Christian radio show urges teens to rebel against pop culture

Rob Kelly, left, a DJ of 20 years at YES-FM, listens as Janet Yonke, the underwriting manager, catches up with Steve Mohr, a former DJ, in the YES-FM studio. The Christian radio station started a new program Dec. 3 that urges teens to rebel by following God.

You could say that teenage rebellion takes a 180-degree turn. YES-FM (89.3), the Christian radio station that plays rock, hip-hop, and pop music, debuted a new program, The Rebellion, Dec. 3.

The locally produced show, with its slogan “Counter the Culture,” urges its teen listeners to “follow God and not the culture,” YES-FM program director Jeff Howe said.

Part of the inspiration for the show is from the song “Rebel” by Lecrae, Mr. Howe said.

“That defines what we’re doing. One of the lines in the song is it’s no longer rebellious to sin because everybody’s sinning. Be a rebel and read the Bible.”

“When we started” YES-FM 20 years ago, the Rev. Todd Hostetler, the station manager, said, “the goal had always been a Christian station targeting youth.”

“For 20 years our heart and our purpose is to reach youth with the good news, with encouragement, just trying to strengthen them in their daily walk. Now we have a lot of adults that listen, but we target the youth,” Mr. Hostetler continued.

“I just felt God put in my head ‘rebellion,’ Mr. Howe said.

“That really said what we wanted to do. Seeing teens from the church, they’re listening to secular music, they’re watching all these movies that they probably really shouldn’t, all this stuff out there in the culture that’s really not as wholesome as it used to be, and certainly a lot of it goes against what the Bible teaches, and so everyone just gets swept up by the culture, getting away from God and the teaching of the Bible and just going with the flow of the culture.

“So we said, enough is enough. It’s time to rebel against that.”

“The reason I liked what he said about rebellion,” Mr. Hostetler said, “is kids just have a natural inclination toward rebellion anyway, so let’s use that with a positive channel and challenge them to be bold and rebel against peer pressure, rebel against the things that are contrary to the word of God, be a rebel and stand out for Jesus Christ, be bold.”

The Rebellion “will involve getting youth involved,” Mr. Howe said.

“We want to have student representatives from as many area schools as possible, to be beat reporters for us where every couple of weeks or so they call in, let us know what’s going on with their school, their athletic teams’ accomplishments, students’ accomplishments, everything cool that’s going on.

“And also, what are the concerns at your school? What are some of the issues we can pray about?”

YES-FM, 89.3 on the dial in Toledo and Lima, also has frequencies for Fremont (88.1) and Wauseon (88.5). The Rebellion airs Mondays through Fridays from 2:30 to 5 p.m.