In an age where seemingly everyone has a podcast and some cars don't even support AM radio anymore, pirate radio isn't always a topic that comes up.

But the Federal Communications Commission, thanks to fresh enforcement capabilities it received from Congress a few years ago, is going after any pirate radio station it can—and that, in some cases, includes churches.

Last month, the commission issued at least two separate complaints regarding pirate radio stations in Oregon, including one at a Portland-area church. That complaint accuses the owner of the property, the Eastside Free Methodist Church, of operating a radio station at illegal output levels.

The situation is interesting, as churches generally are allowed to operate radio stations under the Low Power FM regulation, allowing for noncommercial use within a service range of about 3.5 miles. But the FCC's letter implies that the station does not meet these standards.

"While the FCC's rules create exceptions for certain extremely low-powered devices, our agents have determined that those exceptions do not apply to the transmissions they observed originating from the Property," the letter, from the commission's enforcement bureau, states.

While the Eastside Free Methodist Church is listed on the complaint, the church is no longer operational. An official at a church that operates a weekly service in the same building, when reached for comment, said that the church building supports religious services for multiple churches who rent out the space. The official, who would not give his name, said that another church was operating the radio station, but the landlord had spoken to the offending church and had gotten them to stop.