Meet the Staff
Roger Lonnquist, General Manager of YNOP
I got started in secular radio when I was in junior high, beginning as a DJ then learning broadcast engineering and eventually management. I had the privilege of working for some wonderful stations in my native state of Wisconsin, then several more in Texas and Florida.
God really began to deal with me about His Lordship over my life...which didn't exist at all back then...when I lived in Texas. But, it was while working in Florida in 1987 that He finally got through to me. I worked for one of the raunchiest rock stations in south Florida, but every day after my air shift I would go out to my car and listen to WMCU - a Christian radio station in Miami. It was listening to a woman give her testimony on WMCU that finally woke me up to the fact that Jesus needed to become my Lord, not just my Savior.
To this day I can't believe the capacity that God demonstrated to love, seek, and forgive me...at a time when I had strayed far from Him and was not interested in seeking Him at all.
About that time I decided that I wanted to get away from the traffic and the noise for a while, so I came to Montana "for one year" in 1987. That year somehow just keeps getting extended!
From 1987 to 1999 I managed, and was a partner in, some secular radio stations in Great Falls and Helena ...during that time I got involved with "Your Channel of Praise - KXEI Radio" as a board member and volunteer. Back then it was just one radio station and a couple translators on Montana's hi-line...none of us would have ever guessed what God had planned!
During those years, my ambitions and desire to remain in secular media pretty much left me, and in 1999 the desire of my heart to go full-time into ministry became a reality when I began working for Your Network of Praise. I became Network General Manager in 2006.
As a secular radio guy, I was always impressed with the power of radio to efficiently communicate messages to huge numbers of people! Now, as a Christian radio guy, I still look at radio that way...just the messages being conveyed are a whole lot different!
My personal hope for every man, woman, and young person who listens to YNOP is that each will come to understand the depth and magnitude of God's love for them; that each will come to know Him so well that they cannot allow anything but Him to motivate their choices and plans in life; and that each will come to that place where they truly can say "All to Jesus I surrender", and let Him have their lives completely! I pray that everything we do at YNOP will help in that process.
In addition to working for Your Network of Praise I have the privilege of being involved in a Christian TV ministry, JCTV, which provides 24/7 youth-oriented Christian TV programming to a number of communities. I am also a member of the President's Council of the National Religious Broadcaster's Association, through which I get to play a minor role in cheering on the NRB's legal and lobbying efforts to protect the rights of Christian ministries like YNOP.
My favorite Bible verse is Philippines 3:12 in which Paul says, "...I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me". In light of all that our awesome God did to seek and to save me, that's the least I could do, and is the standard that I hope to live up to!
We live in a world which desperately needs Jesus...and we have so little time to proclaim Him during these short lives we have on the earth! I hope that the things you hear on YNOP will motivate you to a closer relationship with Him, so that you will be able to wholeheartedly live for Him and give everything you have to Him and His work while we have the chance!
May God richly bless you!