Ask the Editor: Encouragement, updates, and inspiring stories

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Friday, December 6th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Up next: Ask the Editor. WORLD Radio executive producer Paul Butler responds to a couple listener emails.

PAUL BUTLER: We’ve gotten a lot of encouraging notes over the last few weeks from listeners who are grateful for the special episodes and occasional long-form interviews we’re running on the weekends.

Dale Touchstone wrote this after last Saturday's extended conversation with Dallas Jenkins:

I very much enjoyed this extended interview. It was nice to have it on Saturday so I would have something to listen to over the weekend from THE WORLD AND EVERYTHING IN IT podcast.

Thank you.

Doubletake producer Les Sillars encouraged listeners to write in after Leah Savas’s two part special on IVF…and Melissa Robbins’s response was short and sweet: “I'm listening! And I love them. Thanks for taking time to create them.”

One of our faithful listeners who signs his emails as “Zac from Atlanta” has been checking in with us regularly…asking when we were going to finally launch the promised weekend program that we mentioned last year. Well, after months of development, we determined that the program we were planning just wasn’t going to be sustainable in the long run, so we’ve gone back to the drawing board…

In the meantime, we have a bunch of stories and interviews already produced…and we didn’t want to keep holding on to them. So we’re releasing those each weekend throughout the rest of this year and into 2025.

Shifting gears a bit, I want to pass on a correction we neglected to make. It was back in October when we ran a story about the debate over federal funding for private schools in Kentucky. In that story we misidentified teacher Laura Wilson. We apologize for the mixup, and we’re grateful for her gracious note pointing it out. We have corrected the story online.

And finally this morning, we continue to get emails from listeners who greatly appreciated our election week prayers. It’s led Gary Helms from Bristow, Virginia, to start something new:

GARY HELMS: On Wednesday morning, I was moved to tears by the sweet prayers of your listeners that were offered for our elected and appointed leaders. I was also convicted that I have not been faithful to the biblical mandate of First Timothy Two. As a reminder in the future, I plan to pause after each Washington Wednesday segment of your podcast to pray for all in authority. Maybe others would like to join me. Thank you for your show.

WORLD’s mission is “Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.” And when listeners let us know how our coverage motivates them to then go and do something, it is truly one of the highest compliments you can pay us. I also hope many listeners will follow Gary's lead in praying for those in authority as they listen to our program.

Hebrews 10:24 encourages us as believers to “stir up love and good works” … and that’s my prayer for our program.

I’m Paul Butler.

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