By Susan Shinn For The Salisbury Post

Every Sunday since Jan. 1, 1939, the 11 a.m. worship service at St. John’s Lutheran Church has been broadcast on WSTP 1490 AM.

That longtime partnership came to an end Sunday. WSTP went off the air Monday.

This change has left the church’s pastors and technology team scrambling to come up with a solution for a small but dedicated group of its homebound members — and community members — who listen faithfully each Sunday morning.

In recent years, the church has live streamed its service online, so members who listen via computer should not notice a change, says Mike Agee, who leads the church’s technology team. They’ll simply need to access the service by clicking the “listen live” button on the church’s Web site, stjohns-salisbury.org, beginning tomorrow morning.

But radio listeners will experience a station change and time change.

The 11 a.m. worship service will now be recorded and sent to WSAT 1280 AM, which will air the previous Sunday’s worship service beginning tomorrow at 9 a.m. First Baptist Church airs its 11 a.m. worship service live on WSAT each week, as it has for decades.

“We will be live streaming directly to our Web site,” Agee says, “so we’ve got those listeners covered. The problem is for our older people who listen via radio. We’ve made the announcement during Sunday services for the past three weeks. We just found out a few weeks ago.”

Agee adds, “I hate to do a delayed broadcast on the radio, but that’s the only option we’ve got. We will continue to work to provide a solution to our listeners. We know that this service has been valuable to people who can’t get to church.”

Glenn Ketner’s mother, Addie, listened for years at home on the radio. She died last August at age 104.

“The broadcast was very important to my mother once she got to the point that it was hard for her to get to church,” Ketner says. “You knew with absolute certainty that Sunday mornings from 11 to 12, she would be tuned in to WSTP.”

Leon Williams has also listened faithfully each Sunday morning. The former “Mayor of Maupin Avenue” is now a resident of Trinity Oaks — where he’s now the Mayor of Trinity Oaks, of course.

Williams typically attends St. John’s 9:27 a.m. contemporary worship service with Bill Johnson, stopping off for a cup of coffee, then heading back to his room by 11 a.m.

“Leon will be OK,” says Johnson, director of retirement services for Trinity Oaks. “He’ll figure out something else. But he really enjoys listening to that service on the radio.”

Susan Shinn is communications assistant for St. John’s Lutheran Church.