The Bloomin' Onion #01

Hosts Dan Wheeler, Terry Steen, and Brian Roland discuss how a lunch at Outback Steakhouse led to an adventure of Fearless Faith!  They will take you through the journey of miracles and grace that led to the formation of a powerful ministry called "Fearless Faith" and a podcast called "Finish Strong."

They will help you live your life with purpose, change someone’s life for the better and leave a lasting impact on those around you. Everyone starts the race... but only the Fearless Finish Strong!

Website -
ffaith.org

Transcript

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John Matarazzo: 0:00

So Dan, here we are for the fearless faith podcast. This is exciting. I know you but tell me about these guys do you have with you?

Dan Wheeler: 0:08

Well, Brian Terry, they're my best friends. I've known these guys for 47 years met him in 1973 in college.

Unknown: 0:15

Wow.

John Matarazzo: 0:16

Do you think you guys are up for this?

Dan Wheeler: 0:19

Well, I see where you're gone. Yeah, I think we can handle it. Dude, you just roll that music. Make the announcement let us show you how to finish strong.

John Matarazzo: 0:30

Live your life with purpose change someone's life for the better and leave a lasting impact on those around you. Welcome to finish strong the podcast designed to help you discover your unique purpose and develop a plan to leave a powerful legacy. Now let's join Brian, Terry and Dan as they discuss the lunch at Outback Steakhouse that dramatically altered the direction and purpose of their lives.

Dan Wheeler: 0:54

Yeah, guys, I'm not sure if we had a bloomin onion or not that day at the Outback Steakhouse. But what a day it is. It was and I'm here with Brian Rowland and Terry Steen, my two partners and fearless faith ministries. Guys, that was a special day I felt like we had an appointment from the Lord. Mm hmm.

Terry Steen: 1:11

You better believe it. And if I were a betting man, I'd say we probably had the bloomin onion.

Dan Wheeler: 1:16

Yeah. No, I think I might have paid for that

Brian Roland: 1:20

lunch, too, I think so.

Terry Steen: 1:23

It's incredible that that lunch goes back five years. It really does. Five years ago,

Dan Wheeler: 1:30

my wife Beth passed away. Some of you don't know that I was a host on QVC for 29 years and really went on a journey when my wife was diagnosed with stage four cancer. And we began three of the hardest and yet the most meaningful years of our lives. And I turn to these two guys, Brian Rowland and Terry Steen, Brian, I know I called you and at first I first got the diagnosis. And what are your remembrances of that?

Brian Roland: 1:59

Well tell you I remember that exactly where I was at when you called I was I was walking my dogs. And I was I was on the corner of Sycamore and Dwayne and stop me in my tracks. But I remember that. And remember, Tony is going to be okay. And we were just going to take it to the Lord and prayer man. And we and we did we earnestly were praying for that one. And my prayer was extends best years. And he did that for me.

Dan Wheeler: 2:23

You know, I remember it was so hard. And I really leaned on my friends. The Bible says in Proverbs 1717, that a friend love us Let love with like a brother in love with at all times. And a brother is born for adversity. And Terry. I know I called you many times during that journey for prayer.

Terry Steen: 2:41

Yeah, and it was always a little frustrating that we couldn't be together to give a hug and, and all that good stuff. But we sure did what we could and we left it with the Lord and we just watch the journey take place and just trusted God. And he didn't necessarily take it the direction we had hoped it would. But his perfect plan always works out, doesn't it?

Dan Wheeler: 3:07

It really did. I remember it was so difficult, you know, because I'm still this happy, upbeat QVC host and at night, I'd have to go into work and try to sell things. And in the middle of a presentation, it would hit me. Beth has stage four cancer. And especially the summer before we were doing Christmas in July. And I'd be selling Christmas things and the thought would come into my head that Beth might not be here probably won't be here at Christmas. And, and you're right the Lord ultimately took her. But it was that journey I remember pretty distinctly being in the hospital in Philadelphia. And we were in and out of hospitals and so many treatments. But near the end her longest stay. I felt like the Lord was just impressing me that you're going through this for a reason. And we're about to change directions in life and it changed my direction. And then guys, we went to lunch that day. Because after Beth passed and after the funeral happened, you guys were wise enough to know that after everybody would leave, I'd still leave you guys around. So you stayed. Brian, What do you remember about that week?

Unknown: 4:14

Yeah, that

Brian Roland: 4:14

was quite a week because that that with you asking Terry and I to to become a part of fearless faith in which we didn't even have a name then it was just that ministry. And and you know, it's interesting, because you talked about going out and doing speaking and I thought okay, well, I'll go and manage you. We've talked about that. So set it up and because of what my background was, but I know that even in the years of doing Christian Broadcasting in that I never felt fulfilled. And so I've had to go in and do do secular and takes to get my jollies on that if you want to say just so I could feel fulfilled. Although next business partner told me there's no glitter in Hollywood, it's all facade. And he was so right. And since then, I was looking how can I get back into something God What do you want me Where do you want me at and just when you brought that up? I was like, this is it. I didn't even have to ask my wife Sherry knew that. I was going to I was going to get involved with this.

Dan Wheeler: 5:01

Yeah, I remember sharing. I took these guys to lunch at the Outback Steakhouse. And I just felt like I was going to share with them what God was doing in my life. And I thought that they might want to come along. Terry, I remember. Even just as I was telling you guys about it, I felt you were going to say yes. Why did you say yes to come along with Brian and I and do ministry together fearless faith?

Terry Steen: 5:24

Yeah, well, we, you know, we had talked off and on even since college, where, if you'll remember you and I, and hosted some variety shows, and we did a lot of clowning around. And oh, yeah, those are the four incredible years as college roommates. And so there was a base for wanting to again, do something together, even as we're getting older. And my life has pretty much been spent in the ministry field. And I love to encourage people, I love to do all I can to further people along their Christian walk. And so if I realized if I could do that, with some of my best friends, how could you possibly say, No, that was something that God just dropped in my lap that, you know, sometimes you have to go Hey, let me pray about it. And I'll get back with you. This one was a spiritual no brainer. So

Dan Wheeler: 6:22

yeah, so those of you listening, you have to know that the three of us are, we're in our 60s at the time, I think Brian might have crossed the Red Cross over the line. Mark, even though our producers a young whippersnappers, john, how old are you anyway, by the way?

John Matarazzo: 6:38

I'm 35.

Dan Wheeler: 6:41

Oh, my goodness.

John Matarazzo: 6:44

There's a lot of things I can learn. I know, I know

Dan Wheeler: 6:46

what's behind the ears. Yeah, you pay attention, young man. Talking about finishing strong.

Terry Steen: 6:52

I've got shoes that old

Unknown: 6:55

socks. Brian's got underwear that

Brian Roland: 6:59

come on. Yes, sir. And they're holy. So they're very.

Dan Wheeler: 7:08

But you know, these guys, we all goof around a lot. We're all involved in something called the harvest festival. In fact, I think Brian's here they actually shut it down. But who's a Christian College fairly strict, and we like to goof around a lot. One day, Terry was involved in a shaving cream incident. You might want to share real quickly, Terry, we're just trying to have some jollies there at school

Terry Steen: 7:34

make it interesting that you will never let me forget that number. We always had this great game. I don't know how we're getting so off track. But he said this great game called freeze. And when in anytime anyone ever told you to freeze you had to immediately stop exactly what you were doing. You couldn't say anything you couldn't move. One morning I was coming out of the cafeteria getting ready to go to my first class. And Dan comes running up with a couple other guys and they and I was talking to someone and in mid sentence they told me to freeze, which I did. He didn't move. And then what happened in

Dan Wheeler: 8:14

someone undid your belt and unzipped your pants and someone else had a thing of shaving cream and we pretty much filled your pants shaving back God and said unfreeze Terry he didn't miss a beat He finished the sentence. Class. Well, we never found out Terry's if you actually ran back the dorm and changed or if you went to class with your pants filled with shaving

Terry Steen: 8:39

the odds are I just walked funny the rest of the day. But I'm not sure I'm menthol then it

Brian Roland: 8:45

wasn't mental.

Dan Wheeler: 8:48

Right? Yeah, we've had some good times. And but the great thing is friendship. That last like this are rare. Yeah, we met in 1973. And who had to believe that all these years later, we would have formed a ministry which we formed in August 2016. Officially, we called it fearless faith because my wife Beth faced death fearlessly. And this is where I want to get a little serious for a minute because you know, we all have a day. We all have an appointed time. The Bible says it's appointed unto a man wants to die nap to that the judgment. And I think if you keep that in focus, and Beth helped all of us, I think to put it in focus because she was only 61. And we realize Life is short. Yeah, that's kind of why we said, Hey, we're in our 60s. Let's finish our lives strong. Let's accomplish something for the kingdom. And that kind of became our mission statement. Right,

Brian Roland: 9:46

guys? That's right. That's right. And I'll tell you, I remind myself every time I open my Bible ahead, they're with me, because I have the best program.

Unknown: 9:55

Oh, wow.

Brian Roland: 9:57

I keep it to remind me

Dan Wheeler: 9:59

Yeah. Yeah, Brian's folding the program from best service. And but that was that was a rough day. But you know, that service by the way, if you go on YouTube and put in Beth Wheeler celebration of life service, the last I checked it over 43,000 people have watched that service. And they saw us because my brother in law, Ron boy, he preached a powerful sermon that day denee guys about life and how Beth knew where she was going.

Terry Steen: 10:34

Yeah, yeah, it was. And, you know, I think back to that time, as well, and, and, you know, there's so many directions our lives could take, as we're getting older, as we retire, you know, it's so easy to say, Oh, now I can sit back and relax. And, and God never told us to do that. And I'm frequently reminded of the story in john six, where Jesus was talking to the multitudes. And he was, it was time to eat, he had 5000 there. And the little boy walked up with the five loaves and the two fish. And he offered them to Jesus. And that was to me is just, we offer what we have, we don't offer what we don't have, we offer what we have. Jesus takes what we have any multiplies it. And that's what he did. He fed everybody on just those fish. And if so, that was kind of me doing this. It's like, Lord, I don't have tons but what I have, I'm going to give you and if you can use it, I want you to do it.

Dan Wheeler: 11:44

Yeah. Brian, I know you had just retired and you're getting bored with life, right?

Brian Roland: 11:50

Yeah, I retired and I thought I was gonna enjoy my my improving my golf game, which, which was gonna take much. I actually got tired. I got bored of going out there and hitting a little golf ball around. It's It's fun, but not every day. And I was looking for something and I was praying, Lord, what do you want me to do? I was actually going online and looking at positions in Christian television again, although before I'd ever felt fulfilled doing that, but I figured I gotta do something. And that this just just opened up the door to what I needed to be what I needed to be doing.

Dan Wheeler: 12:24

You know, in the Bible, in Ecclesiastes 910. It says, whatsoever the hand finds to do, do with thy might, for there is no work nor device, nor knowledge nor wisdom in the grave, whether they'll go us like I said, we've all got that date. And we were talking about retirement. And I think john, our producer, you had a rabbi on your show. And he said, there's not a word in the Hebrew language for retiring from serving others. And john, I believe you told me that it was Rabbi Lapin?

John Matarazzo: 12:58

Yeah, yeah, Rabbi Daniel Lapin?

Dan Wheeler: 13:00

Wow, that's, that's fascinating. Because, you know, we were the three of us had this restlessness and feeling like we had to do something. Well. Here we are. And we formed fearless faith. As Born in 2016. Brian, you came up with the title morning cup of inspiration. Watch it share what we do with that morning cup.

Brian Roland: 13:21

Yeah, every morning we will first of all we sided we do a Facebook page. And that's the way to get going where to start in social media. And we're just putting up some little placards like in verses and then Dan said, you know, we need to put video up now this is what they researched over QVC we need video. So we started putting these video messages up. And we were doing it in the morning. So I had a cup with me and, and I the first time I just kind of held it up and says your cup of inspiration. And thanks for joining me for a cup of inspiration. Then the next day I got under and I thought or the next time was on I thought well, it's morning let's do morning cup of inspiration. So I just said that welcome your morning cup of inspiration and that just clicked that just it happened for us. Everybody liked it and we went along with it. And next thing you know everybody was commenting on morning cup of inspiration. And whenever we'd all three get on there. And so we had mugs designed and everybody wanted mugs so we were we were getting those out but it's that's how it just sort of fell in that way the Lord put it in my mouth and I spit it out.

Dan Wheeler: 14:19

We have the video morning cup of inspiration and people for a donation to our ministry on our website@faith.org for donation they get these cups as these mugs fearless faith and says your morning cup of inspiration on one side and then Terry, we felt led to do a written devotional as well.

Terry Steen: 14:39

Yeah, that was kind of interesting because hey, we figured, hey, we put all this inspiration out why shouldn't we get it into another format? So we thought, hey, let's just take some of those. We'll find some that were a little maybe more popular than others and put it into the written word and I think it was last year. 2019 that we went ahead and actually wrote our first devotional, and it's been well received, they're also available on our website. And so that was another big feather in the cap as far as giving people opportunity to have something in their hands that they could sit with in the mornings and have their coffee and read one of our morning devotionals.

Dan Wheeler: 15:25

You know, all three of us have had careers and television, in ministry and radio. And when I really look at everything, I feel like accomplishments, I used to think were so great, like I had the longest interview with Joe DiMaggio, one of the last interviews of his life, I, I knew Mickey Mantle really well and, and saw his struggle, how he hated signing autographs, because he felt unworthy, the guy had no self esteem. And I'm sitting there with all these people, you know, he's, he's telling me this, I'm thinking, I'm with the greatest hero, sports hero on the greatest sports team of all time. And he's telling me at no self esteem, and, you know, working with Charlton Heston, Bob hoping, when I look back yet was great. But nothing means more than to be able to tell people about my relationship with Jesus. Yeah, he's the king of kings, is the God of the universe. And for us to have this opportunity, it's really an opportunity. And we encourage you that are listening to finish strong, and you don't have to be old, you don't have to be in your 60s, you can be a young man like john in his 30s, or in your 20s, but finish strong at everything you do. Again, I come back to Ecclesiastes 910, whatsoever, the hand finds to do, do it with thy might. Because when we die, we can't do any more work. And it's something that kind of came out of sports. You know, in sports, you always wanted the last quarter of the football game, you wanted to be stronger than the first quarter something Michigan hasn't caught on to Yeah. But you know, you want to finish strong, whether it's at work on a project, with your family, volunteering at a church. And that's why that's kind of become our mission statement. Yeah, we

Terry Steen: 17:15

thought it was a great name. And, you know, that's something that sometimes it doesn't come that easy. Sometimes you have to consciously make yourself move that direction. Sometimes in our flesh, we feel a little weak, hey, that's why we can rely and rest on the strength of Christ. And when he gives us that strength, which he's done for us over these last three to four years, we've gone for years now, never missing a Monday through Saturday, of bringing a morning cup of inspiration, we've been able to put over 1000 videos into our YouTube channel, we've been able to establish folders with different subjects, so people can go to those folders. If they're needing a specific area they want to be encouraged to buy. And now we're starting this podcast and it's just through the Lord strength. Ben's allowing us to do this. And I'm just I'm excited to be doing this with you guys.

Brian Roland: 18:17

Oh, yeah, me too. No, I agree. 100%, there, Terry's, there's, there's days when you don't want to get out of bed. But all of a sudden, you know what you have to do, then you can get up and get going and get it done. It's a it's amazing what this this ministry has done. Because it got to a point where I said, if you're doing nothing, you get stagnant. And you got to keep moving, and you want to keep going. But you want to do something to give back. It's like we've been, like Danny said earlier, it's we've taken so much. But yet, then God has given us so much, we got to give something back. And we're at the point in our lives now where we know more than we've ever known before, which isn't much but we know more than we've been through many, many things together and separately, and it's time to share that and bring it back because because we can see in our lives because God lives Christ lives in our hearts, that he's been in everything and every decision and every move that we've made. And even though we think man I was away from God at this time, he was there. He was never never left us and he was getting us to that next place that next plateau and we to get us closer to where we needed to be so he can put us in this ministry.

Dan Wheeler: 19:21

Yeah, so today we have almost 31,000 followers on Facebook. We have a YouTube channel with several 100 subscribers by the way, it's free you don't have to pay anything. We're going to put up these links in our in our podcast notes. We have over 1000 videos by topic on our YouTube channel by the name of fearless faith we have a website. The address is at eff faith.org. We have products we have our morning cup of inspiration written devotional available we have hurricane of love, which I wrote after I retired from QVC about my late wife Beth and actually became the number one seller of westbow publishers' for 2019. It's rated five stars. And it's really helped a lot of people because I know a lot of you have lost loved ones or you've lost a spouse. And it's very difficult. And it's easy to drown in your depression, and say, I just can't go on. But you know, I had a counselor Tell me, she said, Dan, Beth is not in heaven judging you, and how good of a husband or how good of a Christian you were, she's cheering you on with God. And they're saying, now you have to go finish your race. And I want to finish that race strong, I want to hit that tape. When I crossed the finish line going full force, and all three of us, all four of us will include john in this too, because we want to hear God's say, Well done, thou good and faithful servants. And john, we're appreciative that you've decided to help us produce this podcast. So So here we are three best friends. In our 60s, we heard from God, we formed a ministry, and we want to finish our lives strong. We're down to the last few minutes. But guys, if you have something you want to say directly to someone who's listening to this podcast, have at it?

Brian Roland: 21:13

Well, it's so people, you know, it's It's such an honor to be here and to be able to speak to folks at through a podcast, and and share what's going on in our lives. Because it runs parallel, everybody has the same type of problems. And even if it isn't exact same problem, we all go through the same feelings, we all go through the same doubts of times, we all have the same issues in one way or another, but to know that, that God is on our side. And if we have a personal relationship with Jesus, and that's the key to have a personal relationship with him in your heart. And you can go there any time you can, you can pray anytime, wherever you're at whenever there's an issue. And whenever there's something that you're not sure of, you can always pray and God takes the time he hears everything that we say. And he knows ahead what we're what we're going through. But he's there to guide us to give us the peace and the understanding. And the show us the way He will guide us where we need to be. If he says go to the left, we go the left says go to the right, we go to the right, and he knows where he's placing us. And if a door is closed, we don't try to bash through it. We don't try to go that bash right on through and say I'm going to do it anyway, we go the other way. God doesn't want us to go that way. He puts those things up ahead of ahead of us to show us the way so we can finish strong and get to the finish line.

Terry Steen: 22:28

And then to that, yeah, I think that, hey, I can't find or think of a better thing I'd like to do than have this opportunity to help all of us move forward to where Christ wants us to be and live our life with purpose and have impact and better ourselves. It's going to be a fun time. And I'm excited. Hmm.

Dan Wheeler: 22:49

These are, you know, difficult times. I mean, you see a lot of things out there. And if someone wonders if there's evil in the world, all you have to do is listen to the news, which is why I prefer to spend time the good news, we're going to have several podcasts available to you as this starts off. And john,

John Matarazzo: 23:12

can I ask you to maybe inform people where they can find our podcast, just some of the major platforms? Absolutely. This podcast will be available on Spotify on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, basically, wherever you can download a podcast, wherever you listen to, you will be able to find this podcast there. And if you find one that we're not there, please let us know. We'll make it there as quickly as possible. all the episodes will also be able to be found on the fearless faith website, we're going to provide an opportunity for people to connect that way as well. Amen. They need to rate this podcast too, right? Yeah, absolutely. rating podcast helps greatly because when you rate a podcast and the appropriate number of stars is five stars for this podcast. And if you write a little paragraph or something with that, that helps more people find the finish strong podcast. And so if you're blessed by what's happening with this conversation and the other conversations that these guys are going to have, and you think that other people will be blessed by that, then you need to subscribe, rate and review and tell a friend

Dan Wheeler: 24:17

so that they can finish strong, we'll be having special guests. We'll be talking about this journey that we call life. We are not preachers, we are three guys that want to serve God and that know that God is real, and he can do anything. That's right. So we want to go hard for the finish line. We don't want to retire to the golf course we want to finish strong. And we want you to do that too. So I hope you'll continue to join us as we move ahead with this podcast. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, guys. Thank you, john, and thank you for listening and we're looking forward to being with you for another podcast.