I'm glad you're here. If we don't yet know each other, I’m Melinda Johnson, the second-ever CEO of Ancient Faith Ministries, and this is my space on the Ancient Faith platform.
At this moment (1:19 PM on November 19, 2024), I’m 689 days into my CEO-hood. Those days were packed with meaning. There’s a bountiful, wild loveliness about doing what you love for a living. Every day is interesting. Monday can't come soon enough.
I can’t change your job - I pray you love it, and that it suits you. But I invite you to ride along while I do mine. God willing, you'll share in the fascination and opportunity of this work, and our presence with each other will benefit us both.
Let's plunge straight into the current chapter of our story.
This month, we’re celebrating the 20th anniversary of Ancient Faith Radio (AFR)! For those just joining us, Ancient Faith Ministries resulted from the happy marriage of two prior organizations: Conciliar Press and AFR. (Read a short account of our history here ). AFR began on the back porch of the Maddex home in Chicago over Thanksgiving Weekend, 2004. Our Thanksgiving birthday and the November 2nd feast day of our patron saint contributed to our choice to dedicate November to AFR’s 20th anniversary.
Our celebration began with prayer and feasting at The Protection of the Virgin Mary Orthodox Church in Merrillville, Indiana. Fr. Jacob Van Sickle and his parish welcomed us into their beautiful sanctuary for an akathist to our newly chosen patron, St. Raphael of Brooklyn (more on that soon), and generously gifted us their hall for dinner after the service. Why? Because they love Ancient Faith! That’s what they said! They love us, and they were honored to be part of our celebration. Moments like that stay with us and light our way through the darkness.
Not only that, when the caterer surprised us by leaving early, Fr. Jacob and a crowd of parishioners and Ancient Faith staff members surged into the kitchen and washed all the dishes!! That was a high point of the evening - those dear souls, dressed in their best, washing, drying, and stacking dishes, cheerfully grumbling, secretly proud to pitch in.
During the evening (before the dishwashing adventure), I spoke to 90+ guests about our goals for Ancient Faith. Here’s what I said.
He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit. - Jeremiah 17:8 (ESV)
"Our big dream for Ancient Faith is to be like a tree, planted by a river, with strong roots and spreading branches. Christ is the river, his Gospel is the earth in which we are planted.
Our content and our virtual presence are like our branches - spreading as far into the world as we can. Our human presence, our existence as an organization, and our growing physical footprint in Chesterton are our roots.
In recent years, Ancient Faith has experienced significant growth. We have nearly 3 times the number of employees we had when I joined almost 8 years ago. We have more live shows, more podcasts, more book releases, more retreats, and thousands more people listening, watching, reading, and participating in what we do.
To confirm and establish this growth, and enable more growth, we have worked hard on the structure of our organization AS an organization. We have organized our processes, documented our policies and procedures, researched and mitigated risks, and constantly worked to verbalize who we are and what we stand for. Increasingly, we have come to see our outreach as a community of people from all walks of life who recognize a common spiritual need, and who come to us with hope and trust that we can help them meet that need.
It is an enormous and precious responsibility, and we keep it before our eyes and in our hearts.
As we ponder Ancient Faith’s future, as we watch our staff expand and their average age get younger, and we adapt to changes in communication technology and trends, we are also looking at the possibility of exploring a big dream here, right here, in northwest Indiana.
Have you been to our headquarters on Broadway in Chesterton? If you haven’t, it’s worth a long lunch break to take the tour. Bobby and Trudi would be happy to have you there!
Ancient Faith’s physical presence lived for many years in the Maddex house and the Colakovic house. Ancient Faith Radio moved out in 2018, to a small suite in its present location on Broadway.
But it kept growing.
Last summer, Ancient Faith Radio moved down the hall to a much bigger space, with a common area, a kitchen, and three offices with doors. One became a state-of-the-art soundproofed studio, and a second will shortly be sound-proofed as well, to enable us to broadcast or produce multiple programs simultaneously. Ancient Faith staff work there in person, and we recently hosted the whole ministry there for the annual Ancient Faith Staff retreat. It was WONDERFUL.
A month ago, we leased a second suite in the building on Broadway, and part of the Ancient Faith Store’s operations is moving into that space. Our new employee there will be receiving products from around the world, checking for quality, packaging them for retail sale, and transporting them to our warehouse.
So that’s two. Two suites in the building. Which means I can’t help but think…..WHAT IF??
WHAT IF Ancient Faith keeps growing, nationally and locally, and we expand until we fill the building? WHAT IF we become a major employer in Chesterton, attracting a large and qualified Orthodox workforce?
Local parishes fill to the brim. New parishes are started.
A large population of Orthodox children enables the opening of a local Orthodox school, K-12. Icon workshops spring up, makers of Orthodox liturgical supplies and gifts come to the area. Orthodox restaurants open, serving menus that follow the church fasting calendar.
Orthodox people open a bed and breakfast, and an AirBnB or two, vacation places that have icon corners (and a poster on the back of the bathroom door featuring all the latest releases from Ancient Faith Publishing!).
Chesterton becomes a place where myrrh-streaming icons come to visit, a place where summer camps and family camps are hosted, a place where retreats and conferences on Orthodox topics take place.
WHAT IF Chesterton becomes an Orthodox destination that offers Christian hospitality to all comers? WHAT IF we are a home whose doors are always open, a proclamation of the Gospel that can be heard in the far corners of the world, a good work that welcomes the hearts and minds and hands of everyone who feels called to join us?
God knows what’s next for us. But I invite you to share this big dream and keep it with you as I do. Like my coworkers at Ancient Faith, I love my job, truly, madly, deeply. Our love and our big dreams keep us moving, pushing on to the next thing and the next. THANK YOU for every moment that has brought us to this moment. Thank you for this moment. Thank you for joining us in all the moments yet to come."
Fr. Andrew Damick, our chief content officer, followed me to the podium, where he shared some reasons why we chose St. Raphael of Brooklyn to pray for us. Do you feel that you chose your patron, or that your patron chose you? We would answer, “Yes, and yes!” A surprising number of staff members were already asking St. Raphael for his prayers for Ancient Faith. We published a book several years ago, Apostle to the Plains, which includes a touching account of St. Raphael’s visit to Fr. Nicola Yanney out on the Nebraska prairie in the middle of the night. Fr. Andrew shared this story and described the icon we have commissioned that depicts this memorable event. Aspects of St. Raphael's midnight visit, and the way it came about, are quintessential to who we are as a ministry. I’m looking forward to sharing the icon and the story with you soon. In the meantime, here's my favorite photograph of St. Raphael.
The evening closed with a slideshow presented by Bobby and John Maddex, looking back over the 20 years that began with one desktop computer on a back porch and carried us to a 24-7 streaming radio station heard in over 150 countries. It wasn’t a smooth road. Our present reality wasn’t a predictable future when the first notes of Orthodox music began streaming over the internet on that November day in 2004.
At Ancient Faith, we often feel like the first child out the door on a snowy day. We’re running across a sparkling bright space where there are no footprints. We invent and create ourselves as our ministry continues to grow. This 20th anniversary called us to look back at the ground we’ve already covered, to remember that it was once untrodden, and to draw encouragement for the journey still ahead.