For nearly three years, KHJR Radio has reached Mid-Missouri listeners at 88.1 FM.
Saturday night, a group of its supporters gathered in Jefferson City at Helias High School to meet each other, enjoy barbecue and raise money for the non-commercial station that features Catholic-based programming.
The station is affiliated with the St. Louis-based Covenant Network (www.convenanentnet.net).
It offers a variety of talk, discussion and educational programming, "mainly teaching and sharing the Catholic faith," owner Tony Holman of St. Louis said Saturday.
"We're a radio affiliate of EWTN," which may be known best for providing Catholic television programs on cable systems, he said.
"Most of our programming comes from EWTN, (and) then we pick up some programming from other speakers around the country, and we produce some of our own shows, mainly in St. Louis.
"We promote events in Jeff City, and we hope to do some original shows sometime in the future on the Jeff City station, like we do in St. Louis. We just haven't done that, yet."
Motivational speaker and sometime broadcaster Patty Schneier of Florissant was the featured speaker.
She said Saturday afternoon that, even though she speaks around the country to many different Catholic audiences, it was difficult to decide what message she would deliver in Jefferson City.
She settled on "evangelization," noting that's not a role just for those who've chosen a religious vocation.
"All of us are called to just shine brightly and be a light in this world," Schneier explained. "How we can do that in our everyday, ordinary lives is by living our faith with joy and by just inviting others to take part - whether it's coming to an event at a church, or going and praying with that person or visiting them in a hospital.
"There are many, many ways that we can be the hands and feet of Christ - and we can do that joyfully, bringing the message of the Gospel just within our own sphere, wherever we're planted."
She said she was "called" to be a motivational speaker, explaining her Catholic faith.
"I didn't choose it - that's the most important thing," she said. "I was 36 years-old and a stay-at-home housewife.
"I still am a full-time, stay-at-home mom."
But a request in 2003 to speak at one event in Vandalia, Illinois opened the door to more and more invitations and opportunities.
"It has been the greatest joy of spiritual life to know that, truly, God has called me to do this," Schneier said. "I just felt like, if God opens the door, my job is to walk through it, and that's what I continue to try to do, to be faithful to what he's called me to do."
Similarly, Holman said he and his wife were driven by "a very strong desire to evangelize," so nearly two decades ago they acquired WRYT Radio in Edwardsville, Illinois, just east of St. Louis.
"We had absolutely no radio background at all," Holman - who had been a mortgage banker - explained. "We thought some of the programs we heard on cassette tapes at the time would be a great way to share the faith.
"And we thought radio would be a great way to do it - so we started calling people, to see if they wanted to sell a radio station."
They went on-the-air with their new format, launching what would become the Covenant Network, on May 1, 1997.
The network now boasts 15 full-power stations, mainly in Missouri and Illinois, Holman said, and 10 low-power repeater stations called translators.
He hopes some of the money raised this weekend can be used for translator stations in Columbia and Fulton.
Jefferson City's station is one of five Covenant Network affiliates in Missouri.
Mid-Missourians also can hear other Christian, faith-based programs on various radio stations, but Holman noted they offer different kinds of programming and aim for different audiences.
"I don't look at them as competitors, and I don't think they see us as competitors, either," he said.
Schneier noted Catholic radio programs serve a special need for many.
"On a Catholic radio station, you're going to have the Mass every day. You're going to have the rosary," she said. "A beautiful part of the Catholic radio ministry is for those who are home-bound and cannot get to Mass.
"And a lot of Catholics want to go to daily Mass but cannot get there, or their work schedule doesn't allow them to go to daily Mass."
Schneier added: "There are a lot of teaching programs on there that explain why we as Catholics believe what we believe, as well as call-in shows where people can get their questions answered.
"It's definitely a special niche and it has a wide audience," serving people "who are hungry for something different from what the culture is bombarding us with."
Covenant Network is non-commercial, so events like Saturday's gathering at Helias help raise awareness and money for the network and its stations.
Over the network's 17 years, Holman said, "We've got, literally, maybe thousands of people who've written us.
"We know quite a few people who've converted to the Catholic faith, or written about how it changed their lives and brought them back to the faith."