When we recently spoke by phone with Jim Daly, president of the international Christian ministry, Focus on the Family, we quickly realized that he has a personal charisma which makes him a great communicator.
Daly is the guest speaker at this year's Annual Prayer Breakfast, Feb. 19 at the Marriott Marco Beach Resort.
We also learned that his Christian faith is all the stronger for his tumultuous, grief-stricken childhood, peppered with a series of almost unimaginable personal crises.
Daly wrote in his autobiography six years ago, "I am living proof that no matter how torn up the road has already been, or how pothole-infested it may look ahead, nothing – nothing is impossible for God."
As he described his early years to us:"Part of my experience since I was born was breakdown of my family. My mom and dad struggled and divorced when I was five. I had a stepdad when I was eight and then my mom died when I was nine.
"My stepdad walked out of her funeral. We, I was the youngest of five, went into foster care, a bizarre experience. The foster care father accused me and the nine-year old of trying to murder him, which was not true. He was going senile he took it out on me. I became this wallflower child. I just wanted to go to school and do good in school and come home and go to bed.
"A year later my biological father reconnected with us and we moved in with him for a year. And then he passed away. Then I lived with my brother for junior high and high school.
"The irony is that God gave me just about every family type to experience, the normal dysfunctional biological family and then the single parent mom and the stepfather and then foster family and then single parent father and then living with a sibling. So I think the only thing I missed out on was a grandparent, simply because we didn't have any. It's God's sense of humor in a very desperate situation.
"Every day as I walk into the Focus on the Family offices, that's what drives my passion, that's what fuels me. I want every child to experience a better life as a child than I did. And that motivates me."
We asked Jim Daly about relationships among grandparents and their grandchildren in modern America.
"I love the kind of grandparents who say to their grandchild, 'Can I talk to you about a couple things that I'm seeing?' That's how we have to approach the culture, especially the Christian community. I think we're losing that ability to persuade and engage because we're coming with such hostility toward these problems that the person we need to communicate with and talk with is just shutting down.
"I'm concerned about that. I think the wisdom of the 50-plus audience needs to show itself now. We need to focus on how do we talk about a life well lived and what does it mean? How do we not build barriers but build bridges?"
A lot more than just a hot-button cultural issues
Jim Daly talked about his organization's sometimes less than smooth relations with news media. He mentioned one "antagonistic" reporter who came around after years of writing "scathing" articles. The journalist said he had thought Focus on the Family was 90 percent political.
"It's the opposite," Daly says. "Seven percent (of what we do) is on those hot button (cultural) issues, but 93 percent of our budget is helping people who need help. That journalist just didn't know who and what we are."
For example, he says Focus on the Family handled 75,000 counseling calls for marriages last year and helped nearly one and a half million families with parenting crises.
You can hear Jim Daly's message in person at the Prayer Breakfast, from 7:30 to 9:00a.m., Tuesday, Feb. 19at the Marriott. Tickets are $20 online at the website: www.marcoislandprayerbreakfast.com.
Chris Curle is a former news anchor for CNN and for ABC-TV stations in Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Houston. Email chris@chriscurle.com. Don is a former ABC News correspondent and bureau chief and a former news anchor for CNN and ABC-TV, in Atlanta. His Farmer File column appears Fridays in the Naples Daily News. Email: don@donfarmer.com.
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Comments » 18
KlausStoertebeker writes:
"I had a stepdad when I was eight and then my mom died when I was nine.
My stepdad walked out of her funeral. We, I was the youngest of five, went into foster care, a bizarre experience. The foster care father accused me and the nine-year old of trying to murder him, which was not true. He was going senile he took it out on me. I became this wallflower child. I just wanted to go to school and do good in school and come home and go to bed.
A year later my biological father reconnected with us and we moved in with him for a year. And then he passed away."
YES! You are right - – nothing is impossible for God - right!
1Paradiselost writes:
I bet anyone who sees this guy is going to be asked to....
"Please pass the hat"!
Just more fire and brimstone BS!
RayPray writes:
Priests & High Priests were the original cast of con-men that thousands of years ago figured out how to live sweetly on the 10% tithe they euchred off the productive part of any society.
Daly is the epigone of holy roller James Dobson who opposes homosexuality, even though it is widely accepted by historians that Jesus & the Disciples, a dozen unmarried Jewish guys prancing around Palestine, drinking each others' 'wine' and eating each others' flesh were certainly even more gay than the workers in Andy Warhol's factory....
KlausStoertebeker writes:
"For example, he says Focus on the Family handled 75,000 counseling calls for marriages last year and helped nearly one and a half million families with parenting crises."
This numbers shows you, HOW sick Americas families are. Downfall now even in families after economy, real-estate, Afghanistan, 17 trillion on depths and weapons. Bad 2013. On top a charlatan on Marco Island. Exactly what Marco Island needs for
$ 20 per person.
RayPray writes:
Instead of squandering cash on this con-man, if this is truly a Christian country here's where Daly should be helping:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=...
KlausStoertebeker writes:
This woman will see no 1 cent from Daly but maybe a force female sterilization from the government.
1Paradiselost writes:
Ray....
Two things needed here.....
Legalized Forced abortion!
The guy should be neutered with a dull knife!
As the Con-Man says "Praise be to god".... "Please pass the hat" "suckers"!
thebiblesays writes:
First, I see a story about a man who has made the best out of several bad situations. Life is hard and we all get kicked in the teeth sometimes. He has certainly had more setbacks than most of us. He has a message of hope not the typical "life has dealt me a hard blow so that's why I use drugs and need government assistance." If this was his story you would still be critical because that's how you roll all the time. Nothing positive ever comes out of your posts!
Second, I see no fire and brimstone in this story but since you want some here goes. Jesus said, "But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment." Matthew 12:36... You should also take note of Revelation 20:11-15 - "Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire."
Seriously guys, I say this out of concern for your immortal soul. Please quit being at war with God and repent before it is too late.
1Paradiselost writes:
George Carlin on Religion and God
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPOfur...
RayPray writes:
Jesus said, "But I sa
>>> You put these words in quotes. That means that Jesus actually spoke these words in ENGLISH?
>>> A miracle indeed!
>>> I know I must repent and focus on my immoral soul.
>>> But Jim Daly & his $20-- a pop chubby business men breakfast is titled Focus on Family.
>>> In the Gospels, though, where exactly does Jesus focus on family? No mention of wife or kids or even pet poodle!
>>> Jesus was centrally focused on his Disciples & the exchange of bodily fluids with these catamite.
>>> Unluckily he got crucified for sodomy....
>>> The fact that our contemporary churches are pockmarked with paltering sodomites is merely the successful fulfillment of all his dream & prophesy.
thebiblesays writes:
First, I pray for you all that God would remove the blinders from your eyes and you would see how terribly wrong you are. The very words you speak and write will be replayed on judgement day. Your own words will convict you and it will be too late.
Second, where do you find a historical record of your blasphemy of God claiming that Jesus led a perverted lifestyle with his disciples. Oh let me guess...Hollywood motion pictures. We can certainly trust everything that comes out of Hollywood...
Just because we men cannot lead a sinless life does not mean that God cannot lead a sinless life. The bible says, "With God all things are possible" Mark 10:27 and "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD (Isaiah 55:8)
You are trying to apply man's sinful standards on a Holy God and that is why you cannot see... "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing but to those who are saved it is the very power of God" 1 corinthians 1:18
REPENT ---CHANGE DIRECTION BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!!
RayPray writes:
"First, I pray for you all...."
>>> Thanks from my immoral soul!
"The very words you speak...convict you and it will be too late."
>>> Was worried about that
"where do you find a historical record of your blasphemy of God....''
>>> Flavius Josephus & the canonical Gnostic Gospels
"Oh let me guess...Hollywood motion pictures. We can certainly trust everything that comes out of Hollywood..."
>>> Very perceptive. My Faith drained out of me after the 4th viewing on Lion King!
"REPENT ---CHANGE DIRECTION BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!!"
>>> Your capitalization tells me it's already too late.
>>> But maybe if I join our chubby businessmen at the $20-- prayer breakfast I can be saved!
KlausStoertebeker writes:
OHHHHH! A wonder on Marco Island!
Johan Tetzel is resurrected!
That is the guy who is the father of all donations and found-racer charlatans make the Holy Roman Catholic Church richer and richer.
Johann Tetzel (1465 – 11 August 1519) was a German Dominican preacher known for selling indulgences.
His famous slogan was:
"As soon as a coin in the coffer rings / the soul from purgatory springs!"
So why shall God be angry with me. God told me I have never to follow bible people have for every nonsenses the right bible words in the name of God God never told.
Especially from catholics priests preach in public water and drink in private wine with young boys as fee for their Sunday scare tactics.
No my friend you will never see the heaven door. God told me he do not like people they deliver solutions for $ 20 in his name. And he is not a friend of Johann Tetzel named in this days "thebiblesays" collect money to remit sins.
You can not scare me with your brainwashed indoctrinated arguments about judgment day.
My source told me, I am on the winner side. Because I am a Christian and not a blended blasphemes.
My Christian heroes are Albert Schweitzer or Mother Theresa for example. Or Martin Luther and Martin Luther King.
Or the female teacher used their bodies as shield to protect their school kids for the attacks of this first class idiot in Connecticut used weapons of mass destruction legalized by the American constitution to kill young and innocent school kids.
My hero is never a 20 dollar pseudo Christ with the support of Johann Tetzel his master today known as thebiblesays.
Better for you is be quiet. God did not like your blasphemies in his name.
thebiblesays writes:
Flavius Josephus said, "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day." Book 18 Chapter 3
I see nothing from Josephus that justifies blasphemy....
As for the Gnostic Gospel writers - they are mentioned in the Bible... "I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take them into your house or welcome them. Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work. (1 John 1:1:7) These are the gnostic gospel writers who were inspired by satan.
IT IS NEVER TOO LATE...GOD WILL ALWAYS ALLOW ALLOW A U-TURN... "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
As for the twenty dollar breakfast, I'm sure the breakfast costs some money to purchase from the marriott and some of the money goes to the committee who plans the annual prayer breakfast. What harm is it to you if they do this...If you don't agree...Don't go...save your twenty dollars..Why rain on someone else's parade? Maybe because you are just a bitter and unhappy person who takes delight in being generally disagreeable....
KlausStoertebeker writes:
" Maybe because you are just a bitter and unhappy person who takes delight in being generally disagreeable...."
Wrong! I am a happy camper, like sex and beer and have a wonderful life.
God was good to me all my life. And the last thing I need is a charlatan in the name of God want to fix my family and non family affairs were is nothing to fix. Love to drink in nice company my beer by Crazy or Jacks and solve the worlds problems and Marco Islands too. And I love book 27 chapter 69: Enjoy your life and thank God for any day of erection.
Life is beautiful.Specially on Marco Island.
1Paradiselost writes:
Religion Does No Harm?, Bill Maher reflects.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyHhAo...
astyp writes:
An article about someone who had some difficulties in his life and now is sharing his positive ways is bitterly hated, despised and ridiculed by some posters.
What compels some to be so spiteful and full of vile?
Must be that they are spiteful and full of vile.
KlausStoertebeker writes:
"An article about someone who had some difficulties in his life and now is sharing his positive ways is bitterly hated, despised and ridiculed by some posters."
YES! For 20 dollar as acquisition fee for follow-ups much more expensive. Spend your money and be happy.
That's all. But be careful. Maybe in one year you are death.
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