Today’s episode was recorded at Mercy Studios, Iowa Catholic Radio, Des Moines, Iowa, with Jimmy Olsen, Assistant Program Director. Jimmy has lived in Des Moines for the past 20 years. The joke in the town is that Jimmy has worked for all the radio stations in town but that is not quite true.
Rick and Jimmy reconnected about 10 years ago when he was doing his Sunday morning weekend shift on Star 102.5. Rick enjoyed talking to Jimmy about radio because he loves radio. He thinks it is one of the coolest, most fun, and best means for communicating the gospel message about Jesus and living radically for Him.
The two go back even further to the mid-1980s when they first met at a week long summer church camp and Jimmy was in 8th grade. Rick had long hair, three cords and the truth. Rick was only invited to one summer camp and two years later came to an Octoberfest weekend youth camp where Jimmy remembers playing touch football with him.
Jimmy reminded Rick of his very first message entitled: My Very First All Beer Puke Shampoo. Most listeners from the early days will remember this message. Jimmy had the cassette but it was lost in a family house fire years ago. [Note: if anyone has a recording of this message, please let us know at rickandrobinmoe@gmail.com.] It would be great to have a throwback RLS episode.
Rick did all of the music and the sermons at the summer camp every day. Jimmy still remembers one particular song entitled, Shut De Door Keep Out De Devil from Randy Stonehill, in which Rick had all the kids sing along with him. Jimmy remembers that it was fun. Jimmy had his first taste of Christian contemporary music when Rick came to the summer camp. His youth pastor also liked this type of music so he began to learn more about different artists and bands.
Jimmy says he was a nerd back in high school and used to watch documentaries. So, he remembers that Randy Stonehill wrote the song on a plane ride back from Sweden. He ran across a podcast hosted by Jerry Bryant called Classic Jesus Music. Jerry Bryant only does music from the 70s and 80s and he also does interviews with Christian artists from that time period. (The podcast can be found on iHeartRadio).
Jimmy grew up in a Pentecostal Charismatic church where he was forced to go four times per week. He was sick of church and was sure after high school that he would never go to church again. Even so, there were a lot of things that interested him and God always interested him. The summer camp began a change and he started getting more involved in church. He knew what he got listening to Christian music and the excitement that he had and it made him want to listen all the more. Slowly things started to change.
One of the first times Jimmy felt he experienced God in his life was when he was a freshman in world history class. The kids sat in a circle and shared what world figure they wanted to do a paper on. When it was his turn, he said Jesus Christ. And the teacher said, I am not really sure. Then the kid next to him said, well it is a part of history. So, the teacher said, okay. Rick was so blessed to hear how bold Jimmy Olsen was to speak up for Jesus. He spoke up in front of his whole class and did the most radical thing: proclaim the name of Jesus. Very few kids have the courage to do that before their peers. It was crazy. It was radical. It was out there.
Jimmy hated school, so he took what he thought would be an easy course, Radio TV and he interned at a local radio station in high school. After high school, he only attended one month of college and ended up back working in radio. He literally fell into it and has been in the business all these years.
Jimmy Olsen has three of his own podcasts entitled: The Daily Plan-it, Storytime Theater, and The Gospel Road which you can play free on-demand with iHeartRadio.
