Tony Cummings reports on the UCB Cross Rhythms team planning revival.

Bill Partington sits at his desk, phone in one hand, while with the other he taps the keys of his computer keyboard. In a week's time there will be a conference here at Hanchurch Christian Centre for the 50 UCB reps, the unpaid volunteers with the task of taking the vision of UCB across the British Isles, with meetings, one-on-one contacts and the distribution of the Word For Today Bible studies. The phone rings. Another couple will be attending... Waiting to talk to Bill is Ray Walton, a retired schoolmaster who with his wife Jan now administers UCB's House Of Prayer. Much of the ground floor of the. UCB complex has been transformed into a number of bedrooms to offer accommodation to Christians wanting a prayer retreat. "We've already had quite a few church parties and individuals coming in to pray.

We had one chap recently who came for three days. He brought bottles of water with him. He went to his room and we didn't see him for three days. When he came out he was glowing."

Bill and Ray begin to talk. Outside I can hear the sound of a mechanical digger. The huge, recently dug hole in the UCB grounds glistens in the soft drizzle. The mud caked brickie, building the foundation walls which will in a year be the cellar wall to the new studio/office complex in the place where the crumbling part of the old building once stood. Despite the mud he's whistling. The strains of "How Great Thou Art" drifts up through the rain. In Studio I, Bible teacher,. Derek Prince's taped contribution finishes and the presenter nimbly seques into a Marantha! Singers track.

Around the corner from the photocopier Jenny Parkman sits in a bright office waiting for the phones to ring. Jenny is one of a small army of unpaid volunteers who enable the station to run the UCB Listening Line, a service where any listener can phone in and receive a friendly Christian ear and a prayer. Jenny is reading a magazine article about Bill Wilson, an evangelist who takes the Gospel to the brutal, crime-ridden streets of inner city New York. It concludes with a moving story about a Puerto Rican lady who can't speak English other than the phrase "I love you, Jesus loves you " and how after weeks of bringing love on the buses she got a response from a brutalised child only hours before he is murdered by his mother. Suddenly the phone rings. Jenny talks to the lady through her need. Then, seemingly by chance, she mentions the article she's been reading. "That's amazing, " says the lady caller. "My church has just started a ministry on the buses. I believe he wants me to join them in the work. "

When UCB obtained the precious Medium Wave and Long Wave frequencies, in addition to satellite, from Russia they had a golden opportunity to attack one of the major difficulties in running a Christian radio station - Christian music isn't a single genre of music. To put it another way, the listening constituency attracted to hymnody, country and western and Graham Kendrick was a very different grouping from the one likely to be drawn to rap, alternative worship and grunge. With two frequencies UCB began to plan two stations. Gareth Littler, after a great deal of prayer, made a radical move. He offered Chris Cole the opportunity for Cross Rhythms to take over the creative content of one of the stations - to be targeted at youth culture. After prayer on his side, Chris Cole took up the offer and became Station Director of UCB Cross Rhythms with a mandate to begin to develop programming within UCB in preparation for the move to terrestrial. Cross Rhythms producer/administrator Jonathan Bellamy and Cross Rhythms editor Tony Cummings agreed, like Cole, to commute regularly between the West Country and Stoke-On-Trent. At the Cross Rhythms Festival in July a "marriage made in Heaven" was announced by Cole and Littler to a 3,000 throng. Gareth explained his thinking behind his strategy to bond so closely with Cross Rhythms.

"I knew that eventually UCB would have to demonstrate that God hadn't given up on Generation X. All our research was showing that the existing UCB programming was doing a fine job in feeding, encouraging and building up Christians. It also could connect with those who had a connection with the church but hadn't yet made commitments. But it didn't have the cultural vocabulary to reach youth culture outside the church, or even young Christians who didn't relate to older, softer forms of music. So I prayed. Really we had two choices. One choice was re-invent youth ministry, build up a youth culture ministry from scratch. Now sadly that kind of approach is typical in many Christian initiatives. There's an astonishing tendency to reinvent the wheel.

"The second choice was to join in relationship with a ministry who had the call for youth ministry and had already gone through all the battles and proven themselves in a very demanding battle field. That ministry happened to be Cross Rhythms."

With the UCB Cross Rhythms special relationship in place, the existing UCB management have now begun the task of honing and developing its music content and its programming to reflect more coherently the tastes and aspirations of its listenership. Freed from the demands of trying to be all things to all people, it has shifted programmes around in its scheduling and, by adopting a soft music "inspirational" approach to its musical criteria, brought in greater musical coherence to its daily programming. It also announced that from December 7th, Saturdays would be UCB Cross Rhythms day. Using the existing team of seasoned UCB presenters with one or two newcomers, UCB will now give over each Saturday to a very different kind of sound and programming to the inspirational sound of UCB's other six days.

Alongside the pioneering Cross Rhythms Experience, will be other shows focussing in on dance, rock and alternative worship a Christian music news programme, an eight to 12 year olds' magazine, a weekly interview with a top CCM artist and a chart show based on the UK's national CCM chart. But it wouldn't be all. Also planned is a regular testimony slot and a unique show tackling youth culture issues. Chris Cole is convinced that it is God who has engineered the marriage between UCB and Cross Rhythms. "In my opinion the miracle of the marriage is that two ministries could have developed with such an extraordinary uniformity of vision and sense of direction. When Gareth and I met in his office there really was a sense of God joining us together. The ongoing engagement has been absolutely wonderful."

It isn't THAT late, maybe around midnight, but I've been working on the article for 20 hours and as I lie sprawled on the paper-strewn paisley duvet I can feel the fatigue suck, sucking on my eyelids drawing me into a sleep I must resist. Tomorrow morning, at 4 o'clock, Jonathan will be leaving for Cornerstone House and he must take the first draft of the article with him. Deadlines vs sleep, some things never change. Jonathan and Chris are above me recording Cross Rhythms Experience Volume 19, Issue 36 but here in the house of prayer it is pin-drop silent. I gaze around my room. It looks and smells clean, a comforting illusion of a mid-price hotel room only the lack of a TV hinting that this is the House Of Prayer. I've prayed a lot these 20 hours, no more fervently when I realised that my fatigue fuddled brain wasn't catching all the vision and passion as Gareth Littler and Chris Cole patiently answered my questions. Images and faces, music heard and music remembered, collide in a dizzying explosion of Too Much Input and I feel once more the gnawing doubt that my writing gift is sharp enough to catch the fleeting glimpses of the miraculous contained in the prosaic detail of production meetings and building programmes, Broadcasting Acts and Rebecca St James songs spinning around my befuddled brain. I reach out for a page of interview notes but my eyelids ache and I have no strength to continue. I reach befuddled for something to still me. My hand finds The Word For Today. What's the date? (It's past midnight.) November 8th, my son's birthday. I find the entry. Proverbs 16:3, "Put God in charge of your work and what you've planned will take place. "

Martin Purnell
Porridge With Purnell
8.00am Saturdays
"Mayhem and ministry, music and muesli" are what's promised in a show which promises to take the Breakfast Show into uncharted territory. Martin Purnell is a "very youthful 35" and an old hand at UCB presenting but this new format promises to be "the most innovative programme I've ever been involved with." Among the sillier things on offer where the listener can win a bundle of CDs by playing Nice One Cereal and guessing what particular cereal Purnell is eating on mike this week. On the other hand there will be the very best of CCM. "I'm heavily into DC Talk at the moment," and a presentation that though undeniably zany will "demonstrate that the Creator of the world is the Creator of humour" and that a breakfast programme that is fast and entertaining for people of all ages doesn't have to be presented by "a snide, condescending, sexually suggestive prat." As Martin says, "We want to laugh with people rather than laugh at them."

Andy Cooper
Dancity
6.00pm Saturdays
"Dance is one of the most powerful genres around for communicating spiritual truth," says Dancity's 25-year-old presenter Andy Cooper. "With sanctified dance you've got a chance of expressing your feelings towards God with your body as well as your voice." The Dancity programme has established its popularity on UCB. Now switching to the Saturday timeslot will introduce a new swathe of listeners to the best of Christian dance. Andy plays the CDs finest ("every programme seems to contain a track by the World Wide Message Tribe") but also finds room in his fast-moving show for some of the hottest vinyl ("Lift Him Up" is currently a much featured item). He also features interviews with dance and hip hop acts. "I've already talked to people like Zarc Porter and Lee Jackson of HOG. And in forthcoming programmes I'll be interviewing IKON, Andy Payne about his sanctified dance websight and America's The Prodigal Sons. If you're into dance you'll want to listen."

Steve Blake & Jill Crocker
The Loft
4.00pm Saturdays
A magazine programme aimed at the eight to 12 year olds sound like the kind of puerile tosh that has made so much kids TV unwatchable. But since February Steve Blake and Jill Crocker have managed to present, script and produce a show which manages to be fun without being inane and convey spiritual truth without being religious. 23-year-old Jill and 24-year-old Steve realise that music is crucial to the programme's content. "We play the best of CCM and a lot of dance - re:fresh, the Tribe, Nitro Praise," explains Jill. They DON'T play "children's music". "Once they get to seven they're all into chart music," says Jill. The focal point of the programme are the adventures of Debs and Dave, two seven year olds inclined to get into a lot of mischief but who end up working out the biblical principles of life. "It's teaching kids in a practical, fun way," explains Steve. For the future The Loft may well expand into an album and even go on-the-road for events like Cross Rhythms.

The Chris Rabone show
11.00pm Saturdays
Grunge and heavy, retro and alternative all are music to the ears of rock buff Chris Rabone. His show has now been expanded to an hour and Chris, keen to expand the show to take in the delights of hot US imports and an oldies slot can't wait. Warhorses like Petra and the Resurrection Band have been mainstays of his show in the past but with the extended time he'll now be including some interviews in his shows. "I've just done an interview with Audio Adrenaline and future shows will feature chats with bands like the Galactic Cowboys and Jars Of Clay." Chris recognises that rock is a pretty broad field and will try and slot in something for everybody's taste. "I'll even play something like Mortification. But in the main it's the mainstream forms of rock like DC Talk and the Newsboys that have the broadest base of appeal."

Hughie Lawrence
The BNBGF Show
8.00pm Saturdays
If the initials don't give the game away, The Brand New Black Gospel Format Show says it all. Hughie has been co-presenting black gospel for nine years but with his new show feels a whole new dimension of radio opening up. "In the past people have associated the word 'gospel' with a certain traditional sound, say a choir singing 'Amazing Grace'. They haven't associated it with Nu Colours, Commissioned, Kirk Franklin. Now everything's changing. The new gospel has appeal to the youth and my programme will reflect that." When not sitting in a radio studio Hughie does a lot of work with youth. He works as a youth advisor at YMCA, Derby and as a Youth Work Development Officer in Leicester 12 years a Christian the 34 year old presenter is excited about the potential for R&B gospel to reach an unchurched generation. "It's so exciting that youth is drawn into the music and then to the music."

Chris Cole & Tony Cummings
Box Of Issues
5.00pm Saturdays
'Cross Rhythms is more than simply music' has long been a phrase repeated in the pages of this magazine. Now presenters Chris Cole and Tony Cummings will be demonstrating this by tackling, on a weekly discussion show, some of the issues confronting the church and the world today. Classroom Violence; Problem Parents; The Ecstasy Explosion; The Toronto Blessing; The Porno Industry; Churches That Abuse and many more hard hitting topics will be discussed while there will be from-the-street vox pop interviews and music based around each programme's theme. Says Tony Cummings, "Box Of Issues won't simply tread over the same ethical and theological ground but attempt to get right to the heart of what people are thinking and experiencing and then attempt to bring insight from Scripture into the debate without getting religious. We all live in a culture desperate for answers. Hopefully Box Of Issues will lead listeners to where they can find them."