Part of God's Process

00:00 - Speaker 1 Even in the church, in the Christian community, we've let so much of the world's philosophy bleed into what we do that it's all about in music, like me, it's certain standards of number one songs or charting or gold records or Grammys or whatever else. There was a season where I achieved all that top of the mountain. But nobody stays on the top of the mountain forever. God brings us to the top of the mountain for that perspective, but then he brings us into the valley. Life is lived in the valley. 00:27 - Speaker 2 Welcome to the Ignite with Barry Meguiar podcast, where Barry's book and passion for spreading God's love are guaranteed to ignite your life. Now listen in and prepare to have your life ignited. 00:43 - Speaker 3 Hi everybody, welcome back to Ignite. I have a special, incredibly special opportunity right now to introduce you to Dallas Holm who, I must say, in my entire life I've never known anybody that more represented God, that just walks with God, is all in, has a crazy sense of humor, makes me laugh, he makes me cry. He has the most powerful altar calls I've ever seen and he does it the old-fashioned way. Everybody's sitting down. If you want to get saved, stand up and walk forward. Take no bones about it. And I've seen him in services where two hours later he's still praying. He doesn't just preach and leave, he's there, he burns for souls. But he had some challenging things through his life. So I just want to introduce you to my buddy, dallas. Oh, dallas, is it fun that we're able to do this after all these years. 01:42 - Speaker 1 I know it's incredible. In fact, I'm sitting at my desk in my office, so your picture of your family is on my desk all the time, every day. I look at it and I say a prayer. 01:55 - Speaker 3 Because I love you guys. Well, we have those pictures visible around our house and we go back to 1970, folks, we do 1970. And it was a God thing. If I can divert just for a moment, we were Nazarenes, built, raised, challenged by the Nazarene Church, and moved from Pasadena, california, to Orange County, to Irvine, and there was not a Nazarene Church around of any size and we were church buttons for a year until he led us into, on september 13th 1970, into, uh, first assembly of god, santa anna, first assembly of god. And when we walked in that morning, little did we know that we would be there just about every sunday morning, sunday night, wednesday, wednesday night for the next 31 years. And it was very interesting that I just had a realtor Forgive me to divert for a moment now to set the scene. It's a, it's a miracle story. 02:56 I had a realtor from Florida come up to me a couple of years ago at a car show and he said I understand, you knew brother books. And I said yes, he's. I sold him a house in florida. I said I knew he hadn't. What year? 69. No, I didn't want to embarrass you, I just let him talk. He said yeah, and then when he got back to new york. 03:15 Dallas knows, and I most know well, that dave would do one thing one day and then during the night god would tell him something differently. He was going a different direction the next day. He always followed not what said, but anyone said he followed what he heard God say to him. He would pray two to three hours every night and he heard from God. And he calls the room and says I can't buy the house. And he says Pastor Wilkinson, you're an escrow, you're committed. He said I'm sorry, I can't buy the house. Why can't I buy the house? Because God told me to move to Irvine, california. Now, in 1970, irvine was not a city. There was no city Irvine California. It was an incorporated area with a couple thousand people. How does a pastor in New York City know anything about Irvine California except that God told him? And when God told him that's what he's doing, I said so what'd you do? He said I got him out of it. I said why would you do that? He's like when David Wilkerson tells you God told him he's got to move to Irvine. What do you think? Yeah, I pulled some strings so he moved in and get this into the same neighborhood. We just moved into two blocks away from us, but we didn't meet in there. 04:26 In our sojourn going from church to church to church, god had us on a sojourn of learning and we went through so many empty churches and finally walked into it, the last church we'd ever go into, a Sunday's of God. Are you kidding me, pentecostal speaking tongue? No, we're not going to go there. We didn't know we were there. He just let us in and the moment we arrived we knew it was home. And afterwards we were introduced to Gwen Wilkerson and our friend said I think you have daughters, don't you? Yeah, and they babysit, because the McGuire's need babysitters. Oh yeah, they work out of the way babysitters. Oh yeah, that worked out. We lived two blocks from each other. Really, dave was traveling every weekend but finally, about three weeks later, we got to meet him. That started a whirlwind. I don't want to go off on that. He not only moved, but he moved his team, and Dallas was a crusade singer. We had Dallas home in our church. We became friends. Oh, it took us maybe two weeks or something. 05:30 We were out for the races and memories from those days Dallas. 05:34 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and the reason we moved out there and this is so typical, brother Dave I joined him January 1st of 1970 in New York, worked with him, traveled with them in the Wilkerson Youth Crusades for those months, but we were doing more ministry on the West Coast in California. We'd come out almost every month and do a great crusade at the Anaheim Convention Center. It's back in the Jesus Movement days. All the hippies were coming out. Brother David would always give an invitation. There might be 1,500 street people. Come forward at the end I need Jesus, I want Christ. We'd take him aside, pray with him, talk with him, turn him over to Chuck Smith because he was kind of the only church in the area that really was specifically zeroing in on that group. And so typical Brother Dave's like well, this is where God is moving in a spectacular way, let's just get in the middle of it, let's move there. So literally left New York, moved to Southern California so we could be right in the middle of all that God was doing there. And of course it was a movement all over the world. But California, southern California, it seemed to really kind of headquarter there. The news media was picking up on it and that isn't why we didn't care about that. There was a lot of misrepresentations of what was happening, but it was just such a sovereign work of God and Brother Dave wanted to be right in the middle of it. So pack up your bags, here we go. So we moved right in the middle of it. I'm so glad we did. 06:58 I always remember my clearest memory is standing out kind of in the foyer of the church one of those Sunday mornings. The clearest memory is standing out kind of in the foyer of the church one of those Sunday mornings and Karen was there, your wife, and these two little girls, cutest little girls, michelle and Nicole. And I just love kids, I've always loved kids and especially Michelle and I just kind of clicked. She wanted to be wherever I was and honestly I wanted to be wherever she was. So we had the best time and still maintain a marvelous relationship after all these years. 07:27 - Speaker 3 She's such a special young lady. You've been that second father to her and in the fun times you ministered to her, a lot of her spiritual strength was drawn from you. Of course we're talking David Wilkerson Cross the Switchblade, fame and Founder. 07:42 - Speaker 1 Team. 07:42 - Speaker 3 Challenge. 07:44 - Speaker 1 Did you see that? 07:45 - Speaker 3 Oh, look at that Barry Caron in. 07:48 - Speaker 1 Dallas on his motorcycle. Here's Linda back in about 70 with Michelle and Nicole that was in her house in Dallas, probably in about 72, I'm thinking around that area. Yeah, here's Dallas and his little friend Michelle on this windset somewhere. 08:07 - Speaker 3 Oh, my goodness. 08:09 - Speaker 1 I found those photos up this morning, I thought, oh, I've got to show you that, yeah, we go back a long way. You know, friendships like this, true friends in Christ. There are no richer treasures in all of earth obviously our salvation. But I mean, you know, you mentioned that when we were praying, you know, when you, we could sit here forever. We'd sit here for hours, talk theology, doctrinal issues, methodology of how we witness, share our faith, everything else. 08:39 But the bottom line, when you boil down all the volume of Scripture and all that God's heart is all about, it's very simple. It's answered when Jesus is asked toward the end of his earthly ministry by this smart young attorney Well, lord, what's the greatest commandment? They're really trying to corner him again. You know, ask him something, maybe he'll come up with the wrong answer. And Jesus boils down the entire eternal intent of God's heart in basically two lines Love the Lord, your God, love one another, love your neighbors, yourself, and in this all the law and the prophets are fulfilled. 09:15 That's why it makes even a conversation like this, of all the things we could discuss, bottom line is we are in Christ, we love the Lord, he loves us, and we have this call on our lives and that's all my life in ministry, since I've been a Christian. That's all that floats my boat. You know, music's just a vehicle. It was never the end game, it's just the tool that God gave me. How can I use this to promote the gospel, present the gospel Now on stage? What happens on stage through all those years, those concerts, that's one thing, but what happens on the street? What happens in the grocery store? What happens at Walmart? 09:54 - Speaker 3 Thank you. 09:55 - Speaker 1 Well, and when we talked the other day, I shared this. I mean this year in particular, and I don't know why. I could just tell you that God has put upon my heart, challenged me be more intentional, be more specific. Look, I mean when I get up in the morning, before I swing my legs over the bed, I always have just a little. It's not my prayer time, but it's. Good morning, lord. Thank you for a good night's sleep. Thank you for your goodness, your blessings. Please let me cross paths with someone today whom I can show the love of Jesus to. 10:29 - Speaker 3 And it's not a method, it's not a formula. 10:31 - Speaker 1 It's not a here's the four steps. No, it's just. I put it this way and I got to stop here. I'll get preaching. No, this is great, keep going. It's so basic, it's so simple. 10:42 People are so intimidated because they think they've got to be theologians, they've got to have a script, they've got to have a method, a program. You know, I always say this how would you describe Jesus? You know, how would you describe the personality of Jesus? I think the best way is well, he was a man of peace, joy, love, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, patience, self-control. All that defines who he is. So, as Christians I say think of ourselves as carrying a nice big basket of fruit around fresh, ripened fruit, big basket of fruit around fresh, ripened fruit. And every day we literally rub shoulders with people who are starving to death, sometimes physically, but certainly spiritually, relationally, financially. They're just starving. Will we not take out a piece of the fruit and say taste and see that the Lord is good? I just look for opportunities to just show love, to encourage, to be kind to someone. 11:35 Just a couple days ago I was at one of my favorite restaurants and the waitress came up, lovely, young Hispanic lady and didn't look like she had a care in the world. Beautiful young lady. Can I take your order? And I said, yes, you sure may. And I talked I always try to engage and make them laugh if I can and I said you know, when my food comes I'm going to pray and thank the Lord for his provision. Is there any way I can pray for you about anything? Oh, she just, I mean she started to tear up and she said well, pray for me at school, I'm kind of struggling and pray for my health. And I said I'm going to do that. And I asked her name and I had prayer with her. Did I lead her to Christ? Did I present a sermon? No, that really, in a sense, is not my job. 12:19 We know from Scripture. It's a process. First of all, no one comes to Christ unless they're drawn by the Holy Spirit. One verse says no one comes to the Son unless the Father draws him. Another verse says no one comes to the Father unless the Son draws him. And the agent of drawing is always the Holy Spirit, who is also the one in charge of the regenerative process of salvation. But our job is to sow the seed. We trust that God has cultivated. We sow the seed. Someone else may water. Someone else you know plants waters. Someone is there for the harvest Now you and I know that sometimes we're privileged to be there for the whole thing. 12:58 We start with someone in a conversation and a few minutes later we're praying with them to receive Christ, but I'd say that's the exception. Generally, we're just part of the process that God is up to in their lives. I love your philosophy that you mentioned. Just every day, just move people just a step closer to Jesus. That's so easy, it's so simple, it's so. I just love it. 13:23 I wish I'd have heard that earlier, because for a lot of years in my early Christian life I felt almost this condemnation I'm not saying enough, I'm not doing enough, I don't know how to do that. I feel unqualified, I feel intimidated. Yeah, you're just like well, who am I to go tell someone? It's not about telling them. There'll be a time to tell, there'll be informational exchange. It's just showing them who Jesus is. And it's so easy. 13:48 Opportunities amount every single day and I'm so thrilled with—you've always understood that in your ministry. We've known each other a long time and I remember you saying through the years the wax thing, that's just the vehicle, that's just the platform for me to minister to others, and God is taking you to people that are never going to come to my church never going to come to my concert, you know. But in the recent years, now you see that that was all preparation, that was foundational. All that was just stuff that God was doing to prepare you for the ministry that he's given you now and I'm just, I'm so excited, I'm so impassioned about it. Whatever amount of encouragement or ministry I've ever offered to you, believe me, it's come back twofold from you to me to at this point in my life as a senior citizen, on social security and all that stuff, to be even more impassioned, more intentional, more specific. 14:46 You know, if life is a mile run, I'm in the last lap, well into the last lap. So make it count. Make every moment, every day, every opportunity count. That's what I'm about, that's my story and I'm sticking to it, you get it. 14:59 - Speaker 3 Well, we're in the sprint lap. This is it. We're in that last lap. We were learning and we're getting our technique down, and you and I have arrived at the same place through entirely different lives, but we're serving the same God. 15:17 - Speaker 1 Absolutely and the Holy. 15:17 - Speaker 3 Spirit's been perfected through my challenges, through your challenges, but your heart's always been there. You know I talk often. Why do we have what we have? We don't deserve anything. We deserve nothing. 15:35 - Speaker 1 Right. 15:36 - Speaker 3 And it's not because we're good and it's not because we've been obedient and all that. Well, I would take that back. It is because we've been obedient because, from those days when we were together, you and I and Karen and Linda uh, have kept God as our focus and, through thick and thin, no matter what's going on, we've just trusted him and we've learned from him, and we've had our failures and whatever, but all of it has molded us into what we are today and it is God's truth. It's not our truth, it's not my truth, it's not your truth. This is God's truth and his promise is true. And he says when we live for his purpose. It's interesting, I just did a podcast on this love God and love your neighbor as yourself. I mean, that's what it is. 16:28 - Speaker 1 We don't need anything else. 16:29 - Speaker 3 There's nothing else he requires of us and when we get to eternity, nothing else will have any significance. It will not matter how many bottles of car wax I sold. When I get to heaven, it's not going to matter. It doesn't matter how many ministries I support. It doesn't matter how much money I give it away. None of that matters. The only currency in heaven is souls. We can work Boy. I see people so exercising aggressive, active christians, fighting for causes right, fighting against abortion, whatever to the point where it consumes them. It's like it'd be it becomes their god and they're so militant and they're even hating the people on the other side of those issues that God loves as much as he loves us and they're seeing hate coming from a Christian. God loves. God loves the people we hate. Hate's not part of our vocabulary. We have to love it no matter what. But when we do that, every soul, if we do, if just one more person gets to heaven because of our love, it's worth it. Amen. 17:40 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and sharing our faith should be and I've always known this intellectually and I've never been afraid to share my faith. But again, there have been times I've missed opportunities because, you know, I felt that nudging of the Holy Spirit. Oh, they're going to think I'm crazy or they're going to say I don't know exactly what to say, or whatever. We find all these excuses. But the reality is, sharing our faith should be the most natural outflow, reflex response of our relationship with the Lord. And if it's not and that's what I'm doing this year it's like I'm checking myself. Okay, if there's any reason why that isn't just the natural response of my life daily, something's wrong. There's some area of pride or self-centeredness or whatever. 18:25 - Speaker 3 There's no condemnation in that. 18:26 - Speaker 1 There's therefore now no condemnation in Christ Jesus. It's just God's loving discipline and instruction to say Dallas, let's check here, because all you got to think about is just sharing my love, sharing who I tell them, show them. You know, you mentioned something before how we got to this place and I'll try to make this real short, but I think it's beneficial, especially for people. 18:50 - Speaker 3 You're a little older than I am, but I'm in my late 70s now. 18:58 - Speaker 1 But even in the church, in the Christian community, we've let so much of the world's philosophy bleed into what we do that it's all about success, numbers, spreadsheets, achievement. You know, in the world of law, when you become a partner, if you're in medicine, it's when you get published. If you're in sales, it's quotas. In music, like me, it's certain standards of number one songs or charting or gold records or Grammys or whatever else. So I'll just say this real quickly Thanks to the blessing of the Lord, there was a season where I achieved all that Top of the mountain. But nobody stays on the top of the mountain forever. God brings us to the top of the mountain for that perspective, but then he brings us into the valley. Life is lived in the valley. So probably about 20 years ago, you know, the crowds weren't there anymore. The records weren't selling as much. I kind of jokingly say now people come up and say, hey, didn't you used to be Dallas home. 19:57 - Speaker 3 You're kind of Can I do a timeout real quick? You know if, if you're in the body of Christ, you've certainly heard the song rise again. I listen to the Gaither channel on Sirius radio. That song comes up at least a couple of times, and every time it comes up, gary yells. There's Dallas. 20:20 - Speaker 1 Well, and Bob used that song. 20:23 - Speaker 3 He's written so many songs, but the one that breaks me, with just you and the guitars, here we are. 20:28 - Speaker 1 Oh yeah, In your presence lifting holy hands to you, Lifting holy hands to you Breaks me. 20:35 There came that time where all that quote success, what would seem to be success, that's all kind of going out downhill, I don't know. A number of years ago, I mean, I actually came to this point where I remember one day kind of saying, am I just another old guy on the downhill side of life? Do I just ride off into the sunset like Roy Rogers and Dale Evans? And I was reading Charles Spurgeon's devotional that year Morning and Evening, which is one of my favorites and that particular day. 21:02 I read this from Charles Spurgeon. He said when the children of Israel marched through the desert, the Levites marched out front. Many of us, in our youthful exuberance, once marched at the front and won many souls to Christ. But in our latter years he calls us to a more important place and he moves us to the rear and we become as the tribe of Dan and we pick up the wounded and the weary and the disenfranchised. And within a week of reading that I was, up in the mountains of I think it was in Payson, arizona, actually a little church. 21:31 About 50 people showed up. I mean I'm going to sing and minister, no matter who, but I've done concerts in Madison Square Garden, the LA Sports Arena, you name the venue. I've probably been there Now. 50 people in the mountains of Arizona. There's a little something in the back of my head saying man, you've come a long way down the mountain. 21:49 But at the end of the concert this lady brought this elderly gentleman who's probably in his 80s. She said this is Daddy. Daddy's gone to church here all his life Every Sunday. We say Daddy, do you want to give your life to Jesus? Nope, she said. He's heard every evangelist, every sermon. Do you want to give your life to Jesus? Nope, she said. Tonight he turned to me and said do you think if I went down there that man would pray with me to receive Christ? And he's just crying his eyes out, had a black suit on, nice little red tie, white shirt. He was dressed up, you know, and I was able to pray with him to receive Christ. But here's the point I got this sense of God speaking to my heart. We all have different ways. I didn't hear an audible voice, but it was like God said you see, all that other stuff was just preparation. 22:35 - Speaker 3 Preparation. 22:35 - Speaker 1 All that stuff that the world calls success. That was just preparing the foundation. Now you're qualified to get this guy. And the next night, about 50 miles down the road, the same thing. A little church elderly gentleman, his 80s, came down he said would you pray for me to receive Christ? It was kind of like God putting an exclamation point on it. This is what I really care about. Getting the one Remember the lost sheep Leaves the 99, just go get that one. That's everything. That's our task on a daily basis. Find that one, Move that one a little closer to Jesus, Share the love of Jesus, Share peace, Share kindness, goodness. May it lead to a conversation, May it lead to leading them to Christ. Yeah, it may, but it may not. But you're to be part of the process. 23:19 - Speaker 3 You're the cultivator, the planter the water the harvester I was walking out of church, had a huge service. It's packed several thousand people and we're down at the front. We're always the last ones to leave A little church we're down at the front. We're always the last ones to leave. A little church, we're the last ones to leave. We go to a big church. We're the last ones to leave. 23:39 Last ones to leave. And as we're going out the door, I looked back and there was a couple, an older couple, praying together. It's a cavernous church balconies and the musicians had all gone. They cleared off the stage, they cleared the trash they're very proficient in doing all that. And I'm almost to the door to go out and I look back. I'm talking, engaged in conversation. I look back, I see this couple and I told the lady I was talking to I just got yanked. Okay, I can't do this. I saw them a little bit when I walked by, but I was engaged in conversation. And then I looked back at myself. I said sorry, I just got yanked. We caught the nudge and I had this incredible conversation, one of the church services. 24:31 That moment lit me on fire. It's what it does for us. Yeah, we have this privilege. We may be the first or the 20th person, we don't know how many we're. We're, we're part of it. It's a team sport, all right, and back in the day, if I didn't get him saved in the spot, I was a failure. Were you god, when I needed you? What's going wrong on? I get mad. It was so wrong. My heart God puts up with this, you know he just shakes his head, exactly. But when you know you just that moment and we don't have to prepare for that. I don't care what's going on. We don't have to prepare In our secular conversation, we don't prepare. 25:13 I wonder what they're going to ask me. Or they're going to talk about car wax? What am I going to say about car wax? I know that it just comes out it's the Holy Spirit. So, anyway, our theme is move everybody every day closer to Jesus. But beyond that, we say our goal is to ignite Christians, to ignite America with revival, one person at a time. And you have some great stories on that and we're out of time. Can you come back? Let's do another one of these. Can we do that? 25:46 - Speaker 1 Sure, we can do that, Be happy to. 25:48 - Speaker 3 We'll have to do another one of these. Okay, stay tuned, folks, and we'll be back with more of my buddy, Dallas Holm. God bless you. 25:55 - Speaker 2 If you enjoyed today's episode, let us know, and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review to help us reach more listeners. Remember sharing your faith ignites your faith. See you next time on the Ignite with Barry Meguiar podcast. You.