Projects Underway

Dave Andrews • September 5, 2024

Projects, Projects, and More...

We at KJOL are always working on ways that we can improve operations and what we do on the air. As it happens, the month of August was a big project month for us at KJOL; and the projects continue in September!

Thanks to a generous donor, KJOL was able to purchase an audio processor to improve the listening experience on our streaming methods, including both of our apps, Listen Online feature, TuneIn, and Alexa. While we have always had great clean sound on streaming, this new processor takes listening to the next level! It is now installed and sounds amazing. If you haven’t listened to the app or online in a while…give it a go! Find links at the bottom of this email.

The last few weeks, the audio geeks at KJOL have spent hours working on the setting of both our FM and streaming processors, to make our sound all the better. It’s a work in progress, so if you hear some audio anomalies, chances are we are working to make your listening experience the best that is humanly possible.

We continue to look for ways to better our RDS, or Radio Digital Scrolling for car radios on 99.5FM. If you listen elsewhere, such as Montrose (91.9) and Paonia (91.3), don’t worry…it is coming to a car radio near you! Equipment is purchased for RDS in Montrose and Paonia, getting that project underway. We have some technological hang-ups for car radios in Delta at the moment, but we will continue to look into ways to get artist, song title, and “KJOL, Hear the Light” on your car radio when you too turn to the Delta FM frequency (94.5). Time will tell how it all plays out.

The last project we have been working on that might be of interest is a coming 2024 Listener Survey. It is formatted to help KJOL gauge YOUR interests so we can better serve YOU. It is a valuable programming tool for Local Christian Radio; when you receive your survey in about a month, please fill it out and send it back. If you don’t receive it in a few weeks, we will have an online version you can take; or let us know and we will mail you one.

Continue to pray for the staff at KJOL…they truly care about you and the Western Slope…and they are working hard to further God’s Kingdom (not ours). Also, please pray for health for staff families. One family member of staff continues to battle a serious life threatening health issue. So we especially need your prayers there.

For His Kingdom,

-Dave Andrews

KJOL Station Manager

PS- Don’t forget to support KJOL during the month of September. We didn’t meet our projections last month, so we could use a little boost. Donate Here.

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Forrest Frank skips Dove Awards

By Kurt Neuswanger • October 9, 2025

Forrest Frank has been everywhere this year. He even broke his back and wrote a song about it ( God's Got My Back ) while lying on his back! But one place Forrest Frank won't be this year is the Dove Awards . He announced that he will no longer attend any of the awards shows, including the Doves and the Grammys. “As Christians, it’s hard to know where the line in the sand is between being in the world and not of the world,” he said . Pondering where to draw the line between being in the world but not of the world, he said, “I’m convicted, personally, that a line that I can draw is that I will not receive a trophy for something that is from Jesus and for Jesus.” Frank added, “I was wrestling with this last year. I even said that on stage at the Dove Awards. I said, ‘I’m still struggling with the concept of receiving this award, but all glory to Jesus, every name will fade away, including mine, except for one name.’” So he decided "to go even a step further and say, ‘I don’t know if I even want to step on the stage. I don’t know if I want to step in the room.’ So I will not be attending the Doves and the Grammys.” “I hope to be an example to the youth that the trophy is our salvation ,” he added. “The trophy is that my name is listed in the Book of Life and I get to have eternal life . What good is a piece of metal going to do compared to that?” His absence at the Dove awards will no doubt be a problem for them. He’s nominated for four major awards: Song of the Year (Composer): Good Day Recorded Song of the Year: Your Way's Better Album of the Year: Child Of God Artist of the Year He is almost certain to win at least one of those awards. UPDATE : The Dove ceremony was broadcast Friday, October 10. Forrest Frank won three major awards! Artist of the Year Album of the Year (Child of God) Recorded Song of the Year (Your Way's Better)

Laura Story In Concert!

By Dave Andrews • October 6, 2025

We are so blessed to have a number of new listeners lately; and we are blessed to have some listeners who have been with us since the very start! If you were a listener during “the old days” before the KJOL radio network was sold...

Laura Story, Chris Tomlin, and a Tennessee mountain

By Kurt Neuswanger • September 29, 2025

Laura Story never set out to be a songwriter . She didn’t even know she could sing until she was in college. In 1996, while a student at Columbia International University in South Carolina, she met Shane Williams from the band “Silers Bald.” (Silers Bald is a mountain peak in Tennessee. It’s called a “bald” because it is not covered in trees.) Shane recruited Laura to join the band – as the band’s bass player! Then she began writing songs, and in 2002, she recorded her first album, Indescribable . But it was Chris Tomlin who made the song “ Indescribable ” a huge hit when he recorded it in 2004. Laura remained largely unknown until she released Great God Who Saves in 2008. Besides the title track, it included “ Mighty to Save ,” “ Bless The Lord ” and “ Immortal Invisible .” In 2011, she released the album “ Blessings .” The title song was born out of the difficult circumstances surrounding her husband Martin’s brain tumor (a story for another time). “Blessings” won a Grammy and a Dove for Best Contemporary Song. Most recently, Laura Story joined the Keith & Kristyn Getty Worship Conference, where she performed her latest song, “ Psalm 27 (The Lord Is My Light) ”.

Station Update

By Dave Andrews • September 2, 2025

Our August drawing is of course over, but congratulations to our three winners of couples registrations to the Weekend To Remember Conferences. If you missed out, I want to let you know, that underway through September 15th, the Family Life Today Weekend to Remember Getaways are half off…so be sure to use the group nam

Big Daddy Weave says "Let It Begin"

By Kurt Neuswanger • August 29, 2025

Big Daddy Weave released their new album “Let It Begin” in May. It was their first album in six years. There’s a reason for that. Most bands release new albums every two or three years, but on January 2, 2022, Jay Weaver died from COVID. He was Mike Weaver’s younger brother (hence the “Weave” in the band’s name). They spent the next three years processing the loss and putting their grief into song. In 2023, they released the duet with Katy Nichole, “ God Is In This Story .” God is in this story, God is in the details Even in the broken parts, He holds my heart, He never fails Later that year, Big Daddy Weave released “ Heaven Changes Everything .” In the light of eternity I have this hope Thank You, Jesus, Heaven changes everything In 2024, they released “ Let It Begin .” Mike Weaver said he had been intensely grieving the death of his brother and would cry every time he told the story on stage, until one night the healing began. Meanwhile, Matt Maher had written this song without knowing that Weaver's healing that had started. Mike remembered, “He reached out to me and was just like, ‘Man, I’ve had this song that has been on my heart for you guys.’ I read the lyrics, and it’s what I couldn’t say.” If my wounds could tell one story, Let it be a testimony That You don’t leave me where I’ve been. If this is healing, let it begin Their new single is “ I’ve Just Seen Too Much .” Listen for it on KJOL. Some days it feels like I’ve been losing more than I have found I won’t tell you that I’ve got it all together, If you know me, then You know my faith has wavered If you ask me why I trust Him When it feels like everything has come undone All I can tell you is, I’ve just seen too much

Chuck Girard of Love Song dies at 81

By Kurt Neuswanger • August 15, 2025

Chuck Girard of Love Song dies Chuck Girard , the co-founder of the band Love Song, died on Monday, August 11. He had been diagnosed with cancer which spread to his lungs. He was 81. Chuck Girard was one of the founding members of the iconic Jesus music band Love Song , which had its birth at Chuck Smith’s Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa in 1970. (The band was briefly featured in Greg Laurie’s movie “The Jesus Revolution.”) After Love Song, Chuck had a solo career marked by his worship anthem, “ Sometimes Alleluia .” He gave concerts several times in western Colorado during the 1990s. Around 1976, Girard gave his testimony of how he and his friends had formed Love Song around 1968, before any of them actually knew Jesus. “We felt that drugs and psychedelics were part of God’s plan to reach men who could be reached by no other means. We thought that LSD was the key to spiritual knowledge. I thought the Beatles were Second Messiahs. I really thought they had discovered something and they were trying to convey it to us in little doses. “And when their White Album came out, I felt ripped off. I felt the Beatles had copped out, that if they did know anything spiritual, they were afraid to tell it, and perhaps they didn’t know. “So we got obsessed with this idea of having a band that could communicate God to people. And we started--in the middle of our psychedelic period--a God band that was called Love Song, and we would go into nightclubs and throw in our God songs in the middle of our music, and a lot of the songs would have Jesus’ name in it, and people were just not used to hearing Jesus’ name in a rock ‘n’ roll band in a bar! “And we would go out and evangelize people on our breaks. We would go out and say, ‘Hey why don’t you come out with us on Sunday. We’re gonna drop acid and get into God.’ It’s a classic example of the blind leaving the blind, of people who were sincerely deceived, sincerely wrong. “And 2½ years later, after we started that first band, the Lord was faithful to draw us up to a place called Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California, and for the first time in my life, the gospel was communicated to me. And for the first time in my life, lights went off and I went: That’s what it’s all about! And I really discovered that what I’d been looking for my whole life was Jesus Christ, the victorious Son of God who died on a cross and three days later, rose again from the dead!” ( transcribed from audio of an unknown source. Here is a similar testimony from 1971 at Calvary Chapel, when Chuck was just 28 .) Postscript: in 1971, a copy of the original Love Song record made its way to a small Colorado town called Wray, where a 14 year old boy listened to that album over and over after becoming a Christian. It was the first, and only, contemporary Christian music we had ever heard. And 54 years later, that boy is still playing Christian music for anyone who will listen!