Q: What is their content?
Nancy: When we first came up with this idea, we decided right off the bat that we didn't want to do things as they have been done in the Church of God for all these years. We wanted it to be different.
Wes: That's right. We immediately ruled out dressing some guy in a suit with French-cuff sleeves and seating him in front of a bookcase full of books he has never read. We wanted to make our broadcast more informal, and we wanted several people involved in the presentation.
Nancy: One of the more popular radio-TV shows is Imus in the Morning. Don Imus has several people on his show. They have humor. They talk about a lot of things. It's a collegial approach to entertainment. And it can be funny at times.
Q: Will your broadcast have these things?
Wes: We think we have a good formula. Don Imus is the grumpy old man of his show. His beautiful wife is part of the cast. Imus's show also has guys who are intelligent and witty.
Nancy: On our broadcast Wes is the grumpy old man.
Wes: And Nancy is my beautiful wife. And we have two youngsters on the show, Jared Weese and Jamie Craig. And we suspect we will bring others onto the show.
Nancy: And we have a lot of fun doing this show.
Wes: Nancy brings up a good point. On the show we take our religious beliefs very seriously, but we don't take ourselves seriously. At times we kid around on the show, and I seem to be the brunt of most of the jokes.
Q: Where and when will these shows air?
Wes: You can listen to them on our Web site. But, as far as airing the shows on radio or TV, that's not up to us. We're not recording these shows to build up a following for us.
In discussions I have had with people in small churches, they have told me, "We wish someone would make radio broadcasts that would help us grow our local church." That's what we have tried to create.
The shows are designed so that, if some local church wants to put these broadcasts on a local radio station, we can put information about that local church at the end of the show. We want to plug that local church.
Q: This is an unusual approach. Is anyone else doing this for local churches?
Nancy: I don't know. The important thing is that we are not trying to build up our own following. We are not trying to attract people to church meetings with us. We are not setting up Feast sites. We don't have a membership list. Our focus is on helping local churches grow.
Q: Who will be able to use these shows, and will you charge for them?
Wes: These shows are absolutely free. We don't charge for any of our products or services. We'll let just about any local Sabbath-keeping Church of God use our materials.
However, we probably wouldn't let a group use our stuff if that group promotes things like racism or tax evasion.
Nancy: It's important to note that we want to project to the world that being a Sabbath-keeping Christian is a great blessing. The life of a Christian should be enjoyable. For this reason we don't want these programs to be used by groups that we feel are not balanced.
Wes: Nancy brings up a good point. God calls us into His church to bear fruit, not to act like nuts. Unfortunately, there are some nutty groups out there. We don't wish them any ill will, but we aren't going to help them find new converts.
Q: You have gone to a lot of trouble to create a new Web site. Aren't there already Web sites out there created by COG people?
Nancy: Yes, but ours has a different focus. We're trying to reach out to the non-Sabbath-keeping community.
Wes: And we definitely are not trying to create another Web site where former WCGers can argue about the drama that has occurred over the past decades in the WCG movement.
There is a place for those Web sites, and I enjoy visiting them. But this is not our purpose. Nor is it our Web site's purpose to be a platform for the many crackpot religious ideas out there. We are going to promote the doctrines that seem to have been tried and tested by the Church of God movement since the 1860s and even earlier.
I have learned to never say never, but I really hope we won't use the following words on our Web site: WCG, Armstrong, Tkach, Flurry, Meredith, McNair, Dankenbring, Weinland and Hulme.
Q: Earlier you seemed to imply that you fear the Church of God movement might someday come to an end.
Wes: It could. Look at history. One of the most powerful political parties in this country was the American Whig Party. They won two presidential elections. A Whig named Daniel Webster is remembered as being one of the greatest orators of our nation.
But the Whig Party has been dead for over a hundred years. A hundred years from now people could be saying the Sabbath-keeping Churches of God were once a powerful force in religion, but that movement no longer exists.
This is not to say that God's church will die. Jesus said that can't happen. But the movement that so many of us have been part of can cease to exist someday.
Overall, the Churches of God are not doing enough to replace the people we lose through normal attrition.
Q: Does this mean that you think you can solve a local church's problems when it comes to evangelizing?
Wes: No way. Evangelizing is difficult. No one has all the answers. I know that Nancy and I sure don't.
I have a little bit of experience in evangelism. I used to be on a weekly radio broadcast on KRLD in Dallas. We had some success. We had a lot of people call in and write in. We had visitors come to our little local church.
But there are no easy answers and no shortcuts when it comes to evangelism.
Q: Just what do you mean shortcuts?
Wes: In the '50s, '60s and '70s the church [the Worldwide Church of God] took shortcuts. The church leadership claimed that Jesus was going to return in 1975.
This was a scare tactic that worked. As a result of this 1975 fib, new people came into the church by the thousands. So this seemed to be a great approach to evangelism at that time.
But then the piper had to be paid when Jesus didn't return in 1975. When it became obvious that the church had preached a false prophecy, a lot of people got disillusioned about religion and left the church. They were hurt because they were lied to.
Unfortunately, there are still guys out there setting dates, and there are still guys preaching who promoted the 1975 date without ever repenting of this false prophecy.
I suppose DCM could convince a lot of people to join some organization by making up a date of Jesus' return, but we're not going to do that. This is not the way to perform evangelism.
Again, I don't think there is anyone who has all the answers. But we do believe that the church needs to work a lot harder at making new disciples.
Q: Are there any other aspects to Dynamic Christian Ministries besides the broadcasts?
Nancy: Absolutely. On our Web site we have doctrinal articles and booklets. We have some sermons Wes has given over the years. We have doctrinal Q&As where we don't hold back on our beliefs. We make no secret of the fact that we believe in the Sabbath and the annual high days. We are going to have some music that Wes has written. And we have our puppet show, Buckaroo Bob's Neighborhood.
Wes: Oh, yes. That puppet show. This is something we have been doing in Big Sandy for about two years now. Last year we took it to the United Christian Ministries Feast site, and Ray Wooten fell in love with it. He has been very encouraging about the show and asked if he could help us with it. He came up with the idea of taping it so it can be given to Churches of God that might want to play it in Sabbath school.
Q: Is Mr. Wooten helping you with DCM?
Wes: United Christian Ministries [UCM] handles the postproduction piece of the show. We write the scripts and tape the shows down here in Big Sandy. Each show is taped from several camera angles. We then overnight the raw tape footage to United Christian Ministries [in Indiana], which edits the tapes into a final product on DVD.
UCM also helps with the distribution of the shows. Anyone who wants Buckaroo Bob's Neighborhood can download the shows from our Web site. Or they can write in and ask for DVDs from United Christian Ministries [4ucm.org] or from Dynamic Christian Ministries for free.
I think the puppet shows can be a great Sabbath-school tool. Or your kids may like watching them at home on a Friday night when you'd prefer they not watch Baywatch reruns.
Nancy: We feel we have a great cast on the puppet show. Wayne Weese does all the camera work. Karen Weese, Jared Weese and Wes are the puppeteers.
Wes: And Nancy is the only real person on the show. Every puppet show has to have a real person. The stars of the show are Buckaroo Bob and Suzie Q. They are two second-graders who live next door to each other.
Miss Nancy is the nice neighbor lady across the street who is their friend and helps them out of the jams they always get into. She provides gravitas to the show by ending each program with a biblical lesson.
Nancy: We have other characters such as Yankee Dan and Dr. Nelson. The show has singing and humor. You know, we have a lot of adults who attend our Sabbath-school class when we put on a show. We try to emulate The Muppet Show by having some humor just for adults.
Wes: Yeah. The show is a cross between The Muppets and The Andy Griffith Show and a Branson comedy-music show. It's good clean fun for the whole family.
Q: So you give away religious broadcasts and puppet-show DVDs for free. Is there anything else?
Wes: Yes, we have about 16 doctrinal booklets, and we are producing more all the time. All this stuff can be downloaded off our Web site.
Our booklets deal with subjects such as law and grace, the Sabbath and the family of God.
Q: Wes, you said that everything you produce is given away for free. But that's not true when it comes to your book, is it?
Wes: You're right. All our broadcasts and articles and music and puppet shows are free. We don't charge for any of that. But the book I wrote called Clan of Lilith: The Oldest Conspiracy is not free because it's published by Wasteland Press. If you want that book, you have to buy it online from Wasteland or Amazon.com.
DCM doesn't distribute my book, but you can find information about it on our Web site. I am now working on a prequel called Clan of Lilith: Origins of Rebellion.
Q: You refer to DCM as a new ministry. Does this mean you're no longer attending services with the Church of God Big Sandy? Is this another split? Did you have a falling out with Pastor Dave Havir? Could you elaborate?
Nancy: There is no reason why Dynamic Christian Ministries should negatively affect our membership in the Church of God Big Sandy.
Wes and I are still members of the Church of God Big Sandy. Anyone who listens in to the Church of God Big Sandy's Sabbath services knows that Wes leads songs and preaches there.
In addition, we try to present a puppet show once a month for the preteen Sabbath-school class there.
Wes: Yes, we are supportive of the Church of God Big Sandy and its ministries.
Speaking of our pastor, Dave Havir: Nancy and I are scheduled to go out for Mexican food with Dave and Pam in the next week or so, and Dave and I are in discussions about taking the puppet show to the Church of God Big Sandy's Feast site in Destin, Fla., this year.
In the recent unfortunate events [affecting the Big Sandy church, reported in the Feb. 29, 2008, issue of The Journal], we did our best not to take part in any of the contentions.
Nancy: Wayne, Karen and Jared Weese, who play integral parts in the DCM ministry, do not consider themselves members of any particular church. They enjoy attending and serving in many different churches across the United States.
But the five of us have made a conscious decision not to allow where we attend to adversely affect our relationship as family members, as brothers and sisters in Christ or as coworkers in this humble ministry.
Q: So where do you think DCM will be in five or 10 years from now?
Wes: I have no idea. All I know is that we work hard on this stuff and are having gobs of fun doing it. We focus on positive things and enjoy being around positive people who produce positive fruits.
Helping churches. Having fun. It doesn't get any better than that.
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