God's Great Outdoors

Adam Erickson: It's been 30 years since Jerry Caloway first felt called to begin a ministry to outdoors men and women on the radio. A lot has happened since that first recording at WCDR on the campus of Cedarville College in Ohio. The base of the calling has remained the same: win outdoors people to Jesus Christ. But with technology and God's leading, a lot has changed as well.

Since the start, there has been a desire for God's Great Outdoors to help churches strengthen. Recently, we felt the call to help make that happen by keeping pastors strong. As you listen today, you'll hear how that is happening. You can come alongside us in this portion of the ministry by caring for your pastor as well.

Today's program is a little different as myself, Adam Erickson, will join Dean as we discuss all that God is doing on this trail to adventure that we travel down each and every week together in God's Great Outdoors.

Dean Hulce: Welcome to God's Great Outdoors, where we're on the trail to adventure at home in our studio. We've got a guest today that you hear every week at the beginning, anyhow, and in the middle. We've got Adam with us.

Adam Erickson: I just came from me and then you went right back to me. That's different. You're getting Adam and I. We do have a purpose and it’s not that we just need a program. Adam and I are just trying to talk about what's happened over the last three years because three years ago, you had experience in it, but we had never done this show. I had no experience in it.

We were just talking that we have replayed two shows that we think over this three and a half years, but it wasn't out of necessity; it was out of request from people.

Dean Hulce: Absolutely. You are out there finding these shows. I mean, you travel a lot. I don't know how many miles we've done this year, but I'm sure we'll do 15,000 to 20,000 miles before just ready to go on another couple thousand miles here in the next week or so.

Adam Erickson: Because we live away from a lot of stuff. We live in the middle of nowhere, which is how I prefer it. You start looking at interviews and you find an amazing ton of them around here even. But when you travel, how many states have you been in just this year alone? Do you even know right off? It's a lot.

Dean Hulce: Off the top of my head, I would say we've got probably 12 to 15, and we're going back over about five or six of them here in the next week or two. And our kids are grown. That makes a big difference. Linda sometimes loves to travel with me and sometimes she tolerates traveling with me.

But I wouldn't trade it. The people we get to meet and the things we get to do. We just spent a dinner with our wives and we're talking about what God's doing. I wouldn't trade the people we get to meet, the things we get to do. Sometimes I feel bad for you because you're having to listen. You're living through us to some extent.

Adam Erickson: I love the part that I do. I spent a lot of years in radio, so editing and stuff like that, I really enjoy doing it. People think I'm crazy because that was always the editing. Do you want to do the editing? Yes, that's what I want to do.

I enjoy it a lot. I still do. I love it. It gives me an opportunity to still dabble in it. Otherwise, I'm not really in the business anymore, but I get to still do it and it's a good time.

Dean Hulce: I do the very rough editing. I get it close enough so you can make it sound good. I enjoy it. I spent a whole day on one the other day. It was so hard to get through every bit of it and make it sound good.

Adam Erickson: You actually do the hard part. Figuring out the content is more difficult than pairing down time and stuff like that. But when you get the content like that, it's hard to choose. Do I want to keep this? Do I want to get rid of this? That's why it's nice to have the podcast version where you don't really have to edit quite as much either.

People get the good story when they listen on the radio. It's out there. Everyone can hear and it's amazing the reach. How many states? You were just talking about the states that we're reaching now. Amazing. The four corners of the United States and we're there.

Dean Hulce: A lot of our listeners probably don't know this, and they probably should. We go all the way from the North Shore of Alaska on the North Slopes all the way to South Texas now and all the way to South Florida, and then we just picked up a station that travels all the way into Maine.

It's really a great thing and we were talking about pretty much covering all of North America. Canada, we cover some in the West. But the podcast is really kind of amazing. That's growing quick.

Adam Erickson: And again, people get the good stories from the radio version and then if they want to listen even more, they can go and they can listen and it's just extra stuff. That's the thing; you’ve got to trim for time when you're on radio. It's got to be a certain time. So when you have the opportunity to put the real meat and potatoes there and then some extra stuff for everyone who enjoyed it enough that they want to hear even more, they can get on the podcast.

Dean Hulce: I should tell people now, because a lot of people say, "I listen to the radio program. How can I listen to the podcast?" And I get people and I have to direct them all the time. We should let people know if you're listening to the radio stations, still listen to your local stations because there's real value in that.

But then go to our website, godsgreatoutdoors.org, and on the "Listen Now," that'll give you the podcast. So for people that want to hear the rest of the story, and I haven't called it the Paul Harvey edition in a long time, but it really is. We're in about 22 nations on the podcast that we broadcast out to listeners. So it's really going worldwide and it's all good, but I don't want it to ever become entertainment.

We're sharing a story. We're sharing a story of a gift from Christ of salvation and if it's about anything else, there's some weeks that it comes out a lot stronger than others, but that is the reason we're doing it.

Adam Erickson: Absolutely, that's the goal. Reach as many people as we can. You never know who's going to be surfing the radio and tuning in and they hear something about a whitetail and they're like, "What's that?" And they start listening and by the time they're done, it's amazing.

Dean Hulce: Right. With fishermen that will pick up and listen to Hank Parker, who was on the show, or Al Lindner, who was on the show. These are a couple of the biggest names in the fishing world in media ever probably and God has blessed us with the opportunity to sit and talk with those guys.

Other parts of our ministry that a lot of people don't know of, we don't talk about them that much, but one of the things that's really growing is our daily devotionals that we send out. I don't know that we talk about them very often, if at all. But right now, that goes out to, I think last year we figured about three million people opened the daily devotional.

They go out via email and if you're not getting them and you want them, go to godsgreatoutdoors.org and sign up for them because we'd love for you to do that. They come out Monday through Friday.

Adam Erickson: There's so much stuff there that people, if you've never been to the site, you can sign up for the devotionals. You can follow us on Facebook because I know that those devotionals end up on Facebook as well. And they're just resources and different things. There's a lot there. Check it out. Make sure you check it out.

Dean Hulce: If people want tracts, a lot of people like to give away tracts. You run into somebody on the fishing dock, on the boat landing, or in hunting camp, or just in their daily passing. We've got so many in there that are just awesome tracts that tell a story of the salvation combined with hunting and fishing. And it's a great place to be to get that.

We're going to take a break because I want to talk about something else that we're doing that people that are close to their pastors or have pastors in their church that might need a break, I think is exciting and we want people to know about it. So we're going to hand this over to you to share to our listeners who our donors are.

And also, we need to let people know that we are listener-supported. And in order for us to grow this in where God's leading, and He is leading into not so much away from what we're currently doing, but to grow it stronger and deeper.

Adam Erickson: For the last 26 years, God's Great Outdoors Trail to Adventure has been broadcast out to win men and women, boys and girls to Jesus Christ. This is only possible by the generosity of our listeners. Thank you to all who have supported us in the past. God has blessed us because of you, and we pray that you feel His blessings as well.

Additional underwriting support has been provided by Mathews Archery, the leader in the archery industry; Mission Archery, with revolutionary crossbow technology; Three Rivers Archery, supplying everything you need to make your own traditional archery equipment; Hunter Safety Systems, saving lives is what we do; and Conviction Game Calls. At Conviction, we don't separate work from our faith. We believe that our faith should be evident in every aspect of our lives and the outdoors is one of the best places to share that.

God's Great Outdoors has produced many ministry tools, including tracts, DVDs, and books to help you reach others for Jesus Christ. You can access these items, other God's Great Outdoors items, and so much more at our website godsgreatoutdoors.org. That's godsgreatoutdoors.org.

We are back on God's Great Outdoors Trail to Adventure. Adam Erickson hanging out with Dean today as a guest on the show. This is kind of different.

Dean Hulce: We're both guests.

Adam Erickson: Yes, we're interviewing each other, which is different, but there's a lot to talk about because there are so many new things happening with God's Great Outdoors Trail to Adventure. It's growing constantly and we got a lot of people that come alongside us and help this organization grow. What are some of the new things just to keep our listeners up to date?

Dean Hulce: It's interesting. There's something new all the time. We just had a board meeting and I went into the board meeting and we do have a chairman of the board that runs the board meeting, which is good. But one of the things that we talked about, I brought to my board, is God is showing us stuff where we could grow really wide.

And I really believe, as I pray about it, that He's bringing us back to the main things that we do. Let the things He's called us to do be the main things. And that's the radio, the podcast, which was new three years ago. But then we've got something that's been really interesting is we're taking some pastors out on some hunting and fishing trips.

And that's been great. It’s just getting started, but we just got offered two different places that are really cool cabins. Beautiful, beautiful cabin, one of them close up here in Wisconsin, actually. And it's a beautiful big log cabin home. It's new. And we're able, we've been offered that to just care for pastors.

So if we have pastors in churches that just need to get away. There's lots of times on a pastor's pay there's not a lot of places you can go. But this place is out in the middle of 500 acres. It's actually got a little chapel on it now. But the owner of it said, "Dean, care for pastors." And it's not going to cost anybody anything. We will take donations from a church, but we won't take a donation from a pastor.

So if somebody, our listeners, have a pastor that you want to just bless or if you know that they just need some time away. Pastors have a tough job and they're available all the time.

Adam Erickson: They have to be and that's... I don't know how many times I've called my pastors myself like, "Hey, I just need to talk about this or pray about this." And they're available all the time. So to be able to get away on a little getaway just to reset, that's amazing. That's great.

Dean Hulce: Worth in a pastor, the next hardest job up from there is a pastor's wife. It's a hard, hard job to be a pastor's wife. And even with their kids, it's a harder job for a pastor's kids because they're always in the spotlight.

So what we want to do is we've got this one cabin in particular that's just beautiful. You can't see anything, you can't hear anything from there. It's in the woods with a pond there, possibility of fishing. And just to let pastors get away. If they need to come for a week, if they need to come for a long weekend, whatever it is. They just need to get ahold of God's Great Outdoors, go on the website, drop me a note saying, "Hey, we've got a pastor," or if you're a pastor listener, just get ahold of us.

We would love to treat you to that. Missionaries that are traveling through, whatever, it's there and we've actually got a place right in our backyard too that we've used for that.

Adam Erickson: And it's a great thing because you look at just about any job out there. When somebody's been working hard, putting in long hours, stuff like that, it gets a little tougher to do that job. And when you can have a little bit of time to get away, you come back refreshed and the quality of the work and everything gets better. And I'm sure that's the same for pastors too. Probably as much as anybody. A time to just reset and get in touch with what they're going through. Because I'm sure that they probably don't get to think about that as much when they're worrying about their flock so much.

Dean Hulce: Yes, and that's pretty much every pastor has some of that. And one of the things that we're really looking at and the way we started this was there's a lot of pastors of small churches that not only preach on Sundays and teach Sunday school and lots of them speak on Wednesday night, but then they're like you said, they're on call 100% of the time.

And some of those are out mowing the lawns, they're doing the plumbing if there's a shoveling snow, and many of them never take a week off ever because they're the only person there that's connected to the community from the church. So we're really trying to work with those pastors, give them a break.

Adam Erickson: We should really make it even better and we'll just send you to fill in for them so they can get away.

Dean Hulce: I got plenty of that myself. I'm learning to say "no" a little bit more than I used to. But we've got four events coming up in the next couple weeks that I'm speaking for. And I enjoy it. But I don't get a lot of rest. Linda and I don't get a lot of rest. We're always going somewhere.

But I honestly believe that someday I'll rest when I'm in heaven and there's work to be done in the meantime. That's the job of all of us all the time though. Really when the Bible says go into all the world, he doesn't say just you guys that are leading churches. That's not the case. It's every one of us.

So we feel called, more me than Linda. Linda's more of a homebody, but she goes and goes joyfully most of the time. If it wasn't that she would go with me, I wouldn't go as often.

Adam Erickson: It's nice to be able to do that, bring her along with. And seeing the things that you guys must see traveling like that. I don't travel too much. We take our kids to Bible camp, which is about eight hours away, and so we drive there and drive back, but it's the same drive every time. But it's still neat. We were in Indiana a few weeks ago for a wedding. My wife's nephew got married and so we got to see some new sights there. But you're on probably different roads all the time, seeing different things.

Dean Hulce: We are, and this past year, I forget where we were going or where we were coming from, but we actually took some back roads instead of... I was giving you a bad time because you're on Life360 together. So I saw you driving and I thought, "Where are they going? They're out in the middle of nowhere." And I wasn't looking for you, just happened to be that yours popped up when I was looking at our kids.

But yes, Linda kind of enjoys the back roads. I just want to get on the highway and go.

Adam Erickson: That's the same in my house. My wife is the same way. She would click on the Google Maps, she would put "avoid highways" at all costs all the time. And I'm just like, "Well, depends on where we're going, but sometimes I just want to get there."

Dean Hulce: I'll tell you, I traveled, I don't know how many... I've probably traveled across Highway 70 or 80 all the way across the country several times. From here to Colorado and there's a, in the middle of, I think it's North Platte, Nebraska, there's an arched building right across the highway. Covers... It’s like an arch, but it's actually a museum in there.

And I've never been there. I've been underneath... You literally drive underneath it. Never been there and every time we go by, one of the kids or Linda say, "Hey, we had to stop there." And I said, "No, we're going to... We're on our way," or we're on our way home and we've never stopped one time and we've literally been underneath that thing probably 50 times in our life and I've never pulled in. And I say it's great.

Adam Erickson: We're going to have to do a new cover of the Johnny Cash "I've Been Everywhere" and it's just be called "Dean's Been Everywhere" and just talk about all the places that you're doing interviews for this.

Dean Hulce: But we've been blessed. We really have and we did about 40 this spring which, we only need 52 a year. So we did 40 and sometimes people say, "Hey, when's my show coming out?" and I said, "It's in there queue there somewhere." So it'll be up soon. But God has blessed us with just amazing people to interview.

Stories that nobody hears of, and I love those. I loved to interview the guys from Duck Dynasty. They were great. Al Lindner was great.

Adam Erickson: I was laughing with those guys and it's amazing just the wide spectrum of guests that you get. Because I'll be editing the program and sometimes I'm like, "Dean, why didn't you give me a disclaimer on this?" I'm editing the program just crying my eyes out because the stories are so moving and amazing. And then there's other times that I'm laughing out loud and it's great just the variety of guests and the stories they tell are so amazing.

Dean Hulce: One of the things that's amazed me is you have so many people that have great hunting, fishing stories, life of outdoors. And most of those people that are doing that, they love the Lord. You get one or two sentences into a conversation and they turn it right back to Christ over and over and over again. And it kind of puts me to shame sometimes because that's my job. I mean, I hate to say it's not really a job. I do that for a living, but it's not really a job. It truly is ministry for Linda and I. But even then I think, "Am I reflecting that same thing?" And I think for the most part we try, but we all fail at it.

Adam Erickson: I can edit out those failures, so it works out okay.

Dean Hulce: But we also have been taking pastors also up to Canada to Rushing Wind, which if you've listened on the station for many years, you've heard it many, many times. We've done a lot of programs up there. But we get to go up there and we've taken some people up there as our guests. Missionaries... there was a missionary up there this year with us when we just came back. And it's great to... we do that and we just treat them. There's no charge for them. We just have them as our guests and to be able to spend time with those people that just love the Lord. I come out of it usually more excited about my job every time when we get that.

Adam Erickson: You get around certain people like that and it just refreshes. Again, it’s that refreshing feeling where you just realize, "I don't think of that often enough and I should because when I think of it, it's great." It's a great feeling and there are people that just really inspire that.

Dean Hulce: And I should say Linda and our kids are grown and gone. But you guys, you and your wife, have five girls at home yet.

Adam Erickson: Yes, actually all five of them are honorary Hulces this week hanging out with your son at camp. So for three weeks, actually, we don't have any kids in our house and it's really weird.

Dean Hulce: But you're probably going to be really relaxed by the time they get home. But all of us are in that point. People with kids at home, our lifestyle today, although you guys, most of your connections, most of your busyness is with church. So that's different. And you live fairly close to church.

Adam Erickson: I drive 20 miles to work but only like four and a half miles to church, so it's nice. But you've had some bad days at work, busy days. Very busy summer.

Dean Hulce: We're about out of time for the radio, but we are going to jump to the podcast. I think we'll tell some hunting and fishing stories.

Adam Erickson: I think I've told the best ones already on this program, so I'd have to dig deep to see if I can come up with some other ideas here.

Dean Hulce: Well, and I think we can share in some stories of some of those that we've taken on some of these adventures already and more of what we're going to do and how people can get ahold of us. And the other thing I'd like to talk about, just mention quick, is that with our growth, with the new things that are coming up, we're really looking for some partners to come alongside us. I hate to talk fundraising. God supplies.

Adam Erickson: He gets to use people out there to do that. People get to be blessed by being a part of this. Someday when you're there, God's going to say, "Hey, you know what? You helped this person and this person and this person because you were part of God's Great Outdoors." And it reached this person who had never heard of the gospel message before but they were listening because of a hunting story and they were on that channel because of a donation or a support that you had for them and that's amazing.

Dean Hulce: We'll talk a little bit more of that in the podcast because there are some great opportunities and it does have eternal consequences. We'll be right back on the podcast for those that can join us there. For those that can't, again, go to our website if you want to listen to it and just go hit "Listen Now." Otherwise, join us here next week as we head down the Trail to Adventure in God's Great Outdoors.

Adam Erickson: While it's been 30 years since Jerry got the call to reach others through a ministry by pointing them to the Creator through a true love and appreciation of His creation, it's clear that God isn't through with this ministry yet. What a blessing these last three and a half years have been to both our host Dean Hulce and for me, Adam Erickson, as producer. God is showing us His plans daily by hearing the testimonies of those that are being reached by the weekly radio God's Great Outdoors programs and the Trail to Adventure podcast as well as the daily devotionals.

The reach of the gospel story has gone from one small college radio station to radio that reaches across North America and a podcast that reaches worldwide. And God is still challenging us to do more in the future. We plan to be sharing His amazing story when Jesus comes back for us someday or calls us home. I'd love to have you join us in this partnership. We can always use your prayers. Please pray for us daily as we follow God's lead in where He is sending us, and pray for the pastors that we hope to strengthen, and pray for the listeners that need to come to a relationship with Jesus.

If you've enjoyed today's program and would like to hear the extended podcast version, you can find it by looking for Dean Hulce or Trail to Adventure wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. This program is provided by, can be contacted at: God's Great Outdoors, P.O. Box 414, Powers, Michigan 49874 or in the website godsgreatoutdoors.org. And please join us each week as we travel down the Trail to Adventure in God's Great Outdoors.