solomon, the 75-year-old retired senior pastor of McLean Bible Church — who says he has “the perfect face for radio” — has delivered a pithy pitch for Jesus that references a track by Paul Simon or the Eagles, or a declaration from Madonna.
Quoting Mr. Simon’s basic track “America” and its line, “I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why,” Mr. Solomon tells listeners, “I was that way, too,” earlier than he discovered religion in Christ and started a now 50-year Christian journey.
Surprising listeners doesn’t faze him. He now not speaks weekly from the pulpit in McLean, however tens of millions nonetheless hear his voice, which is the purpose of the minute-long “Not a sermon, just a thought” radio spots.
While many retirees would work on their golf recreation or take up pickleball, Mr. Solomon is working to develop his “Not a Sermon” promoting attain. Each quarter, his nonprofit, Lon Solomon Ministries, funds a 13-week “flight” of spots in two totally different cities similar to Seattle and Portland, Ore. The purpose is to rotate the placements and canopy the nation.
“We’ve already done Chicago and Atlanta,” he stated.
Mr. Solomon, who describes his former self as “a secular Jewish person on drugs” dwelling in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, as a school pupil, stated neither he nor “my drug buddies” would have entered a church. While somebody did ultimately attain him with the Christian message, he recalled, a bigger world wanted to listen to it. But how?
“As I thought about it, I thought, you know, it’s real simple,” Mr. Solomon stated. “I have to stop asking these people to come onto my turf. I have to go on there and meet them where they are and talk to them where they are.”
Thus was born the “Not a sermon” advertisements, 46 seconds of unique materials with a 14-second normal message on how listeners can be taught extra from his ministry’s web site.
Media professional Phil Cooke, a veteran of the Christian market, stated Mr. Solomon’s idea is “a great strategy because you can place a short commercial spot like this in front of a far bigger audience than a 30-minute program,” the customary format discovered on Christian stations.
Mr. Cooke stated brevity is crucial when reaching a postmodern viewers which may be unaware of the religion’s fundamentals.
“Today, we live in the most distracted culture in the history of the world,” Mr. Cooke stated by way of electronic mail. “The average person today sees as many as 10,000 media messages daily, and studies indicate we touch our phones an average of about 245 times a day. So with that overwhelming barrage of media, it’s tough to get a secular audience to watch a 30-minute or more program to listen to your message.”
Mr. Solomon has a template for his messages: “Give them one verse of Scripture. Say something from current events or personages that would illustrate the point of the verse. And just say to them, ‘You know what, you should think about this.’”
The advertisements — which initially aired throughout shock-jock Howard Stern’s program when that present aired on WJFK-FM, now a sports-talk outlet — labored. People got here to McLean Bible Church, despite the fact that Mr. Solomon stated that wasn’t the advert marketing campaign’s major purpose.
“It was not to push McLean Bible Church,” Mr. Solomon stated. He would point out he was the pastor there so listeners would know the congregation’s identify.
“Not a Sermon” isn’t distinctive in bringing a brief non secular thought to radio listeners. Bishop Michael Burbidge of the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, is often heard on one-minute spots on WTOP-FM, one thing the diocese has finished “for years,” a spokesperson stated.
While Mr. Solomon obtained the thought within the Nineteen Eighties, practically a decade into what could be a 38-year run as senior pastor of the Northern Virginia congregation, he wasn’t in a position to transfer ahead till 1991, after McLean Bible Church’s membership cut up over the thought of turning into extra evangelistic towards their secular neighbors.
“We had a vote of confidence in me that I won by eight votes,” Mr. Solomon recalled. “Then most of the people who really didn’t want to have that kind of an outreach approach left and [that] really cleared the decks.”
His different problem: discovering a memorable catchphrase listeners would grasp rapidly.
“I couldn’t think of a tagline to save my life,” he stated. “I mean, it has to fit with secular society. It’s got to have some double entendre about the Gospel.”
The reply got here, he stated, whereas attending a convention in Colorado Springs.
“I’d been praying about this, thinking about this, I was driving myself crazy,” he stated. “I was in bed one morning, and it was like somebody whispered in my ear, ‘Not a sermon, just a thought.’”
He credit God with the inspiration and stated to his church leaders, “I’m telling you, the Holy Spirit whispered in my ear. … It was not me. I did not come up with this. I’m as surprised by it as you were.”
He stated there was preliminary resistance at WASH-FM, the place the final supervisor questioned whether or not church-state separation points would apply.
Mr. Solomon instructed the chief, “Unless [the ad is] obscene, it’s a First Amendment issue — and WJFK is doing it.” The station relented, as did WTOP, the place he stated executives additionally balked at first.
There’s nonetheless occasional opposition, he stated. In a current try to purchase air time in San Francisco, one radio chain’s stations turned him down, however retailers owned by one other broadcast group stated sure.
Mr. Solomon says conveying an evangelistic name stays on the heart of his effort.
“This wasn’t about the church,” he stated. “This was about Jesus, bringing people to Jesus. I didn’t care if they ever came to church, but I cared if they came to Christ.”
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