Nowadays, Christian ministry is commonplace via both musical and online sources.
Houston resident and veteran broadcaster Harold Wiggs recently launched a project that combines both.
Wiggs first got behind a radio microphone at the age of 13 at KALM-AM in Thayer, and has for close to 10 years hosted “Sunday Mornings Country,” a two-hour gospel music show now carried on 28 stations in multiple states. Late last month, he expanded both his radio and ministerial repertoire by launching KGMA, an Internet-based station that hit the cyber airwaves at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 25.
“What I’m trying to do is bring to people gospel music that actually has a meaning,” Wiggs said. “There are some really deep embedded messages in the songs we play. I don’t think that’s true of the current gospel music.”
KGMA’s playlist includes a vast array of old-style gospel music – close to 57,000 songs as of about a week ago.
“I don’t care for the new gospel music, because there’s never a message as far as I can tell,” Wiggs said. “I never get the same feeling I do by listening to the older style groups and older style singing.”
Wiggs’ interest in music began when he was a young boy living in Oregon County.
“At that time there were lots of gospel-style conventions and the convention-style music is what I grew up with,” he said. “My mom and dad and myself and my brother would travel around going to conventions and the music just stuck with me.”
When he was six, Wiggs received a gift from his aunt, Helen Pitts, that changed his life forever.
“She gave me an old Victrola and a bunch of 78 RPM records,” he said. “I thought I was in heaven with this thing and I literally wore those records out.
“I’ve collected gospel music ever since.”
Sunday Mornings Country also streams, and Wiggs said as many as 427 listeners have been logged on at the same time.
“But we have the capability to handle up to 5,000,” he said. “I believe Internet radio is the wave of the future and will eventually overtake conventional broadcast radio.”
The technical aspects of getting KGMA up and running were handled by Houston resident Deven Stoops. Wiggs, who has for 24 years been an employee at Romines Motor Company in Houston, said the station features numerous songs by many local artists and can be heard in vehicles equipped with Bluetooth technology by occupants possessing a smartphone.
Wiggs said anyone wishing to help pay the station’s operating costs (including royalties to music sources and fees to Streaming Faith, a company based in Tulsa, Okla., that specializes in the Internet streaming process) can make a donation on the website. If the project goes well and funding allows, the station’s capacity could be increased to as many as 25,000 listeners at a time.
“It’s going to stream worldwide, so I think it will grow,” Wiggs said. “It would thrill me to no end to be in a position to have to increase the capacity.”
KGMA (which stands for “keeping God’s music alive”) streams continuously at all times, and can be accessed by logging onto www.sundaymorningscountry.com. The station airs Sunday Mornings Country live at 7 a.m. Sundays and repeats the show at 2 p.m.
“We started the whole process of getting this new project together two or three years ago, and it has finally blossomed,” Wiggs said. “I’m so happy and I feel as if a burden has really been lifted off of me. My idea is to bring the message of the gospel to a lost and dying world, and I know this is God’s will and it’s in His hands.”
To learn more about Harold Wiggs, his Sunday Mornings Country radio show and KGMA, click here:
http://www.sundaymorningscountry.com/
Sunday Mornings Country is also on Facebook.
My idea is to bring the message of the gospel to a lost and dying world, and I know this is God’s will and it’s in His hands.”