Historical Overview of World Mission Broadcast

The following is a historical summary of the Church of the Nazarene’s international broadcast ministry. Thousands of lives have been touched and transformed over the years through the work of the Holy Spirit in this ministry. For up-to-date news and reports from the field, log on to our web site at worldmissionbroadcast.org.

• 1944: General Assembly voted to create the Nazarene Radio League.

• 1945: Showers of Blessing - the first Nazarene English radio program is broadcast in the US. Three shortwave radio stations pick up the broadcasts and air them outside the States.

• 1951: NWMS takes on the project of promoting Spanish Broadcast offerings.

• 1952: The first Spanish radio program La Hora Nazarena, is aired with Dr. H. T. Reza as host.

• 1960 - 1993 Broadcasts began in the following locations: India,
Verde Islands, most Portuguese speaking countries, French-Canada, France, South Africa, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Russia, Jordan. Broadcasts were also expanded to include languages such as Japanese, Italian, Zulu, Afrikaans, Mandarin, Creole, Indonesian, Korean, Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic.

• 1993: Eurasia Communications Center opened on the campus of European Nazarene Bible College.

• 1994: Asia-Pacific Region is fully operational in Manila.

• 1997: Communications centers are established in Miami for the Caribbean Region, Buenos Aires for the South America Region and Guatemala City for the Mexico/Central America Region.

• 1999: Name is changed to World Evangelism Broadcast to accommodate other forms of communication, such as TV, video, Internet.

• 2003: General Board votes to change the name to World Mission Broadcast. With the volatile political and religious climate in the world, the word "evangelism" in the name of an organization has potential to put missionaries and national Christian workers in grave danger or even cost them their lives in certain areas.