Officials at In Touch Ministries, the global broadcast giant led by Charles F. Stanley say it will continue after the death of its founder.
For decades Stanley, who died at 90 on April 18 at his metro Atlanta home, became synonymous with the ministry, which reaches 3.4 million television viewers weekly with millions more on radio.
The ministry is broadcast in more 180 nations.
President and CEO Phillip Bowen said Stanley didn’t dwell on what happens after he died.
He was “so much in the moment,” said Bowen. Stanley would say let’s talk about “what we’re going to when I’m alive not when I’m not here. I have work to do”
The main reason Stanley named the global ministry In Touch in the first place was that “he didn’t want it to be about him. He wanted it about people being in touch with their heavenly Father,” Bowen said.
The succession plan, Bowen said, has always been that “we would just continue to be innovative and take all the years of content and put it in print and put it in different forms. We started doing it during COVID, even bringing back some of his classic messages, which people have responded to so positively. We were so shocked and surprised that people would still care about these sermons that were preached in the early 90s, late 80s and early 2000s.”
Those older messages and sermons have been like a “rebirth.”
He said the ministry is exploring ways to reach Christians including the use of newer technology, including a 24 streaming television launched last year. They have partnered with other ministers to air their sermons as well.
The plan is to continue to broadcast Stanley sermons on radio and television, publish the ministry’s devotional and look at ways to pastors training program and one to prepare missionaries. There’s also a YouTube channel with his sermons.
Many have questioned whether Stanley’s son, Andy Stanley, a megachurch pastor in his own right and founder of North Point Ministries, would become part of running of In Touch or the person to deliver the sermons.
Bowen, however, said there are no plans to do so.
“He was so proud of Andy,” said Bowen. “Andy has his own ministry and he just marveled at how well Andy was doing with his churches. He just felt like they had two different ministries. Two different styles.
“This is how he put it: ‘This is not a business. This is not something I can give away. This is God’s ministry. "
Andy Stanley could not be reached for comment.
The elder Stanley, a prolific writer, authored more than 70 books and recorded hundreds of sermons. The last time Stanley recorded a live sermon, “In the Midst of a Storm,” was in the middle of pandemic to an empty auditorium.
In Touch will also air older messages that , because of technology, are able to go from standard definition to high-def .
And, while there are decades and decades of sermons and books, said Anthea Butler, a professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania, the ministry has challenges in a world where technology allows anyone to reach religious audiences and has opened the world to smaller ministries.
“The downside is that people who have followed Charles Stanley have all these materials. How do you make it fresh to a new generation of people? People will say the Word of God doesn’t change... but maybe he’s not the kind of Christian leader that people are looking for today.
Ed Stetzer, executive director of Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College in Illinois, said ministries such In Touch tend to be “deeply connected to the person — a bible teaching ministry is generally personified by a bible teacher.
In most— if not all— cases, he said, if the ministry continues on, it does so by airing recordings of their teachings, rather than bringing in a new voice.
J. Vernon McGee, who served a churches in Decatur and Midway, Georgia, among others. died in 1988, yet there are still radio stations broadcasting his sermons regularly, said Stetzer.
McGee, of Thru the Bible, and the board of directors planned in advance that the recorded five-year program continue to air after his death, according to the Thru The Bible website.
In the case of Charles and Andy Stanley, they are both stylistically and theologically different, and I would be quite surprised to see Andy become the voice of In Touch. The ministry, which employs 180 in the United States, is broadcast today out In Touch headquarters off I-85 in Doraville. Additional offices are located in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Seth Grey, a spokesman for In Touch, said sermons and messages are available online, and in every media market in the country. You can find the station based off of your zip code on the In Touch Ministries station finder. website.
Charles Stanley Radio produces an online streaming station where people can listen to his sermons 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“We feel we have to do our best to keep doing what we’ve been doing, which is encouraging people to share Scripture and obey God,” he said.
And that’s fine with people like Colorado author Patricia Raybon, who has been listening the Stanley since the 1970s.
“When I heard he passed away, I immediately thought, ‘Oh, I’m going to go back and listen to his sermons’,” she said. “Now I can go back and revisit the trajectory of his teaching and preaching.”
Stanley led First Baptist Atlanta for more than five decades.
In 1972, he launched his foray into broadcast ministry with a 30-minute program, called “The Chapel Hour” on two Atlanta-area television stations, according to In Touch.
The program was renamed “In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley” and went nationwide in 1978 after the Christian Broadcasting Network contacted Stanley, looking for a practical, Bible-teaching program for its new satellite distribution network. Later, it became In Touch
The broadcast grew from 16,000 local viewers to a nationwide audience in just one week. This led to the expansion and incorporation of Stanley’s ministry as a separate non-profit entity called In Touch Ministries in 1982 and the radio broadcast entered syndication.
Bowen said Stanley never wanted a big church and didn’t want a big ministry, said Bowen. Early on, Stanley said he didn’t even know what a television ministry was, he just wanted to do what “God called me to do.”
Bowen said often when Stanley was making a decision about the ministry, he would say that he would decide how far and wide the ministry goes.
“And I think that’s the same feeling we have.”
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