October (Web-only) 2002

ARTICLE TOOLS

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Dave Alan Johnson, along with his brother created the PAX television show Doc. The show follows a small-town Montana doctor (Billy Ray Cyrus) who followed a woman to New York. The girl leaves him, but he soon realizes that he was meant to be in the city. Johnson has extensive television credits, including a 1996 collaboration with Steven Spielberg called High Incidence.

How did your own faith journey get started?

I was raised in a Christian home and have believed since an early age. But like many people, I never really understood what that meant. It's probably been in the last 10 to 15 years that I have understood what it all means.

I then realized why I'd been placed where I'd been placed. I had created shows for all the networks. I was on the top of everybody's A-list. I was a believer and I thought I was doing God's work, but I just didn't have a complete peace.

Hollywood is a tough place because people lie to you on a daily basis and cheat you and stab you in the back. One day I went home to my wife after continually feeling beaten up and said, "I just want to go be a missionary someplace. Let's just forget all this."

She looked at me and she said, "Name me one place on earth that needs missionaries more than where you are right now."

I still can't talk about that without getting choked up. That moment changed my life. I realized why I had been placed where I'd been placed and why I had been given the gifts I have been given.

What changed at that point?

I was still doing the same things, but I had a renewed sense of purpose. I learned something very valuable during that time, which was that products come and go. TV shows come and go. If God wants a God-honoring show on the air, he'll put one on.

God put me in the path of 100 ...