Jim and the Boys

A woefully incomplete history of how I stumbled into radio ministry and the earthquake that it’s causing in my life.

It all started with a man named Jim. Jim is an older man in our church. The kind of man who has walked faithfully with God for years, and probably knew more about the Bible than I did. But rather than using his knowledge to constantly remind me that I was a 29-year-old Senior Pastor with a lot to learn, he used his wisdom to deliver frequent profound and guiding encouragement.

One day after church, Jim delivered yet another piece of guiding wisdom. In his winsome way, Jim said, “You should be on the radio. I don’t hear well and almost never hear most of what people say, but there is something about your voice that is different. When you preach, I hear every word.”

Like most of Jim’s kind wisdom, I accepted it gratefully, but lacked enough wisdom of my own to take heed. But Jim kept talking, and I kept listening.

A few years later the church was growing and we were in search of a new way to connect with more people in our community. And I had this great Idea. Maybe I should be on the radio.

Go figure.

Our small town had a local “easy listening” radio station. It was a hub of community information and had recently come under new ownership. So I went in, had a conversation with the new owner, and the idea for Mick’s Minute was born. I did not yet own a microphone, and I had rarely used audio recording and editing software, but I had a weekly radio show.

Jim was thrilled.

Mick’s Minute quickly developed into Mick’s minute and a half, and from there into a time limit described by the very gracious owner of the station as “just don’t worry about it.” Thank you, Graig Kenzie. You have always been kind to me.

As Mick’s Minute sprawled into minutes, the church began to sprawl as well. We had triumph and tragedy, success and failure. And in the midst of it all, every Thursday I would hurriedly write, record, and edit a Mick’s Minute to be played on Friday morning.

And that was the way of things for a few years.

Enter Todd. Our nearest Christian radio station was based in a town 65 miles down the highway. The Good News Radio network had been shining the light across northern Nebraska and Southern South Dakota for years, and our church was (and is) a proud supporter. Eventually Todd and I started talking, and I sent him a few samples. Todd (who must be one of the top three nicest people on the planet) said good job, and no thanks. MM (my shorthand for Mick's Minute) was unpredictably long, and built to invite people to our church. But Todd had a very organized radio network to run, and 99% of that network lived a LONG way from our church. So be it.

But eventually, I asked Todd a question. So if I were going to create a MM just for your station, what would it be like? His answer: it had to be applicable to listeners throughout Nebraska and South Dakota, and it had to be less than one minute and five seconds long.

Yikes.

I didn't think that was possible, but after a little practice it turned out that it was. And in no time, I was making a “feature length" version of MM for our local station and a "PSA" version (radio speak for "a one minute commercial") for Good News Radio.

By that time, I had gotten just experienced enough at recording and editing these messages to acknowledge the fact that my recordings were, well, not very good. I did have a microphone by that time, but recording in my office at the church (which happens to be a large metal building by an extremely loud highway) was not working out well. No matter how much I edited, all my recordings were punctuated by the sounds of trucks pulling cattle trailers. I went through a comical phase in which I would build a miniature sound booth out of sanctuary chairs in my office and stick my head inside to record, but to no avail. It did make for interesting conversation when people popped in to say hello, though.

Enter Tom. In addition to running a great grocery store and being the owner and black-belt proprietor of a Karate dojo, Tom Theis is a born music lover. And after re-discovering his love for drumming in a band, Tom and his band-mates had built a recording studio in the basement of his dojo. And Tom, being a good guy and a great friend, was very happy to solve my recording quality problems by letting me work whenever I wanted in his very quiet recording studio.

At this point, both the "feature length" and PSA versions of Mick's Minute were very popular, and my growing radio ministry was sometimes taking almost a full day out of every week. MM was playing on our local station and Good News Radio, and also on a different station in a nearby town in support of another church. I had moved my recording days around to manage things a little better, and so I thought, hey, why don't we add some music to make things sound even better?

Enter Eric. Eric Domkowski is possibly the coolest guy I know, precisely because he isn't trying to be. He's just a quiet guy who happens to be a next-level guitar genius with a background in studio recording. I emailed Eric about some music, told him what I wanted, and about a day later he sent me something that was instead much, much better.

And then Todd tells me one day that instead of only playing MM's at random times during the week on Good News Radio, they have also decided to feature MM at a special time every week for their listeners. And so I tell Todd, Dude, if you want to feature MM, would you like to use the "feature length" MM that I already produce every single week? And the MM story gets another fun wrinkle.

So all a sudden(ish), Jim's belief that I should be on the radio had turned into Mick's Minute, and Mick's Minute had changed from being a quick and messy way to talk to a bunch of people about God and invite them to church into a bona fide, real deal thing. MM is reaching people on multiple radio stations over thousands of square miles. People are coming up to me and identifying me as "that guy from the radio." A kind older lady from an address I still can’t locate on a map sends me a thank-you card. But 95% of my job is still being the Senior Pastor of a busy church and preaching sermons to Jim and his compatriots every weekend, now at two different services.

And then the weirdest thing happened.

It was time for me to quit.

Todd sheepishly told me once that he thought I would quit producing MM's after a few months because it’s so hard to write and record and produce that kind of thing. But that's not what happened. To the contrary, it came time for me to quit being a pastor. And I did not see that coming. Not at all. But it did. Very slowly, but very clearly from God.

And so I did. Or, more accurately, I am.

Just today I submitted my letter of resignation to the Elder Board of our church. And when I handed it in, I cried. I have spent much of the past two years preaching a series of sermons in which I am sharing one small section of every single book of the Bible. From Genesis (the first book) to Revelation (the last one). In six weeks, I will finish that series. And in six weeks, I will be done.

But possibly weirder still, Mick's Minute won't be done. I feel a clear calling from God to continue Mick's Minute as its own ministry, and to expand that ministry as far as it can go. I'm going to write, record, and distribute MM's. I'm going to write books (I have seven in mind at the moment). I'm going to serve God in whatever other opportunities develop. And if necessary I'm going to get whatever job is available to pay the bills while I do that.

And that's where things are at.

It was never supposed to be this way. Not by my way of thinking, anyway. But God does not seem to think like I think. God knows the future perfectly, but at the moment He seems to have no compulsion whatsoever to fill me in on many of the details. So I choose to take my not-entirely-ideal radio show, my incomplete website, and my life, and trust Him.

And as for you, my dear future reader, I hope you do as well.

I have no idea how this story is going to go. It could end very quickly, and fairly badly. And I accept that. My conviction is not that this ministry is going to be at all successful. My conviction is that God is glorious, and that He is worth following to wherever He is going to take us. And so here I go.

How about you?