RELENTLESS RADIO

 

Author:	Rick Davison
Published:	April, 2000

 

The hot chocolate was from a secret German family recipe, but it was the conversation with my friend and mentor that was priceless. Beck looked over her cup and made a casual comment that has stayed with me to this day. We were talking about another friend who was trying to hold his marriage together. After a counseling session the prior evening, the couple had dropped by Beck's home. One of their action points from the counseling session was to each find a friend they could talk to during the days ahead. When my friend asked Sam and Lynn who that friend would be, she was surprised as Lynn said, "I'm not as fortunate as Sam, I have no friend I can talk to about this. He has Rick and can discuss anything with him." Beck looked over to Sam and asked if that were true. And Sam said, "I love him like a brother." It would be an understatement to say I was shocked. Sam was from a very prominent family. I always thought he had a lot of other friends. I had no idea he felt that way about me or trusted me as he did. It changed the way I viewed our relationship. I reached out to Sam more often and made sure I responded quickly whenever he called or asked for anything. Knowing the value he placed on our relationship and me as his friend, motivated me to be there for him in ways that I would never have done otherwise. Had Beck not clued me in on how Sam felt and how much he needed my friendship, I would have underestimated the role he needed me to play. You never know the value that others place on you. It was the lesson I learned that day and one that I want everyone at WVFJ-FM to understand. If I were your enemy and never wanted you to reach your potential, I would want you to devalue yourself and your role in life. I would do everything possible to put you down, or better yet, get you to put yourself down. Then you would underestimate the value of your contributions to others, fail to put in the time and effort to make a difference, or maybe depress you so that you would not even try. When you're already down, any criticism or difficulty that comes your way makes your withdrawal or resignation easier to achieve. You do have a spiritual enemy who doesn't want Christian radio to succeed. His first step is to weaken it by getting you to stop trying to contribute to the spiritual well being of your listeners and he wants you ultimately to be ineffective or to quit altogether. So he attacks you with self-doubt, insecurity, or whatever he can to shake your confidence and get you to devalue yourself, your efforts, your station, or the industry itself. According to Scripture, pride is a sin of great magnitude. C. S. Lewis attacked it vehemently in his books as possibly the easiest way to spiritual failure. Indeed, we must avoid pride. Remember though, that pride is a sword with a double edge. One side is self-exalting and the other side is self-abasing. Both base one's value on the perceived presence or absence of perfection. Both are dysfunctional and self-defeating. I believe that 80% of the mistakes I see in our industry, at our station, and in my own life involved one of these two dysfunctions. With inflating pride, we don't work with due diligence because we're so good we don't need to work as hard. Deflating pride discourages us from making the effort because no one cares or it doesn't matter anyway. We end up looking silly and ineffective. As you make your action points for today, I want to encourage you to consider these.  1. I will seek truth from the Holy Spirit and God's Word every day. Truth sets me free from the dysfunctions of pride and changes the way I view my potential.   2. I will prepare myself professionally and seek to professionally equip my staff. Preparation allows me to seize every opportunity to make a difference through effective communication skills.   3. I will never underestimate the value of my relationship with listeners and the first and last impressions I make upon them. Impressions are the result of my effectiveness and the quality of my effectiveness is determined by the quality of my efforts.