Ruth and Bill Detweiler. Since November 1989, Ruth Detweiler would introduce her husband and his sermon title each week on The Calvary Hour radio broadcast. The program will cease after its Dec. 30 airing, ending more than 71 years of ministry.

The Calvary Hour, which first aired Nov. 28, 1936, with evangelist William G. Detweiler, later was carried on by his twin sons, Bob and Bill, and members of their families. The broadcast, which started on one station in Canton, now airs on 42 outlets in the United States and Belize.

Bill Detweiler, 78, of Kidron, who has carried on the broadcast alone since the death of his twin brother in 1989, said a serious kidney ailment in November 2006 prompted the decision to end the program.

“I would be glad to keep on preaching forever, but I can’t think of any good reason why there will be any need for preachers in heaven,” Detweiler wrote in the November/December issue of the program’s newsletter. “The Calvary Hour will have been on the air for exactly 71 years and one month. What a wonderful record of the faithfulness of God.”

The program’s longevity, Detweiler said, makes it the longest-running gospel program in the United States.

In an interview Dec. 3, Detweiler said the farewell broadcast was taped in mid-November and thanks the program’s listeners for their prayers and financial support over the years. The program also offers “an encouragement to the people who are listening to keep on praying” that the seeds planted by the ministry will continue to grow.

Detweiler said that though his illness was the motivation for stopping the program, he has recovered from the kidney ailment and plans to spend more time with his wife, Ruth, and their family. Ceasing the broadcast, he said, was first discussed in 2004, with initial plans calling for it to end in 2006.

“But I didn’t sense that then was quite when to do that,” he said. Instead, he continued for another year.

“The awareness of something coming to an end always has a sense of sadness,” he said. “On the other hand, I am very grateful for the way the Lord has provided so well.” He said closing the program brings him “a profound sense of the goodness of the Lord.”

In addition to helping make the weekly broadcasts — not a single program was missed in seven decades — Detweiler was pastor of Kidron Mennonite Church for 37 years.

The Detweiler brothers took over the broadcasts immediately after their father’s death at age 52 on Jan. 13, 1956. At the time, they were seminary students in Philadelphia.

On July 28, 1957, the brothers were ordained by the former Mennonite Church in a service in which college classmate Myron S. Augsburger, still an active preacher, gave the sermon.

The brothers’ partnership continued until Bob Detweiler, 59, died while mowing his lawn at Goshen, Ind., on Sept. 15, 1989. After this, Bill Detweiler gave every weekly sermon the program aired.

Kenneth J. Weaver, former director of Mennonite Media and its predecessor agency, Mennonite Broadcasts, said William Detweiler was asked in the early 1950s to make The Calvary Hour the official broadcast of the Mennonite Church. When Detweiler declined, preferring to remain independent, the church started its own long-running program, The Mennonite Hour, in 1953. It aired until 1979.

“I think William was a pioneer,” Weaver said Dec. 3. “He began a radio ministry when most of the Mennonite church leaders would not have supported it.”

With its traditional music-and-message format airing in predominantly Mennonite communities, Weaver said, The Calvary Hour appealed especially to those already affiliated with the church.

“I think it made a very significant contribution in those communities,” Weaver said. “William’s vision of this ministry kept him right on focus until he departed and his sons took over.”

Later, in the early 1980s, after The Mennonite Hour had gone off the air, Weaver said the Detweiler brothers asked Mennonite Broadcasts to take over The Calvary Hour so they could devote more time to preaching and less to fund-raising. But when the church agency would not guarantee the program’s format would be preserved indefinitely, the brothers backed out.

“I respected that,” Weaver said.

Later, The Calvary Hour was given free use of a cappella music recordings from The Mennonite Hour archives, a connection between the broadcasts that has continued, Weaver said.