I’m working on developing a plan for Eagle TV and Steppe-by-Steppe that will, hopefully, take us through the next three to five years of ministry. Part of that process has been to survey and listen to Mongolian church leaders and foreign missionaries about the impact Eagle TV has right now, and what they believe the most important needs of the church community are. Where, in their views, are we succeeding and where are we failing?

Of the many people we’ve resourced so far the number one most important need, hands down, is leadership development. Many of the Mongolian pastors have related that many in leadership today, especially in the countryside, don’t really have a biblical view or approach to leadership. In fact, of all the needs surveyed so far, leadership, discipleship, and materials seem to be the most widely stated needs. Our challenge will be to readjust our ministry operations to come along side and find ways to use our television and field ministry to help meet these critical needs.

One of the local pastors also mentioned, briefly, the problems that happen when ministries focus too strongly on so called “miracle and healing” ministries. He noted, “Mongolians believe in magic and chanting. If we focus only on miracles, healing, etc, it will [result in] superstition for today’s Mongolians.”

It’s very encouraging to see how much the leaders taking part in our surveys have focused on leadership and discipleship issues. It’s always been my belief that strong discipleship is what makes the most important difference when working for spiritual transformation. Witness Jesus’ words to the disciples in Matthew 28 when he said, “Go and make disciples.” Jesus never portrayed the work of ministry as making converts, or social action only. His view was, and is, ongoing transformation that results in people becoming like Christ—that’s discipleship.

As I continue to go through the responses we’re receiving I’m sure that my own views of what makes for transformative television ministry will also go through a process of change. I’m looking forward to seeing what God will do through this process, not only in me, but in the work of Eagle TV.

This morning I met with a young American man who is in Mongolia doing a research project for a policy foundation he works for in the States. We discussed the July 1st riots, a small bit of Mongolian politics (which I only pay minimal attention to these days), and the current state of media freedoms in Mongolia. During our discussion I was reminded of a post I wrote in 2005 about Free and Fair Media. I drew a comparison of free and fair media using Natan Sharansky’s book, The Case for Democracy (a must read). My guest asked me, “In five years do you think the condition of Mongolian media will be significantly improved?” I thought about it for a moment and gave a resounding yes.

In the Sates conservatives complain about the liberal slants on the big three networks, CNN, and MSNBC. The left complains about the conservative slant on FOX News. In some ways there are similar things happening here. For instance, many people complain about the MPRP slant of TV9 and TV5. Others complain about the Democratic Party slant of C1 or NTV. In many ways, comparatively speaking, the Mongolian situation is similar to the U.S. Regardless of the bickering between sides it is a legitimate exercise of media freedom to slant stories however a station may wish. If MSNBC wants to slant left, that’s their right. If TV9 wants to slant toward the MPRP, that’s their right. The principles of press freedom are not violated. Such practices may not necessarily be good journalism, but that’s a different issue. Each station has a right to report the news from a perspective and in the manner it sees fit. That’s part of what press freedom is about. It’s also why Eagle TV tries to remain as neutral as humanly possible. That is also the the legitimate exercise of press freedom.

So many positive things have happened in Mongolia regarding freedom of speech and press. The state of media here today is much better than it was seven years ago when I moved to Mongolia. As I explained to my guest, there is no legal censorship or pressure on news organizations, but certainly there is some political and cultural pressure from time to time—though not nearly as bad as it was seven years ago. Significant strides in media freedom have been made. There are still some problems regarding transparency of operations and political ownership issues, but overall the improvement has been great. And I believe it will continue to improve as more and more Mongolian journalists exercise their legal rights and forge ahead to take risks covering the truly important stories.

As I already noted, the discussion I had today reminded me of a post I wrote in 2005 on this subject. You can catch that post by clicking here.

I met today with the manager of a TV station operating in the Mongolian countryside. He came to UB to meet with us and ask if we would provide their station with Christian programming. The man is apparently a believer and wants to use his TV station to win people to Christ and help disciple them. As you can imagine, we agreed to provide them with as much ministry programming as they are prepared to take. Our next job is for me to sit down with our ministry department director and plan how and specifically what we will distribute to the station.

I’m very grateful for this opportunity to distribute our ministry programming in this manner. This is an opportunity to reach completely new people who don’t know the Gospel. That means we will probably provide entry level programs like Christianity 101, Together Through The Bible, Colors of Life (a testimony program), and some basic discipleship. A good dose of our Bible reading program, What Does The Bible Say, should also go a long way to introducing the Bible and its context to these new viewers.

It’s estimated that 99 percent of Mongolia’s population is literate. However, in the countryside Mongols tend not to be big readers. Therefore reaching them through audio and video projects is very successful. Our Steppe-by-Steppe field ministry has demonstrated this to be true. Therefore, we believe our Bible reading program, What Does The Bible Say, can be highly effective in reaching countryside Mongols. On Eagle TV, which primarily reaches city Mongols that tend to be more urban, the program is rated number one in its time slot against all other TV stations. Mongolians are hungry for the simplicity of God’s word! So I expect the program to perform just as well, if not better, in the countryside.

As I was thinking about this opportunity to spread the Gospel through this new TV opportunity my mind immediately turned to Luke 16:10,

“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much.”

May God count us and our new programming partner faithful with this latest opportunity to bring Christ to areas where his name and work is yet to be fully heard.

Here are two new videos about Eagle TV’s work on Christian programming and news. Eagle TV is helping to change lives. Thanks for your prayers and support of Eagle TV. The first video profiles our ministry programming.

The second video profiles our work with news programming.

Five new episodes of Together Through the Bible have been uploaded to the Vimeo server and are available for viewing. These episodes include:

• Effective Change
• Biblical Unity
• The Attributes of a Spiritually Mature Church
• The Superiority of Jesus Christ: Jesus Personhood, and
• The Superiority of Jesus Christ: Jesus’ Character

You can access all of the videos on my Vimeo page here, or click the above links for each episode. All episodes are in English. Mongolian versions of these programs will go online this fall.

Together Through the Bible airs weekly on Eagle TV. Season 2 begins in September. A sample of episode 2 is below. The subject is Effective Change.

Effective Change from Tom Terry on Vimeo.

My weekly teaching program, Together Through The Bible returns to air in September, but the production on next season’s programs goes on now through the end of summer.

Yesterday I was given the first cut of episode one for the second season. We built a new set and added new localized elements to the program to spruce it up a bit.

During the first season of TTTB the program was often one of our most watched shows on Eagle TV. We’re hoping for a repeat of that when season two goes on the air this fall. Meanwhile, we’ll be posting each program as it’s completed, for Internet viewing before the on air release. Take a peak at episode one, below. Comments welcome.

Together Through The Bible 2×01 from Tom Terry on Vimeo.

Our entire team worked hard to make our election coverage a supreme triumph. Most of the team worked for two days straight without sleep. But I want to acknowledge four people who, as organizers and managers, made everything come together.

In the News Department, Baika and Jarga did an outstanding job, organizing and implementing everything. They planned out every hour of coverage in advance, and worked to make changes on the fly as the situation warranted. Usually when we have major broadcast events like this I am required to step in and manage many of the details of coverage. But not this time! While I hung around the station during the broadcast Baika and Jarga had everything so under control that I was rarely needed. That’s the way it ought to be. Superb job Baika and Jarga!

In Engineering, Chief Engineer Moogi and I.T. Manager Byamba also put in the long hours to keep things up to snuff technically and handle the unforseen technical problems that arose. Without these two there would have been no coverage. I was especially amazed at how Moogi was able to keep her energy up between handling things in house and on the field.

Of course, singling out these four doesn’t diminish the contribution made by all of our journalists, special weekend staff, and college interns who also contributed significantly to our success. Your contributions were immensely valuable! Thanks for making Eagle TV the number one source for election news coverage in Mongolia.

Great job team!

We’re running all day live coverage of Mongolia’s presidential elections. Coverage started at 7am. We’ve currently got 6 live locations via three microwave links and three broadband links. This is, if we’re not mistaken, the most “in community” coverage being run by any station. In fact, only Eagle TV is providing all day coverage. Other stations are only doing cutaways for specific events, then they return to normal programming.

We’ve got nearly 50 people working the election this year and so far the coverage has been received very well. As things stand this is our best election coverage to date. I’m very proud of our team.

Catch some of the coverage yourself through our live Internet feed.

UPDATE: At 6am this morning the Democratic Party declared, based on their preliminary results, that Elbegdorj had won the presidency. They then had a little celebration and march in Sukhbaatar. The catch is that the official results have not been announced yet. Everyone is still waiting on the  General Election Committee to announce the results. So, like good journalists, our people are staying on the clock 24/7 while we wait. Coverage continues and viewership is growing beyond belief.

More than 15,000 people have watched the live Internet stream of the coverage so far, and the number continues to grow. A few other sites have picked up our Internet stream and embeded in on their pages. That’s good for us, thank you very much.

Everyone is hoping that there will not be a repeat of riots from last year. Last year one of the impetuses for the riot was an announcement of “early” and “unofficial” election results to be followed by the official results which were contrary to the first reports. Now we have another “early” claim so we are keeping our fingers crossed and hoping for no repeat of last year.

We’ve also got people in the door filing reports for AP, ABC Australia, and CNN. All are here for access to our video materials to file reports.

Thanks for watching locally and online. Without our audience we’d be nothing. It’s for our audience that we do everything we do.

UPDATE: The MPRP conceded the election to Elbegdorj in a noon time press conference. Eagle TV was the first to break the news. The official numbers from the GEC have not yet been announced.

After being off the air for a few months because of my medical leave, my weekly Bible teaching program, Together Through The Bible is returning to air. Today we recorded eight episodes of the 26 episodes planned for the 2009-2010 season.

I’m especially proud of the new set for the program, single-handedly created by Eagle TV’s Art Director, Ganbataar. What you’re seeing in the picture is nothing more than styrofoam and glue with some granuals mixed it for texture. It took Ganbataar a couple of weeks to put everything together. He did an amazing job.

You can see a larger image of the set on my Flickr page by clicking here.