Ever felt the pull of a spiritual journey that led you away from familiar ground? That’s exactly what happened to our guests as their journey of discovery transitions them from early roots to finding fellowship in Calvary Chapel!
PlayGrounds Section Interview with:
Pastor Dave and wife, Vicky Goyke
Calvary Chapel Waupaca: https://calvarychapelwaupaca.org/
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Ever felt the pull of a spiritual journey that led you away from familiar ground? That’s exactly what happened to our guests as their journey of discovery transitions them from early roots to finding fellowship in Calvary Chapel!
PlayGrounds Section Interview with:
Pastor Dave and wife, Vicky Goyke
Calvary Chapel Waupaca: https://calvarychapelwaupaca.org/
Does any of today's podcast resonate with you?
Please let us know here:
https://playsonword.dm.networkforgood.com/forms/podcast-reviews
To Support Plays On Word Radio and Plays On Word Theater, please visit:
https://playsonword.networkforgood.com/
Plays On Word website
Plays On Word YouTube
Plays On Word Instagram
Plays On Word Facebook
Email us: team@playsonword.org
Lord, you know, I want you to listen to plays on World Radio.
Speaker 2:Jesus, you're the only King. You're the only King, you're the only King.
Speaker 3:Hello and welcome to plays on World Radio where we discuss, analyze, work and play on the Word of God. Thank you for joining us on this excursion. Today let's join Pastor Teddy, also known as Fred David Kenney Jr, the founder of plays on World Theater, as he does a deep dive into the Word of God.
Speaker 2:Welcome to plays on World Radio. And today we are with Dave and Vicki Goikey. Make sure I say that correctly. Is that right? That is right? From Calvary Chapel, wapaka, wisconsin, Right, yeah, you do right, okay. And you guys have been here how long? How many years?
Speaker 4:We just had our 18th year anniversary as a church on October 16th.
Speaker 2:Oh, congratulations to that. That's awesome. One of the questions that I always ask people is how did you come to meet Jesus? Yes, so I'll let both of you, because you shared earlier that you guys got saved around the same time, I guess. But how did you come to meet this Lord of lords, king of Kings, that we all know? What was your introduction to him?
Speaker 4:That's a great question, and I think the story really begins with her.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's hear it. She kind of, let's hear it.
Speaker 4:As always, she was kind of the leader in our she just a little bit yeah. So we started out. We were both Catholic, we were raised Catholic and she, probably when her childhood, went to church more than I did. But we were Catholic and we got married. We got married to Catholic Church and we went to church together pretty regularly. But then we got involved in ministries. I asked her. She was a lecturer.
Speaker 1:Well, I think we both were kind of seeking a little bit. The Holy Spirit was working in our lives. But for me the Holy Spirit was really working and my mom there was going to be a Bible study at the Catholic Church. A priest actually was putting out a Bible study and my mom called me and asked if I wanted to go with it. And ever since I was a kid I like I knew who God was. I wanted to know God.
Speaker 1:I feel like I would pray at night when I needed comfort or something like that, but all I knew was the Catholic prayers, like the Our Father, hail, mary, so that's the only way I knew to reach out to God. But I always wanted to know God more, and so mom asked if I wanted to go to this Bible study. I'm like, yeah, I do. And I asked Dave if he would like to go, and he didn't want to go, so he wasn't quite there yet, and so I went to the Bible study and then we went through the Bible study and then the priest was having another type of Bible study afterwards and so I decided to go and I went by myself. My mom didn't go to that, and while we were there we were singing like just these praise chorus songs that you know we never sang in the Catholic Church, and so he had a guitar and he'd sing these praise chorus songs. And I believe when I gave my life to the Lord although I didn't really understand what salvation was at that time we were singing a song Lord, take Control. And so it was like just a praise chorus and the song said you know, my life, my body, my soul, lord, take control, take control. And I just remember asking the Lord to take control of my life, and that's when I really believe I was saved. Even though I didn't understand the full you know, I didn't understand a lot but I knew I needed God to take control of my life.
Speaker 1:I was at that time going to school, really looking for my identity in like a career or the things of this world. I was really looking for my identity and I wasn't finding it. I wasn't kind of, I was kind of seeking, and the Lord, just so I was. Actually I just went back to school because I graduated with a degree in biology and I had gone back to school for MedTech because I couldn't find a job in my career, and so I was looking for, you know again, a kind of a career or something for my identity. And then I and I was not happy, I just was.
Speaker 1:I was a very depressed person, and so the neat thing is that the reason I believe I really was saved that night was because of the peace that I had and I was in the middle of school and I was kind of I'm kind of a OCD and perfectionist kind of person, and so I always would like totally over study for tests, because I wanted straight A's, you know, and so yeah, so I was like I would just totally go crazy studying and making sure I knew everything.
Speaker 1:And what happened is the night that this happened to me, that I went to Bible study. I had a test the next day this was a Thursday night night, this big test on Friday and the Lord just was like no, I want to go to Bible study. So I which is totally unlike me, like I would have been up studying that whole night so I went to Bible study instead, and then I believe I got saved that night because I just asked the Lord, take control of my life. And then I came home and I'm just like he's like Well, aren't you going to study? And I'm like no, I don't need to study.
Speaker 4:And I remember I was doing a lot of mechanic, okay, and I was in a lot of side work at home and I was working on a car that night in the garage and I came. She came home and I came in and I said you know, aren't you going to study? She said. Or she came out and said I'm going to bed. And I said Aren't you going to study? And she said, no, I'm going to bed. And I remember thinking somebody did something with my wife.
Speaker 3:Because this isn't her Right.
Speaker 4:And I knew that something happened yeah.
Speaker 1:And I just know the Lord changed my life that night. Like that. I gave my control because I am a very controlling person. That's just my personality and I'm, like I say, perfectionist and I knew about sin in the Catholic. I mean, you know, as as a Catholic, you know you're a sinner but you have nowhere to go with that. You know you don't know what to do with that, and so, but we got a fuller understanding then shortly after on Dave's side.
Speaker 2:So, dave, you had before you get in. You put that piece, though let me just yeah that you said that the piece that you had, would you say that, the piece that surpasses all understandings that would Paul talks about.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and a lot of people you know. If you haven't experienced that, you just reach out to them and ask them, because there's nothing like that. There isn't and it's crazy.
Speaker 1:And you know your first love, like when you first come to the Lord, that love it was just like overwhelming to me and I would just. I remember I'd be riding home and so the priest had a little, which is just odd. I got saved in the.
Speaker 1:Catholic Church, but he had a little tape at the time and it was these praise songs that he was doing, and so I never heard Christian music before this. All I heard was you know what we did at church, and it wasn't exposed to Christian music anywhere else. And so I remember, like at night when I'd be driving home from this Bible, say like I didn't want to go home, I just wanted to worship God, and so I would drive around I actually drive extra to go, you know extra ways just so I could listen to this music and just be with the Lord and just that whole first love you have, you know, when you first get saved.
Speaker 2:So thank, God for that, that priest and that Catholic Church that we have. What? Many years ago, I used to be abrasive in my and just. You know they're wrong, I'm right and type of thing, but I have mellowed out in the sense that there are people that I can disagree with, have theological disagreements that I would call my brother and sister. There are people that are trusting in Jesus, you know. So I'm not nearly as abrasive as I used to be.
Speaker 4:I think it was Chuck Smith that said we mellow with age.
Speaker 2:And I think he's right yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I cut you off earlier, so that was kind of part of mine, and then I would say about Brenda but why don't you say first yeah, okay, so while she was kind, of going through this.
Speaker 4:I was. I didn't care about the Bible study she's going to. I don't want to nothing to do with any of that.
Speaker 1:So he thought only sissy's talked about that. I'm not going to imagine you like that, I know.
Speaker 4:Sissy.
Speaker 3:Christian stuff.
Speaker 1:You know I'm not having to do that and I really did feel that way.
Speaker 4:And then, as this was going on, and then I was working for the city garage in Appleton, wisconsin, and I was a mechanic there and I have an automotive background. But where we worked it was cars, big trucks, heavy equipment, everything. So because I had automotive background, when the we had one of our mechanics from the Department of Public Works worked at the police department and he took care of all the police cars at the police department. So it was kind of remote from the city garage where I worked. When he would be gone or he needed help I would be sent over there to help inside the automotive background. So his name was Dan.
Speaker 4:Dan was a Christian and so here I'm going into the shop that is run by a Christian and so of course there's Christian music on, and he was a kind of Christian who was different than what I've seen. It wasn't like the televangelist, he wasn't like my dad. My dad was supposedly saved at one time after he was an alcoholic he went to get dried out and he got involved in AA and he was supposedly saved. And at that time I remember my dad coming up to me with a Bible on one hand and his other hand in the air and he's preaching at me and spit's coming out of his mouth and I thought that's that born again thing. I don't nothing to do with that, because I don't like that born again thing, if that's what it is, it just totally turned me off. So here I'm with Dan in the shop. He's one of the born again guys and but he's different Because he didn't have his Bible in his hand in the air and preaching and spitting at me.
Speaker 4:He was just kind of a regular guy and when an opportunity came up he would say things but he never pushed it. He lived out his Christian faith in this daily life, the way he interacted with people, the way he handled the pressures of a job, all those things. And so I got I'm thinking, after working with him a lot I'm realizing, hey, this born again thing doesn't have to be like the tall evangelist and like my dad was. This is it too.
Speaker 4:And Dan really subtly ministered me in many ways. And then he'd be on vacation. I would go to the shop and I remember early on I would climb up on the workbench and turn the radio station right away in the morning and then I remember over time I would listen to the Christian radio station until maybe lunchtime. Then I'd climb up on the bench in turn station and pretty soon I'd leave that all day and the Lord was just really working my heart over that time and this guy was really a good witness and we knew the Lord was doing something and I think it was at that point that Was it before or after, brenda?
Speaker 4:No, that was so. Yeah, so this is going on in my life, and I will jump back to Vicki.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I was still going to school and that happened. We were both still going to the Catholic Church and so I went to the Bible, say, I was still going to school and I was doing an internship at St E's in the medical tech program. And so we both kind of started searching and somewhere in there too we got a Bible.
Speaker 4:That's what I was going to say.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I'm not sure when that exactly happened. In this whole story you go with your, but yeah, you can say about that. So we were still going to the Catholic Church and while Dan was ministering to Dave, he brought a Christian in my life. Her name was Brenda and I went to school with her and exactly the same thing. Just, we had so many questions and she never pushed anything on me. But we would have these conversations and one weekend we went to a med tech conference that we had to go to for school and her and I were roommates.
Speaker 1:So you know how that is you're sitting up late at night talking and I just remember her just really lovingly asking me questions, and the one thing that I remember her asking me is why do I pray to Mary? And Brenda did not think she was getting through to me, she did not realize what God was doing in my heart because I was very defensive. And so she's like, well, why do you pray to Mary? And I'm like, wow, you know I don't believe Mary's God, but you know what I just had, whatever it is, because I really didn't know why we prayed to Mary, and so I just was very defensive sometimes when I talked to her. But then in my mind I'm like, why am I praying?
Speaker 3:to Mary.
Speaker 1:You know, and so the Holy Spirit was really using our relationship oh sorry, our relationship, you know to draw me to him to understand more, because and again, I don't know the whole timing, exactly like when I got saved from there, yeah, it was all happening at the same time All this was kind of going on together for a couple of years.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the Lord was in so much for, and this was over a period of a few years. And then, well, that's going on with Vicki. So meanwhile, back at the city of Appleton and the whole thing. So Dan was the same way, very, very gentle, answering questions that we'd ask. And then, vicki and I one of the biggest decisions we've made in our life we went to the Christian bookstore. We bought a Bible and I think there were a lot of versions of the Bible. Remember, we knew nothing. So the way we picked out the Bible is we went to the Christmas story.
Speaker 4:And the one that said that Jesus was wrapped in swaddling cloths. We looked for that.
Speaker 3:Other translations didn't say that, but we were familiar with that.
Speaker 4:But that's what determined what one we bought, and we found the one that met our standard and we bought this Bible, and so we got a Bible. I think it was probably an NIV or something.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think it was an NIV and then back in the day, and then we bought a book which was just a thin book but it was Read to the Bible a Year and it was your reading for the day and one page of commentary I want you read. And we still have the book. I can't remember the guy wasn't a famous author, some guy who had a book out there to read to the Bible. He had this one little page of commentary. So we started reading to the Bible and as we did, our eyes were open to the things we didn't know and the things that the Catholic Church taught that when we look at the Bible we see contradiction, we see conflict.
Speaker 4:That really opened up our eyes and our eyes were open. And then again, through this whole time, as we said earlier, we're serving at the church and one of our areas was serving at the church picnic. We ran the concession stand so we sold candy and ice cream to the kids and that was what we did. So we're at the church picnic, we're selling this candy and ice cream, and across from us is the Big Tent and it was the Beer Tent, and so they're selling beer.
Speaker 4:People are getting drunk, listening to secular rock music, and the priest is selling poll tabs and he's one of the drunker ones in the group. And we're sitting back watching people give $10 bills to their kids having to go buy candy and ice cream, play a game so they can get drunk to the beer tent. And we're sitting back there and we'll listen to all this stuff in our life at the same time and we're saying is this how the Lord needs to make money for his church? By people getting drunk? And so that really had us questioned.
Speaker 4:So we're reading the Bible, we're questioning some doctrinal things, then we're looking at the practices of the church and we're saying is this right? Would the Lord really have us do this and the conviction just really fell upon us. And so when it was during that time, after Vicki was saved at the Bible study, it was during that time where I just really kind of surrendered to the Lord and I was saved and I just realized that I need to know Lord, I need to know Lord in my life, and I asked him to be Lord in my life and then we were saved and we're having all this conflict.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we're reading the Bible and trying to understand it and we're knowing it. The conflicts of what we've taught all our life. Oh, we have this practical issues with the church and what's going on. So we don't know what to do. And so we know we have to do something. Something's got to change and be different. We just knew that we had to do something. So the only thing we didn't know we went to the police department where the mechanic, dan, who had ministered to me, was working. It was my day off. I had already transitioned from the city garage to the fire department, so it was one of my days off.
Speaker 4:Vicki and I went there. He's in the summertime, so the shop doors were open. So we walk into the shop at the police department and remember the day he's laying on the driver's side floor of a police car, working underneath the dash, and me and Vicki walk in and we're standing right at his feet outside the door and he peeks off into the dash and he goes what are you doing here? And I said, dan, we need something. And we, we told them what happened. And I remember sitting in the bottom of the floor of the squad car and he's going. His mouth Just goes up and he's going. His mouth is wide open, his eyes are wide, because he had no clue. He had no idea what was going on in my heart while I'm there working with him. He didn't have any idea what was going on in Vicki's life.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's and I never, brendan.
Speaker 4:I have another and I never shared a lot with him about that because I didn't want him to start, you know, dragging me into some cult church, you know. And so he's just laying there and he's just dumbfounded and he's speechless and I know in his heart he's praying hard. So he Went over, talked to his wife and they opened their home up to a Bible study. And so it was him and his wife. They got another Christian couple and and then invited Vicki and I and we, they had a study he hadn't found it in the back was Bible and it was just, you know it, the first one was.
Speaker 4:It was a discipleship study, and the first one was who is God? And it was just scripture after scripture, after scripture, who goddess? And so we had just turned through the Bible and read what the Bible said about God. Then the second one's who is Jesus, you know? And who's the Holy Spirit? What is the church, the Bible?
Speaker 1:What is the Bible? Why should we believe it?
Speaker 4:And so for a year and a half we met at their home almost weekly and we went through this study, scripture after scripture, after scripture, and so we were saved. Now we're getting grounded in the word, and, and as we did that, we we learned so much that we knew nothing about the Bible, and so we just learned so much in that year and a half, and it was during that time that the Lord just Showed me that I want to do for others what Dan was doing for us In that home study. I want to help others to have their eyes open, like we were. This is phenomenal, and so that's where I really felt the call, the ministry already, and I was only saved for, you know, a year, year and a half at the time, and so so he was instrumental, he got us grounded and we just took off from there. But then Vicki the gal that was ministering to Vicki at the med tech program, or she comes back into the picture.
Speaker 1:Well, she didn't. Brenda didn't have any clue either what happened to me after. So school got done, she went back to her life, I went back to my life, and she had no idea that she impacted me at all. So about a year after we got saved, and then, like a year or two later, I'm just like I had to track her down and give her a call and tell her you know, hey, you really impacted my life. So I did, and she, of course, was very encouraged, you know, and and thought like she didn't think she was getting through to me.
Speaker 1:But the neat thing is that, you know, we lived in Udimar by Oshkosh and she lived in Mopaka and so After we moved up here we reconnected. Now her, her father-in-law was the pastor at the Baptist Church here in Mopaka and and her father-in-law retired and they had a little bit of you know how that is a struggle when a long-time pastor retires and stuff. And so they had some, some, some issues at the church for a while while they were trying to find a new pastor. So her and her husband actually Decided to leave the Baptist Church and now they come to Calvary Chapel of Paca. So Brenda's here at Calvary Chapel of Paca. So at first I'm like this, so it's just.
Speaker 2:Did I need her? Was she here? I thought I met somebody named Brenda.
Speaker 4:Maybe they were here Sunday.
Speaker 1:Jason and Brenda.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah I can't picture the face, but I remember somebody saying so. I remember Brenda.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so now she comes to our church.
Speaker 4:Could you imagine, though, being her and you know, remembering David Vicki not safe in Catholic and she couldn't, really didn't think she was reaching baby and Challenging with these questions and Vicki's defensive? In all a sense, she's coming to church under our leadership. Could you think of more? A more humble person.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. Yeah, you know. The thing that strikes me is that you're a you know. A lot of people think Ministry is you know. Okay, well, leave it to pastor and his wife and Noah will leave it to the, the Ministers. But the real ministry, I Don't know if the number is exact, but nine times out of ten the real ministry are the just a spirit-filled believer.
Speaker 2:Yes doing living their life and interacting with this lost world, and so anybody who thinks, oh, I have to bring my neighbor to the pastor so the pastor can speak to them, they've got the wrong right, wrong view of the way things work. The pastor Shares the word and helps to equip the people so that they live their lives and in the course of their lives, the Lord will bring people in their path.
Speaker 2:And that's the that's where the real work happens out there and it's just it. Your stories is just incredible that it these are two normal people Was. It wasn't a pastor or a missionary or an evangelist. It was a spirit-filled believer in operating in the gift.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not only just sharing but, like what Dan did, open his house and disciple us incredible, I mean, they can disciple to. You know what I mean. They a lot of times two people think, well, you have to have the pastor or someone else discipling. But you can disciple someone to you know.
Speaker 4:And you don't have to have all the answers. One thing that Dan taught us from the very beginning is you got to go to God's word, and he said you can't stand before the Lord one day and say well, dan told us this. He's gonna say didn't I give you a Bible? And so he said you need to learn how to go to the word. Yeah, so you can. To your point, you can disciple people. You don't have to be Supereducated in the word, you just gotta say let's go see what the Bible says about, and if we can't find it, I'll look it up, do some more homework and I'll come back to you next time we get together and I'll help you answer that question. And so it can be so simple.
Speaker 2:I was preaching at one church and I told, I told the congregation. I said, listen, I can't. The Bible is food I can't eat for you. What would happen if I ate for all of you? You guys would die of malnutrition and I'd be 500 pounds, 600 pounds. I said I can't eat for you. I can tell you how meals are set up and the best way to eat, maybe, or your point to certain meals, but you need to eat the word of God for yourself. You need to get it for you. You need your own diet. I cannot eat for you and people. I can see light bulbs going off. They were like, oh, you know what? Maybe I should try to read it. So now let's go from there. How do we end up here?
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, like I said, when we were going to the Bible study with Dan and his wife, I felt, you know, at that time I felt calm. I wanted to do that for other people. I don't know what that looked like or what that meant, but I want to do that for other people. And so we that was in my heart. We started off our Christian market and the Son was a God church, which we thank God for. We disagreed with some of the Pentecostal aspects and we studied the scriptures on the Holy Spirit and we really struggled with that. Our pastor was super, we learned a lot about the Bible great Bible teaching but we just struggled with that aspect. That was kind of back during the the unbiblical parts, yeah unbiblical parts.
Speaker 2:Again we run across the whole spectrum and where we travel of different groups, I mean we go from the pendulum swings really far. We'll go from, like a Presbyterian church to Methodist or Assemblies of God church and one has their doctrinal statement, the other has their doctrinal statement. But we do find common ground in Christ Right, and so there's certain things we can debate over. We don't have to divide over Right.
Speaker 4:Well, the pastor was very spirit-led and we could see that and he was a very good Bible teacher and so what an example he was and we thank God for that example. But we disagree with those unbiblical portions that we couldn't reconcile with scripture and it was during a time like the Brownsville Revival, so some of that stuff going on, and so we ended up leaving the Catholic church and there was a Calvary Chapel that opened in Oshkosh, wisconsin, and we lived just outside Oshkosh in Butamore, and we saw that they were opening. We had heard of Chuck Smith on the radio, we listened to his radio program, we loved his teaching and we loved this Was Chuck on when you were doing the mechanic work, when the radio would be on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was, yeah, he was, yeah, he was. So he worked for today. He worked for today, oh man.
Speaker 4:Nine o'clock in the morning, I think it was on in the shop, and so, yeah, I would hear Chuck Smith and I just liked his. You know Chuck Smith's voice.
Speaker 2:He's just such a calm, quiet teacher.
Speaker 4:And I'm thinking see, you don't have to be preaching, listen to this guy. And so that managed to be it. And so we knew of Calvary Chapel through that and so we thought we're gonna leave the assemblies, we're gonna go to Calvary Chapel. And that's how we got involved in Calvary Chapel and we left. So we went back to the assemblies and we sat down with our pastor and we told him that we were leaving and this part we told him you know too. But we said we're gonna go and we told him why. And he sits back in his chair and he just looks at us and he goes you know, you're kind of like my kids and I'm going here.
Speaker 4:It comes, here's the lecture from dad. You know, you're kind of like my kids. And he says you know, they grow up and they mature and they wanna go their own way. And he says, if it's not a bad way, I have to let him go. And he said I know where you're going. He said I know Calvary Chapel, I have to let you go. And he God bless him yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 4:Wow, he gave us this blessing.
Speaker 2:I know that was hard for him yeah yeah, absolutely ves, yeah, yeah.