Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 23 January 2004 — Page 13

FRIDAY, JANUARY 23, 2004

THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

PAGE B5

TV evangelist in rural Illinois hopes cable will take him national

RELIGION BRIEFS

THOMPSONVILLE, 111. (AP) _ Danny Shelton leaned into the speakerphone toward the end of negotiations with a satellite company promising to sell his Three Angels Broadcasting Network to thousands of cable operators across the country. “Let’s call it a deal," he said. “It seems the Lord is opening up these doors.” There w’as no time to celebrate. Shelton was out of his seat and already headed across the parking lot to the recording studio at the Christian broadcasting network he founded. It was time to run through hymns for a new CD. The former carpenter and devout Seventh-day Adventist has served as everything from road-builder to dealmaker to talk show host to siiiger for the operation he has been building for 18 years in the rural farmland of southern Illinois. Today, brick buildings and satellite dishes are the nerve center for Three Angels, which sends a mix of religious and lifestyle programs to 10.2 million U.S. households by cable, satellite or the 100 free-to-air TV stations it owns. A production house in Russia sends programs to 170 stations there, and stations in the Philippines and Papua Neyv Guinea also carry the network. Three Angels, named for Biblical characters that warn of the end of the w orld, is still a relatively small player in the nation’s religious broadcasting industry. For example, Trinity Broadcasting Network, a Costa Mesa, Calif.-based conglomerate that features such wellknown evangelists as Benny Hinn, reaches 70 million homes. Shelton hopes his latest satellite deal will win millions more viewers and souls. Until then, it remains most notable for its ties to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, a Protestant denomination whose members go to church on Saturday, shun alcohol and wait for what they

MURFF

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believe will be Jesus’ imminent return. Half are vegetarian, and consider healthy living an act of faith. Shelton’s career path can be traced back to his family’s conversion to the Adventist church and a love for singing hymns. Growing up poor in the coalmining towTi of West Frankfort, Shelton, 52 helped feed his four brothers and sister by pumping septic tanks with his dad, a former honky-tonk singer. Tommy Shelton had chosen poverty over his band job after he became a Seventh-day Adventist. But music was never silenced in the Shelton home. The family would leave their shotgun house to work Indiana’s tomato fields in the summertime, singing old spirituals as they fanned out across the rows. “We’d sing ‘I Need No Mansion Here Below,’” Shelton said, breaking into his baritone, as he stood near a grand piano in his recording studio. His family often performed at churches, too. So when Shelton’s first wife died in a car wreck in 1.982, it seemed natural to him to quit his day job to sing gospel full time, appearing at churches and Christian TV stations with his 11-year-old daughter, Melody. But he didn't like what he saw at those stations, particularly the long segments in which hosts would ask viewers for donations. “Any time they would talk, it was always about ‘Give to me and God will bless you,”’ Shelton said in the southern twang common in this area. He told God he’d start a station that would spread the gospel without asking for money very often. He didn’t have any money, land or equipment, but he talked about his

dream between songs at the churches where he appeared. “It's OK to make your needs known, it’s just not OK to beg," he says. The checks came in, and his dream took off. A woman who caught his performance one night remembered some land she wasn't using near Thompsonvillc; a hamlet of trailers and frame houses eight miles from Shelton’s hometown, and donated it to the cause. Before long, Three Angels’ first uplink station was built on the small plot at the end of a road Shelton had forged through the grassland. More donations came its satellites expanded Three Angels’ reach. Viewers get a mix of religion and lifestyle shows, some 80 percent of which are taped at the network’s studios here. Other local hosts have shows in English and Spanish like Tiny Tots for Jesus, cooking and exercise demonstrations and musical programs. The remaining 20 percent of airtime is bought by preachers, most of them Seventh-day Adventists, who run tapes of their sermons. The network’s message is aimed at a broader Christian audience but pushes Adventist themes. Three Angels' tax filings show it’s collected $12 million to $14 million a year in donations for the past several years. Danny and Linda Shelton each take home about $50,000 a year, Shelton says, and don’t take money for the books and CDs they produce on Three Angels’ label. Shelton said he hopes OlympuSat, the satellite company he recently hired, will help him win the more than 8,000 cable operators who don't yet carry his network, the vast majority of the U.S. cable market.

► Continued from Page B1 churches, along with local dignitaries, including Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson and Congresswoman Julia Carson. Tanner R. Murff was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi in 1.904. He moved to Indiana from Chicago in 19.'ll and pastored a church in Gary for seven years. After moving to Indianapolis in 1938 he served as a senior pastor until retiring in 1984. The first Blacks to be hired by the city bus company were screened by Murff and prominent African American Indianapolis attorney Frank Beckwith (who ran for president in i960 and 1964), resulting in over 80 Black drivers being hired. In 1926Murffmarriedhisfirst wife, Azilia Bailey, and is currently married to Harriet Murff. Known as the “Bible Man” to admirers, Murff has two children, Robert H. and Carolyn, seven grandchildren and four great grandchildren. For more information about the celebration for Elder T.K. Murff, please call Frances Bradley at (317)568-0861.

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Augusta Christian Church II 3445 W. 71ft Street

11 celebrates the

if Second Pastorial Anniversary

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Reverend Jacquelyn E. Powell

• and

Elder Randy E. Powell *

ll on Sunday, January 25, 2004 at 5:00pm

Bishop T. Garrott Benjamin, Sr. Pastor of Light of the World Christian Chorch

will be guest speaker.

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j|- Min. Shirley Cannon, Chairperson j|

HERE, HAVING AN AFFORDABLE FUNERAL IS ALWAYS AN OPTION. DOYI I mil VUK'111 U' i'IIII K ' III',11 I’KK IDI'M k V.l l OMUL 11 I UNLRA1.IKOMSTD5 M K'tlU i HOk I 01 \M i I MKM IM>I\\\ i I Ml II10 In Iciini imihi* .iIhhii vhiii n|>l 11 tns. visit us .it Mrinmi.il I’.uk 'ITmi h VV.isliin^lihi Sinrl. IiiiImim|»iIis. IS 317-898-411)2

Church offers family divorce program A six-week Divorce and Beyond Program has been scheduled for Monday, Jan. 26 and will be held at The Catholic Center, 1400 North Meridian Street in Indianapolis from 7. to 9 p.m. The topics for discussion will be the process of divorce, self-image, stress, anger, blame, guilt and loneliness. The cost of the six-week session is $30, which includes materials. Registration is limited and pre-registration is required. For more information or to register, please contact the Office For Youth and Family Ministries at (317) 236-1596 or 1-800-382-9836 or send an e-mail to [email protected]. Speaker will discuss victory over "incurable" diseases Unity Church of Indianapolis, 907 North Deleware Street, will host Terry McBride as the speaker during a special worship service on Sunday Feb. 1, at 10 a.m. McBride, diagnosed with incurable diseases, decided to fight the prognosis and through his and practice of truth and his own determination, he created perfect health where there only

seemed disease. His main theme is “You Can Take Charge of Wour Life and Have What You Want". He will also offer two workshops on Monday, Feb. 2 and Tuesday Feb. 3, from 7 to 10 p.m. about eliminating negative emotions and limiting decisions from the past and using the power of choice to have the life you want starting right where you are. Workshops are offered at $40 for both evenings and $25 for one. For more information call (317) 635-4066 or visit http:// www.terrymcbride.infowww.terrymcbride.info.

Raffle and silent auction at Holy Trinity Holy Trinity Catholic Church will sponsor a reverse raffle and silent auction on Saturday, Feb. 7. The event will begin with a full-course beef dinner at 6:30 p.m. in Bockhold Hall, 902 - North Holmes Avenue. Tickets are $20 per person and includes a raffle ticket, dinner, snacks and drinks for the evening along with opportunities to bid on silent auction items. The. Grand prize is $1000. Only 225 tickets will be sold, so call quickly. For tickets, please call Fran or Sue Ann Yovanovich at (317) 636-7668.

Poll: Voters nearly split on [aith-based programs

BATON ROUGE, La.(AP), Louisiana voters are almost evenly split on whether they f’a-vorchureh-based groups receiving tax dollars to provide social services, according to a statewide poll. In a poll of 730 registered voters, taken by phone for The Advocate of Baton Rouge, 46 percent of respondents said they favored the proposal, while 43 percent were in opposition. Six percent said it “depends," while 5 percent did not know or would not answer. The survey, taken by pollster Ed Renwick of New Orleans, has a margin of error of plus or

minus 3.6 percentage points. During a recent visit to New Orleans, President Bush touted what he calls “faith-based initiatives." Of those who identified themselves as Republicans, 51 percent favored tax dollars going to church-based groups, while 45 percent of the Democrats and 42 percent of independents were in favor. A higher percentage of Black respondents, 57 percent, favored giving tax dollars to church-based groups than 41 percent of white respondents. By denominations, 48 percent of the Roman Catholic voters were

in favor, 48 percent of the Baptist were in favor and 38 percent of’ other Protestants favored giving tax dollars to church-based groups. Renwick said he was surprised that the percentage of Catholic voters who favor tax dollars to church-based groups is not higher because Catholic Charities USA has been in place for so long, he said. Catholic Charities is asocial service network founded in 1910. In 2000, about 67percent ofits funding came from government grants -’-* and contracts to provide services; such as day-care or welfare-to-work programs, according to the group.

109th Year I Ycparin^ a conscious commimitN to<la\ ami LcnoiiikI

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