About The Good News Journey

I grew up in a very close, morally centered family. We were taught to do the right thing — but we were not introduced to Jesus Christ. Spiritual life was not a component of our family life. I had two wonderful, loving, caring parents, an older sister, an older brother, and one younger brother. Most of our childhood years were spent in Northridge, CA, a small suburb of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley. Our childhood was a Norman Rockwell painting.

From an early age, I participated in organized sports year-round. If we weren't playing a league game, we were running in the neighborhood. I learned about teamwork, hard work, commitment, caring, and building friendships. Education was a focus and dedication was preached. It seemed that I had everything — but even then, throughout those years, Jesus tugged at my heart, and I realized there was something more. I just didn't take the time to figure out what it was.

When I graduated from high school, I had the opportunity to play baseball in college. For two years, that was my life. I was having success and I could see my future. Unfortunately for me, I was depending on my own strength, my own plan, and my own goals. I was not walking with the Lord, and I was not living a life that I can be proud of as I look back.

Towards the end of my second year in college, I sustained an arm injury that put an end to my plans as a player — but, unbeknownst to me, the Lord was already molding me into the disciple He wanted me to be, to do His work. As I look back at my life, I can see that the Lord was preparing me from the age of seven to lead men. I moved into coaching and began molding young men into better athletes and morally better men.

While coaching, I completed my degree at San Diego State and entered the workforce. I met and married my wife, and the Lord gave us two beautiful girls. Within five years of marriage, my wife decided she did not want to be married anymore and she left me. Separation and divorce left me distraught. I was lost. I had orchestrated my life to my plan, in my control, at my forced timing — and it was a disaster.

After the divorce was final, and although my business life was fruitful and I was blessed with two beautiful children, I was lost, without direction, and depressed daily. Then, at the Lord's instruction, an associate at the company I worked for — having no idea what was happening in my life — invited me to a five-week study on whether Jesus Christ was a liar, a lunatic, or truly the Lord. I was ripe and ready to listen.

Over those weeks, my life changed forever. I trusted that Jesus was my Savior and that He had a perfect plan for my life on earth and in heaven. I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior in September 1985. I committed to giving up the reins of control to Him and I have walked with Him ever since.

One night in late 1986, I once again stopped trying to plan and manipulate my life and future. I asked the Lord to direct me fully and I promised to follow Him, Proverbs 3:5-6. Soon my life was much more balanced. My friendships were deeper. My outlook was much less anxious as my faith grew. I could see that God's plan for my life was much more meaningful than I could ever imagine. It was only through the Holy Spirit inside me that I finally, clearly understood that when I accepted Jesus, "the old has gone, the new is here" — 2 Corinthians 5:17.

The Lord has blessed my life abundantly. I met and then married my beautiful wife in 1990. God added two loving children to our family. My business continued to flourish because God led me into meaningful, authentic relationships that carried into my business life. The Lord placed me as head baseball coach of a Christian-based high school where we built a top program with Jesus Christ as our foundation and strength.

Over the years, my parents, my sister, and my two brothers accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior through continued prayer by my extended family and my immediate family. I have been truly blessed — but my work for Jesus Christ is not finished. I pray daily for the Lord to use me for His work, and He shows me the way to follow. I pray that I never stop focusing on Him until the day I see Him face to face.

I was blessed to have two wonderful parents who actually met in a Catholic Church in Coronado, CA during World War 2. My dad was a sergeant in the Marine Corps. My mom outranked him as a lieutenant and a Navy nurse, who served in England during the Normandy invasion.

We had five kids in our family, three boys and two girls and our church was the center of our lives. We went to church four times every weekend for two Masses, Confession and the Rosary. I was an altar boy for many years riding my bike at 6 in the morning to go serve Mass.

My dad wanted one of his boys to become a priest so all three of us were sent off in our high school years to the same seminary, St. Anthony's, in Santa Barbara. I only lasted a year. At the age of 14, I really didn't like being away from home and my friends and I didn't think I had a calling to be a priest. My two other brothers stayed longer, but eventually they both decided to pursue other vocations.

I spent 12 years of my young life in Christian schools, but I never really understood the real message of Jesus' life on earth. I fell away from my faith for a time in college, but returned to church once I started to struggle in my career as a Radio/TV journalist. Everything turned out well in my broadcasting career and later in my career as a financial advisor, but my faith really didn't start to come alive until I started visiting young men incarcerated in prison.

Some of these young men would challenge me on my Christian faith, so I had to be prepared to defend my belief in Jesus Christ. The more I read in the Bible and the more I prepared, the more I discovered what the Good News really was.

The feeling of the presence of the Holy Spirit inside those prison walls sparked more and more curiosity in me and how best to communicate the hope I have for those young men.

I encountered so many amazing things in my broadcasting career from interviewing such historical figures as Ronald Reagan, Cesar Chavez, and Mother Teresa. I covered earthquakes, massive wildfires, mass shootings, and even a stolen tank destroying everything in its path in San Diego. I talked to legendary Hollywood icons like Harrison Ford, Oprah Winfrey, Robin Williams, and Steven Spielberg. I walked the fairways with Bob Hope and Jack Nicklaus. I covered the NFC Championship Game at the LA Coliseum. I was blessed to receive six Emmy Awards, an Iris Award, and an AP Award for my work in radio and television.

But nothing affected me more in my walk of faith than the last ten years working in prison ministry. These young men have such a mountain to climb to achieve a successful life and the base of that mountain has to be faith in God. When I see the light go on in a young inmate's eyes, I feel something that I have never felt before. I truly believe we all have a much higher calling than just success in this life. God creates all of us with unique talents and calls on us to use those talents to serve Him.

This is why we started The Good News Journey. If we can encourage others to take that next step in their journey of faith where they put their faith into action, it will change their lives forever and possibly the people around them.

My father was the one who eventually became a priest, a deacon in the Catholic Church later in his life after finding great success in business and politics. He would always say to me, "It's all a gift."

Now I better understand what he meant. We are all leasing. No one is better than anyone else. Our status means nothing. It's all about our relationship with Jesus Christ as our pathway to our heavenly reward.

We don't know how much time God will give us on this earth, but we have to make it count. We always start our prison sessions with a prayer that says "May all that we do and all that we say be to your glory and your honor." If we do that, we will truly be blessed and that is the good news!

Growing up as a Navy kid, I struggled with instability, addiction and emptiness despite success in sports. After graduation from college, I found myself lying on my bed looking up at the ceiling thinking, "I have a college degree but I work as a waiter. I live at the beach in Southern California, but I am unfulfilled and unhappy. Is this all that life can offer?"

That was my prayer and God heard it. Later I met a friend who had felt the same way but found that Jesus Christ was the missing link. He invited me to church, and I heard the Gospel of Good News and asked Jesus Christ to become my Savior and Lord.

Now my life has eternal purpose and every day I thank the Lord for His grace, mercy and love. He sustains me every day no matter what I am going through.

Over 20 years of pastoral ministry have taught me that most people put their faith in things that won't last — a career, a relationship, their health. All of it is temporal. What we really need is something eternal. That's why I love teaching from Philippians 4:6-7: "Don't be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."

I often tell people that EGO stands for "Edging God Out" and JOY stands for "Jesus, Others, You" — that's the right priority. Faith isn't something we generate ourselves; it's a gift God grants us (Ephesians 2:8-9). The Bible is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. If you spend time in the Word and in prayer, God will transform you. Even giving a cup of cold water to a child glorifies Him — you can serve anywhere.

"And this is the testimony; that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have eternal life." 1 John 5:11 NKJV