Journalist Mark Elfstrand: assignment from God!

Mark Elfstrand is a bigger than life, career journalist and spent years on the nation's original Christian radio pioneer, Moody Radio. Mark shares his journey from a family Christian start to a stadium crusade "alter call" and then a tearful encounter and lifetime commitment after listening to a Steve Green song on his car radio: "So desire to tell His story Of a love that loved enough to die Burns away all other passions And fed by Calvary's love becomes a fire" ...and that fire burned brightly as he shared life stories, engaged with callers and joyfully entertained hundreds of thousand of listeners with his positive encouraging and lighthearted radio conversations. You'll hear about how a family death impacted his life, and about his own health scare years later. Although not on the air now, Mark is a busy man. He's a speaker, blogger, coach, media consultant and elder emeritus at his local church. Find out more about his current projects by visiting him at Http://www.ElfstrandGroup.com. If you would like a free copy of his booklet "Recliner Reflections" simply shoot him an email. He' be happy to send one out to you.

mark@elfstrand.net or 312-498-9507 You can watch the video version of this episode on YouTube at https://youtu.be/y4qUIEy9cKg

MARK ELFSTRAND AT A GLANCE

Veteran radio interviewer, Christian talk-show host, author, and ministry leader whose career spans secular music radio, Christian broadcasting, Moody Radio, and more than 1,000 interviews.

Topics

Radio · Christian broadcasting · interviewing · Moody Radio · faith · discipleship · men's ministry · fear · heart surgery · leadership · calling

His Faith Journey

Christian upbringing → personal commitment to Jesus in Seattle → Air Force and radio career → calling into full-time ministry → Christian talk radio → discipleship and men's ministry → learning to trust God through fear and heart surgery → living available to God's assignment.

This Episode Explores

• Mark Elfstrand's unusual beginning in radio with a 10-watt transmitter.

• His journey from secular music radio to Christian broadcasting.

• The spiritual experience that led him into Christian talk radio.

• What it takes to succeed as a talk-radio interviewer.

• Memorable interviews with public figures, astronauts, and entertainers.

• Mark's 14 years with Moody Radio in Chicago.

• His approach to discipleship and men's ministry.

• Losing his father at 16 and the fear that followed.

• Facing quintuple bypass surgery at age 53.

• Mark's desire to remain available to God wherever He leads.

Questions Answered

• Who is Mark Elfstrand?

• How did Mark Elfstrand get started in radio?

• How did Mark Elfstrand become a Christian talk-show host?

• What did Mark Elfstrand learn from more than 1,000 interviews?

• What was Mark Elfstrand's role at Moody Radio?

• How did Mark Elfstrand's faith become personal?

• How did losing his father affect Mark Elfstrand?

• How did Mark Elfstrand deal with fear before heart surgery?

• What does Mark Elfstrand believe about discipleship and manhood?

• What is Mark Elfstrand's favorite Bible verse?

• What is Mark Elfstrand doing in ministry today?

Core Story

Mark Elfstrand's career began with a 10-watt transmitter in a Seattle Bible-school dorm room and eventually took him through secular radio, Christian broadcasting, Moody Radio, and thousands of interviews. Along the way, his faith moved from a family foundation to a personal commitment to following Jesus and eventually to a sense of calling into Christian talk radio and ministry. The death of his father at age 16 created years of fear, and a later diagnosis requiring quintuple bypass surgery forced him to learn a different kind of faith — not showing off his faith, but trusting others and trusting God. Today, Mark describes his goal simply: to be available to God and go on assignment wherever He wants him.

Mark Elfstrand: From Music Radio to Christian Talk Radio, Faith & Following God's Assignment

Amazing Greats with Ric Hansen

Introduction

Ric Hansen:Well, here we are. Hi, I'm Ric Hansen.

I have the opportunity today to sit on the other side of the table from a guy who usually is the interviewer. He's been doing amazing interviews for over 40 years on talk radio stations in Sacramento, Dallas, Pittsburgh, and Chicago.

He's started two nonprofits and two for-profit companies. He's currently the Executive Director of Ministry Leadership at Christ Community Church in Plainfield, Illinois.

He's written a book, hosted a podcast, and writes a blog called Forward Thinking.

Welcome today, Mark Elfstrand.

First of all, just touch on some of the locations you've been in. Physically, you've been in Sacramento, Dallas, Pittsburgh, and a lot of time in Chicago. You've been in secular radio, you've been in Christian radio.

Mark Elfstrand:Yeah, it's really easy — like a little elf, a Christmas elf, and a strand of hair.

Ric Hansen:There you go. Elfstrand. I got it.

It's such a pleasure to be with you. And, to be honest, I'm a little bit intimidated because you're the guy that's the interview master.

Do you have any idea how many interviews you've done over the years? A thousand? Five thousand? Any clue?

Mark Elfstrand:Well, I can assure you it's well over a thousand. I'm probably going to guess closer to about 2,500, considering my time at those multiple markets that you just talked about over multiple years.

You start adding the number of days I was on the air, and then sometimes two interviews or three interviews a day, and yeah, that number ratchets up pretty high.

The Beginning: Seattle and a 10-Watt Transmitter

Ric Hansen:Yes, it does.

You have a kind of origin here in my hometown, which is Seattle — not in radio, but in schooling, right?

Mark Elfstrand:Yeah. I went to Lutheran Bible Institute.

My father had been the business manager there from 1953 to 1959. After high school, they gave me a one-year offer at the time to come to this two-year school.

So I did.

During that period of time, my roommate, who was a farmer from a farm community in Washington, came back from spring break and brought a 10-watt radio transmitter.

Ric Hansen:Oh, seriously?

Mark Elfstrand:I hooked it up in our room, and of course, we were at a Bible school, so I was playing Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago, and who knows, maybe a little Santana in there as well.

We were just having fun, and it was one of many distractions that made them suggest I not return for a second year.

Ric Hansen:So the 10-watt radio station got you about two blocks away, right?

Mark Elfstrand:It was exactly right, yeah — just over the campus at 130th between Aurora and Greenwood in North Seattle.

Ric Hansen:That's funny because my background's radio also, and I did the same thing. I did it in my bedroom as a teenager. I had a little 10-watt radio transmitter.

So it's a big fan club. I guess we all started that way somewhere along the line.

That's very cool.

Then you got into radio. Give us your 60-second — or whatever it takes — resume of where you've been, which stations were secular, and then when you made the transition into Christian radio.

From the Air Force to Secular Radio

Mark Elfstrand:I'll quickly move over to the fact that I wound up being drafted and went into the Air Force.

Then I cross-trained into broadcasting after a couple of years. I was stationed in Iceland for one year, and I became the television sports announcer for American Forces Radio and Television Service, which was a very cushy job, I might add.

So I was there for one year.

When I got out, I decided to go to college at night, back to college.

In the meantime, I got myself my first radio job, which was in secular radio just outside of Sacramento.

I was there for a year and a little under a year and a half, and then, of course, you have to go through this. I said, "You know, I've just got to learn to be fired."

So I did get fired from that job.

I took a little break and then got hired at a country station just a little bit north of Sacramento, and I was there for a period of time.

While I was on the air one day, my radio career took a big splash.

Ric Hansen:That was all music radio initially, right? So you're playing the hits and I'm playing the hits?

Mark Elfstrand:Country music hits and AC hits, yeah.

Personality Radio and the Move to Grass Valley

Ric Hansen:We're finding out more about Mark Elfstrand, talk-show host from Chicago, today on the Amazing Greats Podcast.

So then you left the Sacramento area and headed where?

Mark Elfstrand:Well, actually, this is when I got a telephone call while I was on the air at this country station from a fellow who went by the air name of Chuck Roy.

He still holds the ratings record for afternoon drive in Sacramento. He was a hot jock.

I don't know, you may remember names like Dwight Case. Dwight went on to a pretty successful radio career, and Dwight was one of the people that Chuck had worked with.

Chuck was a really good radio talent.

I thought, "You know, the guys in San Francisco or Los Angeles — and he's calling me. I'm on the air, and he wants to know if I'll come to work for him."

I said, "Where are you?"

And he said, "Grass Valley."

That was about 40 miles from Sacramento.

He said, "Just come up and meet for breakfast."

I did, and I wound up working with him for about six years.

Chuck knew the radio business. He went to the famed Don Martin School of Broadcasting in Los Angeles, so he really did understand the radio business very well.

I learned a lot.

That was also on the secular side of things, and still music radio.

Ric Hansen:Right. Music radio?

Mark Elfstrand:Well, it was personality-driven.

He really put that into a personality-style radio station, gave me a lot of freedom to do some of the silly, crazy, wacky things that radio people like to do.

So, in any case, I was there for about six years.

The Crazy Days of Radio

Ric Hansen:Those are the fun days of radio, right? Where you were able to do a lot of fun stuff and be crazy and be creative.

Mark Elfstrand:Yeah.

You may remember The Love Boat and, of course, the famous TV show.

So we decided to do a cruise ourselves.

Of course, we weren't anywhere near the water, so we were cruising down to a pizza restaurant and put people on flatbed trucks.

It was a one-way trip, and people, of course, said, "No, no. How are we getting back?"

"I don't know. That's your problem."

And it sold out.

We did it twice.

Just one of the many silly things we did while I was there.

The Move Into Christian Radio

Ric Hansen:So when did you transition into talk — a talk format?

Mark Elfstrand:Let me just give one more of the music side of that.

I wound up going to Dallas and getting involved in Christian radio.

He was there and called me to come down and be his morning host.

I was at what is still a pretty big station today. KLTY are the call letters now, but those call letters had been lost for a period of time, and so they called this station KJO.

I hosted the morning show on this contemporary Christian radio station, the 100,000-watt station there.

Then I transitioned over to KCBI, which is owned by First Baptist Dallas.

Both Christian stations.

I did some interviews in between on those stations and such, but really that was about the end of my musical side of my radio life.

The Call Into Talk Radio

Ric Hansen:So how did you make that transition?

My whole career was in music radio, and I dreaded the idea of having to carry a whole four-hour show with just talking.

Mark Elfstrand:Yeah. How'd you do that?

Well, there is a spiritual component to this.

I actually left the radio business from Dallas, and a friend of mine hired me to be his operations manager for a trade show company back in Sacramento and gave me a three-year deal.

One of the things we put on was the Government Technology Conference, which was really a big deal in New York, Texas, and California.

I was there one year.

Coming home from work one night, I was listening to a song by the Christian artist Steve Green on my CD player.

The lyrics came up about a desire to tell the story of a love that loved enough to die, and a love fed by Calvary becoming a fire.

I don't know exactly what was going on there, but all of a sudden I just began to weep in my car.

I had just picked up this company car a couple of weeks before that, and I couldn't go home right away.

I thought, "What is going on here? What is happening?"

So I just said sovereignly to God, "If you're trying to communicate to me, you better speak English because that's the only language that I understand."

Within just a few moments, it was as if these words were literally inscribed across my heart:

"If I wanted you in full-time ministry, you wouldn't go."

And I said in response to that, "You're right. I don't want to do that."

Then, catching my soul in a very bad spot, I said, "You know what? I will go anywhere and I will do anything for the kingdom of God. But if you want me somewhere else, you're going to have to get me there."

About a week later, my friend Chuck, who again I'd been with in Grass Valley and then in Dallas, had been hired by Salem in Pittsburgh and called me.

He said, "I know you've got a great deal there, Mark, but I need a talk-show host. Would you just start the conversation with Salem and see where it goes?"

So I did.

They eventually flew me down to Camarillo, and I met with Ed Atsinger, the head of Salem, and such.

They decided to hire me.

So I moved to Pittsburgh and was there for seven years.

That was the start of my talk-show life.

Becoming a Christian Talk-Show Host

Ric Hansen:Wow.

So your whole talk-show career has been a Christian talk-show career, right? You didn't do a secular show?

Mark Elfstrand:That is correct.

Music was secular, more secular music, but the Christian talk show was Christian.

Ric Hansen:We're talking with Christian radio's premier talk-show host and author, Mark Elfstrand.

Tell a guy who was totally intimidated by the idea of being a talk-show host how that went.

I still have nightmares about dead air.

What if I can't think of something to say? What if my record doesn't start?

Did you go through any of that?

Mark Elfstrand:Actually, no.

The reason is that it really is about preparation.

To that degree, I always went in with plenty of things stacked up.

Now, I will admit to you that while in Sacramento doing that trade show, I used to listen to this very mediocre talent doing talk radio with something like Limbaugh.

Ric Hansen:Oh, no.

Mark Elfstrand:I heard him for a couple of years — well, a year and a half — before I moved to Pittsburgh.

Of course, he had been in Sacramento, interestingly enough.

I kind of had a feel for the way that he put things together.

But there's nothing like doing it yourself, as you probably know.

When you start having guests, you realize, "Well, I know how to interview people. I've done that before."

I would go in with a stack of things that I knew I would be interested in talking about.

The downside of my being in talk radio at the beginning was there was no internet.

Unlike today, where you can pull up all kinds of things to talk about, you had to take newspapers and clip the stories out and stack them up and take them in.

The real art form, to me, is to find things — ways to frame things so that it forces people to say, "I'm going to respond to that. I don't like that," or "I'm going to..."

You have to create the tension that is necessary for talk radio to exist.

Creating Compelling Talk Radio

Ric Hansen:And that is the case in Christian talk radio as well as secular, huh?

Mark Elfstrand:Yeah, it definitely is.

Sometimes on spiritual topics, sometimes just on what's happening in the world.

Even with the situation in Afghanistan, which had been very much in the news, and families coming from Afghanistan — how well are they vetted? Would you be willing to do this? What would your concerns about this be?

There are some dynamics that you could begin to flesh out pretty easily and get people to call in.

Ric Hansen:Absolutely.

Talk radio is all about that compelling factor.

How do you keep it compelling? How do you keep them hanging in there and responding?

Because the other fear I would have is nobody calls.

You're talking along and you don't get a phone call.

So you're wondering, "A, is anybody listening? And B, am I just not hitting the right chord here?"

Mark Elfstrand:Yeah, and it could be both a little bit of both.

It's not that nobody's listening. It's just that they're not connecting necessarily.

Or they're going to listen to you for a while.

You'll start out with an opening of three to four or five minutes of setting your tone, maybe longer than that, and just give your personal views on something.

They're listening to you.

Maybe they're not ready to engage as of yet.

So you say, "Well, let's talk about this. Phone lines are now open..."

And nobody calls right away.

But all it usually takes is one or two, and then you can start to wipe the sweat off your brow.

Ric Hansen:So it's a challenge every minute of the day.

As long as you're on the air, you've got to have something going on.

Mark Elfstrand:Right.

Ric Hansen:I think as an average listener, I wonder if they realize how challenging and how intense that can be to keep things rolling.

I guess you can always jump to commercials when you need to. That helps.

Mark Elfstrand:Yeah, you can.

You don't want to make it about 40 minutes an hour of commercials, but yes, you can step in with a commercial break if you absolutely have to.

Memorable Interviews

Ric Hansen:So, who was your most memorable interviewee?

Who was the most memorable conversation that you had in your radio career?

Can you come up with one or more?

Mark Elfstrand:Definitely.

I have at least one that initially comes to mind, and that would be when Dan Quayle was vice president.

We'd written to him and said, "Would you be willing to come on Mark's talk show?"

Well, this is in Pittsburgh. What does he have to do with me?

Nothing.

But they agreed.

So he was in Air Force Two.

The aircraft was flying back from, I don't know, Philadelphia to D.C. or New York to D.C. or something.

Next thing you know, we get this call.

We were told he was going to call, and it's the pilot on the aircraft saying, "You're going to be joined here by Vice President Quayle. Can you stand by?"

And you're just kind of babbling on for the moment, and then the next thing you hear is, "Mark, Dan Quayle."

So there's that momentary pause, and then you want to go, "Well, I'm not going to call him Dan."

But we talked for probably seven or eight minutes while he was in the airplane.

That was certainly a memorable experience.

Ric Hansen:Did you move the conversation to anything Christian or faith-based, or was it pretty much what's going on in the world at that point?

Mark Elfstrand:I asked him a question that I would frequently ask people who were interested in political office who'd come into my studio.

It made them oftentimes uncomfortable.

I would say, "Many of our listeners would like to know: What is your source of moral truth? Just curious. Say anything you want."

I remember one candidate running for mayor in Pittsburgh.

He wasn't sure how to answer the question, and then he said, "Well, my parents."

He kind of did a little pause, and admittedly it was funny at the moment, but I didn't laugh.

I just said, "So your parents are the source of moral truth, then?"

It was just awkward.

He didn't quite know how to respond.

I said, "Well, let's just kind of move on then to something else."

I don't remember how it happened, but I asked Dan Quayle that question.

Without skipping a beat, he said, "The Bible."

I didn't ask him what his favorite passage was or anything like that.

I said, "Well, that's good to know."

Then we went on to something else, I think current things in the news or whatever.

That was one.

But I've interviewed astronauts over the years, and that's always a hard interview to beat because they can give you gripping and compelling stories about what it's like to leave their family behind in a rocket and be separated, and the concerns that can happen aboard one of those spacecraft.

Does Every Interview Have to Be Spiritual?

Ric Hansen:As a Christian talk-show host, did you always try to bring it back to some kind of Christian source? Or was that really not a criterion?

Mark Elfstrand:No, not always.

For example, this is actually well back in my radio life, but I had an opportunity to interview Bob Hope in his dressing room at the Music Circus in Sacramento.

Well, if I had had that opportunity on Christian radio, would I have taken it?

Well, sure I would.

We would have talked about things about life — what were the most meaningful times in his life, what shaped his career.

You have latitude.

You can talk about things like that.

It doesn't always have to have that dynamic spiritual focus.

Would I probably have said something like, "Do you think much about God?"

Sure. I might have asked him a question like that just to see where his heart was on that issue.

The Interview He Wishes He Could Have Done

Ric Hansen:If there's one interview you haven't done, but you said, "Gosh, I would have loved to do that interview," either a person who's alive today or not, is there somebody that stands out as someone you would really like to have an opportunity to chat with?

Other than Jesus himself, who would you say?

Mark Elfstrand:I actually have thought about that question.

It's difficult because there are individuals like Ronald Reagan that, to me, would have been very interesting for me just to connect with.

I remember seeing him in movies earlier on, and then the trend — I lived in California for many years and saw the political transition, and then him being almost assassinated.

That kind of discussion about what's that like to lie there, knowing that your life is very possibly going to end and this is it, and how do you reconcile that with ambition and all that?

So that would certainly be one person.

I think there's just people in our world today, maybe movie stars, whose life has gone way off kilter.

And then you'd say, "You know, I think you're on the road back."

I had an interview a while back with Corbin Bernsen.

He was at his home. We put the interview on the air back in Chicago, and Corbin was on a journey toward faith.

Even at the time that I interviewed him, it was in the backyard of his home studio.

I said, "Do you think you've crossed the line?"

And he was hesitant to say that he had done that.

I told him later I thought he had.

Ric Hansen:But great question.

What a great way to ask that question. That was wonderful.

We're finding out more about Mark Elfstrand, talk-show host from Chicago, today on the Amazing Greats Podcast.

Mark Elfstrand:I think his fear was, if he said too much, how much would it cost him in Hollywood for admitting to that?

But here was a guy that had a very successful career in different venues.

Moody Radio

Ric Hansen:Since I've been doing this podcast, there are so many people in Hollywood and in athletics and authors of books that are solid Christians and believers.

That's what this show is all about — to try to find those people who are willing to talk about it.

Some are not so willing.

But that's what we're all about here.

Trying to find them, trying to get a hold of them is always the challenge.

So you were with Moody Radio for the longest period of your radio career. That was like 14 years, right?

Tell our audience more about Moody Radio because it's a phenomenon in and of itself.

Mark Elfstrand:My role at Moody Radio was different than my predecessors in that we tried to put together what we would perceive as more of a major-market kind of morning program.

We had our own meteorologist.

We had a sports person who would come on and do sports reports.

We had a wonderful news guy that I worked with all 14 years, Dave Mitchell, who had also worked for the CBS affiliate in Chicago.

We had traffic six times an hour.

There was a pretty fast-moving pace to this.

At the same time, we would play some music, but also we would do some interviews.

The whole idea was just to keep the program going — bam, bam, bam, bam — onto one thing, onto the next.

It was different from what Moody had ever done in the past.

It was just a lot of fun because, again, the pace of the show was so good.

We would take the program on the road once in a while and do it live from some location, and you'd always have big turnouts for that.

We'd have special guests who would show up — authors or Christian recording artists and such.

It just made life a lot of fun.

The History of Moody Radio

Ric Hansen:And the Moody history — Moody Radio started back in the twenties, right?

I mean, they were one of the original Christian broadcasting companies, for sure, probably the original Christian broadcasting company.

Over time, you made some major transitions like you're talking about, and you're part of that.

Mark Elfstrand:The history, oddly enough, would surprise some people.

One of the key people responsible for getting Moody Radio on the air in the first place was the founder of Quaker Oats, Henry Parsons Crowell.

There's an excellent book that tells his life story, which is just remarkable. It's called Serial Tycoon.

He principally did the groundwork, and he had done this because he had started advertising oatmeal on radio.

They had made some little miniature oatmeal boxes that they were putting out there with a coil around them that could be a little radio transmitter-like thing and a receiver.

They sold 150,000 in the first month or two.

So he was already working with the Moody Bible Institute and went, "Hmm, we need to take advantage of this new medium."

He was instrumental in getting it started as far back as the 1920s.

Moody's Network

Ric Hansen:Now, when you were on the air in Chicago with Moody Radio, was that transmitted in other cities as well?

Was the program picked up in other markets too?

Mark Elfstrand:There'd be interviews and things that I had done that they carried in other markets, but the actual live program was only based in Chicago.

However, we had the Moody Broadcasting Network — it's still there — and they have a number of stations around the country.

They also have a number of satellites and things like that that carry their programming.

Ric Hansen:Yeah, I have a buddy that just went to work in Chattanooga for the Moody station there.

He's part of the morning show, Tom and Tammy in the morning.

He's absolutely loving it. Young man.

Mark Elfstrand:I hope our work in Chicago did some good in establishing a trend for that.

My producer that I hired out of Minnesota several years ago, Brian Dolan, is now the co-host at the morning show for Moody in Cleveland.

Ric Hansen:So, how many Moody stations are there currently? Do you have any idea?

Mark Elfstrand:Well, you know, it's been like eight years since I left there, but I think there's still around 25 or 30 owned-and-operated stations.

But then there's a number of stations around the country that would carry some portion — a lot or a little — of Moody Broadcasting Network programming.

Mark Elfstrand's Faith Journey

Ric Hansen:And they would pluck that from the network then.

Yes, exactly right.

Gotcha.

Okay, so let's find out about Mark's personal journey.

Were you a Christian from day one, or did you come from a family of Christians?

How did you find Jesus?

Mark Elfstrand:I did kind of start with a good foundation, so to speak.

My father, as I mentioned, worked at Lutheran Bible Institute.

Even from my earliest days, I would have been told Bible stories and we would have had family devotions and such.

That progressed into my growing-up years.

We were always involved in church in some capacity — Lutheran Church when I was younger, a Covenant church because my mother was part of that church.

So sometimes we'd go to a Covenant church, but that really was my history.

When I went to Lutheran Bible Institute, David Wilkerson came to town in Seattle at the Seattle Center.

He did one of those evening crusades for a couple of nights.

I went down there with some friends, and he did one of those typical calls at the end about, "If you feel your heart pounding within you, maybe God is calling you and talking to you, and I want you to come forward."

So here there are thousands of people in the Seattle Center.

But I did get out of my seat.

I just felt God was talking to me.

So I went forward.

Wouldn't you know, I wound up first at the stage and someone puts this microphone in my face.

"So what are you doing here, young man?"

I stumbled out something amidst my emotional outburst at the time.

But that was, I think, more of a personal embrace.

You can be raised in a family that teaches something. You can walk away from it.

You can say, "I don't want anything to do with this."

Or, on the other hand, at some point realize that it's got to become yours — not your parents', but yours.

And in my life, I saw that as a key moment that happened in my life.

Throughout the course of the next several years, my faith developed in various ways.

When I was in the Air Force, I participated in the base chapel and was in some leadership things while doing that.

Then I served as a deacon at my church in Grass Valley, and I've served as an elder at our church here.

So those are some leadership positions.

But the most important development, spiritual development in my life, really happened after I met a person in Grass Valley, California.

His name is Glenn Murray.

Glenn worked over the years in commercial real estate, but really never took a deep interest in it.

His real interest was helping people come to learn how to follow Jesus.

He got involved with the National Prayer Breakfast and the ministry of the National Prayer Breakfast, and of course governor's prayer breakfasts.

If anybody really knows the history of the National Prayer Breakfast, they would know that a Norwegian pastor named Abraham Vereide got this all started when he was working out of Seattle, Washington, many years ago.

Learning to Follow Jesus

Mark Elfstrand:Glenn got me educated about a different way of talking about Jesus and to recognize that there are many people who say they follow Jesus, but then when you ask them really what that's like or what it means to be a disciple, you get a lot of different answers.

And if you ask pastors, "How many people in your church do you think are authentically following Jesus?"

That number gets fairly low.

Even pastors will tell you that.

So we're obviously missing something, and perhaps that's what shows up in our culture sometimes when we just don't see the witness of Christ out there properly.

Anyway, Glenn introduced me to the idea of meeting together with some business people, several of whom were not people who were followers of Jesus or even interested in Jesus, and starting to meet once a week for breakfast.

We would meet in the spirit of Jesus.

Ric Hansen:And dancing around a little bit there, but yes, right.

Mark Elfstrand:Yeah.

One of the guys asked Glenn one time, "What the H does that mean?"

But if you actually think about it, you say, "Well, what is your impression of Jesus?"

"Well, I know he's a good teacher. He was a good man."

"Well, actually, he had a lot of remarkable things to teach, and we're going to take a look at what that means, what he said, and see what you agree with and what you don't."

So it was really a very safe environment for guys to come and build friendships and have breakfast together.

That was my first.

I started another one of those groups in Dallas when I moved there.

I started another one in Pittsburgh.

We still have reunions today, usually in Myrtle Beach.

Some of the friendships have just been deeply impactful to me through this.

So that connected me to that particular world of reaching out to people.

Men, Faith and Manhood

Mark Elfstrand:The second thing was when I got involved in men's ministry.

I learned a great deal through the process of connecting with Robert Lewis.

You may have heard of him and the Men's Fraternity.

Just how many men go through life and have never connected to the idea of manhood and have never been affirmed as a man.

We held a retreat in the Naperville area, and Press Gillam, who's an author and a friend from Dallas, Texas, came.

I missed the final session.

He actually asked the men in our room, most of whom were 35 to 50, if they would like to be affirmed into manhood.

If that had never happened for them, would they be willing to stand?

He told me about this the next day.

I thought, "You're nuts. You didn't do this, did you really?"

I said, "Well, what happened?"

He said, "Half the men in the room stood."

Amazing.

So there is a tremendous need here for guys to be able to learn that following Jesus is a manhood thing, and that God wants to affirm us as men and in our role.

I did a series at our church a few years later called Ten Passions of a Man's Soul, and that became a book that Moody Publishers put out in 2005.

Losing His Father and Facing Fear

Ric Hansen:I was going to mention that because I looked at the book.

I have not read the book, but I will buy it and read it.

It looks like it's very interesting.

Tell me about the flip side of what you've mentioned.

You've mentioned a couple of places in your life where Jesus showed up, where He was very visible and made a significant impact on your life.

What about the flip side of that?

How about a spiritual challenge, a faith challenge, an unanswered prayer?

Have you experienced that as well?

Mark Elfstrand:Yeah.

The deepest one happened when I mentioned to you that my father, when I was in Montana — that's where I graduated from high school — my dad was there for two and a half years.

But in my junior year, my father died of a heart attack very unexpectedly at the age of 55.

I didn't fully understand the dynamics of what was going to happen to me at that time.

I had no other male influence in my life around me.

I was now going through life without a father.

But more importantly, I began to develop this fear because my grandfathers on both sides had already died.

Now my father had died.

I'm all of 16 and I'm next.

This irrational fear began to take hold in my life and was with me for quite a number of years.

To the point where I didn't want to go to a doctor's office because my father went to the doctor and died at the doctor's office.

Ric Hansen:Oh, seriously.

Mark Elfstrand:And I began to be fearful.

I didn't want to be around ambulances.

I didn't want to be around just the medical thing because everything brought back the memories of losing my father.

Despite the fact that I was a man of faith and I didn't question that there was eternal life and so on, I was having an incredible time getting past the emotions.

That really developed into some panic attacks that I had for several years.

I don't have many more, but I did for several years.

It was a very, very challenging period of time.

Heart Surgery and Learning to Trust

Mark Elfstrand:Then in 2005, I go to the eye doctor and they tell me that I'm probably diabetic. They could see it in my eyes.

So I finally had to just go to the doctor and get that checked out.

Then he said, "You know, Mark, there's something in your neck here I don't like."

That started me on a path of about two and a half months of tests.

My cardiologist — I didn't ever want to hear that word.

Now I'm sitting in front of one.

He said, "I don't like it, Mark. You look healthy, but something's not right."

About two or three weeks later, they did an angiogram and called my wife in to look at it.

He said, "You see where the flow is supposed to go? There's nothing going."

And we had quintuple bypass surgery at the age of 53.

I was terrified of what this was.

It was like the very thing you would dread all your life, knowing what had happened to my father.

And yet God brought me safely through that and used that experience.

I remember about three or four weeks before that angiogram, I was at Moody, got off the air, and this great dread, great fear just overwhelmed me.

I was walking through the bowels of the institute going, "I don't even know what to do. I am so out of it right now, and how will I get through this?"

Yet I had friends who prayed for me and helped me walk through it.

I remember one thing one of my best friends, Ray Carmichael, said.

He said, "You know, Mark, now isn't the time for you to show off your faith. Now is the time for you to just trust the rest of us who are putting our faith in God that He's going to take care of you."

And really, that turned out to be a great encouragement for me.

I actually have a little booklet, happy to send it to you for free, called Recliner Reflections that I wrote after my heart surgery.

Ric Hansen:I'd love to get a copy of it.

Are you suggesting that you would give anybody in our audience a copy of it?

Mark Elfstrand:Yeah.

Ric Hansen:Okay. I'll put that in the show notes, that that's available, and we'll make it available.

Thank you so much for sharing that.

I know it's always easier to share the great stories and not as easy to share those that are more challenging.

A Favorite Scripture

Ric Hansen:So what about you? Do you have a favorite verse of Scripture that you'd like to share?

Mark Elfstrand:Yeah. Psalm 138:8.

King David wrote it:

"The Lord will fulfill His purpose for my life. Your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake, do not give up on, do not abandon, do not forsake the work of Your hands."

I've kind of — I'm not real big into the idea of life verses.

I don't know how we claim them as our own.

But that's as close as I can get to claiming one for my own.

And I pray it virtually every day.

Ric Hansen:Yeah, and that's a beautiful one too. That's perfect.

Moving People Forward and Forward Thinking

Ric Hansen:So tell us, how can we support you and what you're doing now?

I know you do have a great blog. I've read most of the blogs that I could before we talked.

And that is called — give me the name of it again. I have it written down here.

Mark Elfstrand:Well, we put it under our website, Moving People Forward.

Ric Hansen:And Forward Thinking is what you're doing for the blog, right?

Mark Elfstrand:Yep.

That comes out once a week.

I probably get a little more into the events of the world and my thoughts about that than maybe some people might prefer.

But your faith ought to have an impact on your thinking about the way that things happen in our world.

So I try to give perspective on that, usually with a humorous twist, but also with a Bible application in it as well.

It comes out every Monday.

Following God's Assignment

Ric Hansen:You can't separate the two.

Your spiritual life and the world really ought to be one, and that's exactly what you're doing.

So, well, thank you, Mark. Thank you so much for your time.

How can we support you other than buying the book and maybe getting the pamphlet you're going to offer up?

Are there other things that we should be following?

Mark Elfstrand:I occasionally still speak at retreats for men, and I have done some leadership kind of work as well.

People could go to elfstrandgroup.com, which is our website, and see the kind of activity that I'm involved in.

My main thing right now is I'm helping our church part-time navigate a merger with another church.

That has me tied up several hours a week.

But I would say this, Ric.

One of the most important things of coming to this place in life is I'm not trying to get anywhere.

I'm not trying to impress anybody.

I'm not trying to win any big awards.

I'm simply trying to be responsive to what happened when I was 40 years old in that freeway experience, coming home from work — to be available to God, to go on assignment wherever He wanted me.

Closing

Ric Hansen:Amen. Amen.

Let's end it with that.

Thank you so much for your time.

This has been a great chat, and this is going to be our episode number 20.

So this is our first full year of podcasts, and we're so happy that you could be with us today.

Thank you, Mark.

Certainly so good to be with you.

Great stuff.

That is awesome.

Thank you for joining us on this trip into the life story and Christ journey of Mark Elfstrand.

And thanks to producer Klem Daniels.

Thanks to George Tolls for sharing his Rolodex and connecting us with Mark.

And of course, we always appreciate your acknowledging us with a like and hoping that you'll share this podcast with your friends.

Until next time, God bless.