Darris McNeely: Reflections on Two Decades of Beyond Today

[Ben Light] Welcome to this special edition of our program. Today we're joined by someone whose voice and presence have been a part of the spiritual landscape of the United Church of God for more than two decades. Over the past 20 years, Darris McNeely has helped to shape the messaging, the tone, and the biblical focus of the Beyond Today TV program, reaching audiences around the world with clarity, compassion, and conviction. From interviews and commentaries to documentaries and instudio presentations, Darris has been one of the recognizable faces of Beyond Today. And today, we're taking some time to reflect on that journey. We're going to explore some of the memorable moments from his time with the program, some lessons learned over the years, and the wisdom that he would pass along to those who might step into the role of presenter in the years to come. Darris, thank you for being part of this conversation. It was a very privilege to talk with you.

[Darris McNeely] Good to be with you, Ben.

[Ben] So, let's start to kind of look back over the last 20 years or so of Beyond Today. Um, when you look back, is there a particular moment or a particular episode that really stands out as especially meaningful to you?

[Darris] Oh, I think coming out of COVID 2020, we had shut down for a period of time and I think when we all came back into the studio uh restarting, we had a sense of urgency about us that we had not had before living through the pandemic. So sure probably uh that first round after shutdown was I think for all of us something to really we wanted to say something beyond that we made a trip to Germany several years back to do some taping throughout Germany and in Belgium. That trip produced some good episodes for all of us and was a chance to get out into a unique setting as well.

[Ben] For sure. For sure. Yeah. Well, it's so interesting you mentioned COVID because it's it's it was such a it felt like such a different world before COVID and then the change that took place and so that sense of urgency that came out of that.

[Darris] Yeah. Yeah. We it's one of those dividing lines for us in in this time pre-COVID since COVID we measure and chart everything it seems uh from March 2020.

[Ben] Right. Right. Uh the Germany trip that you guys went on, what was your what was your favorite aspect of being able to go over there and see different things? Because I know you're a big archaeology guy. You really enjoy?

[Darris] Yeah. Archaeology and history. Um, you know, we we filmed in Aachen Cathedral. Which is Aachen was the seat of Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Emperor, 800 AD. And we were in that what was his church. We got up onto the second level where the throne of Charlemagne was and uh understanding the history of that throne, what it represents and the symbol of it, plus a lot of other things about that cathedral that are uh architecturally unique was a moment for us. And we had the scripting all done. And it was a pretty on my script it was going to be pretty blunt about the beast, the false teachings, the false prophet and what the Holy Roman Empire was a part of. They were and all day we had been shadowed by I guess the curator of the entire cathedral area, right? Watching us and everything. And we we had our Yasmina was our uh German language translator and fixer of uh on on the spot. And I was coming to a particular point in the in the script where I was going to hammer down on the Roman Catholic Church. And and I looked at Yasmina and I said, "Does he does he know English? " And she said, "Oh, yes." And so we kind of did a quick consultation and we decided to switch scenes and not do it in the cathedral. And so we then took it out into the courtyard with a cathedral in the in the backdrop to do the a little tougher direct part of the script. And so that was a something we had to kind of work on the fly. And and you know, you just realize, hey, better to not put that into the script here at this at this point. But taping there, taping in Berlin, taping at Waterloo for for Steve was a interesting experience. And um yeah, we we we had some did some good good stuff there.

[Ben] Yeah, it must have been just surreal standing in that space and being able to be in the place where this was taken?

[Darris] Yeah, we we we taped in Berlin at the Pergamon Museum. Uh the relics from Babylon are there. They have the Ishtar gate. They have panels from the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar. And I was taping there and I realized, you know, I was reading through Daniel, too. And I'm and I'm thinking the tiles on this wall, part of them at least, that were original, the words were originally spoken by Daniel. In front of these tiles and it kind of you get it was one of those moments, but probably, you know..

[Ben] Come to life?

[Darris] Yeah, it did. And we we had we went in at like 6:00 a.m. in the morning before the museum opened to do our taping. And I remember we pulled up to the back entrance and we walked out out of the van, loaded all the equipment on our backs and everything and we started going in through the basement of the museum up the stairs and around and I had been there before and kind of I knew what to expect. But when we came to the last stair top of the staircase that we entered into this room that had the Ishtar gate and everything there, I realized, wow, you know, and I thought, you know what I thought about? I thought about the movie The Night at the Museum. And I thought, you know, where's Nebuchadnezzar? Where's...? They all left just before we got there. They all left. They scattered and they had been there uh in the hours before. And so again, that was that that was just just fun.

[Ben] Yeah, just fun. Oh, that's neat. Well, you kind of mentioned having to make some technical decisions with regards to how to tape that section as you guys stepped out into the courtyard. What was one of the biggest challenges that you faced as a presenter either on camera or off camera and part of that process? Uh, and how did you overcome that?

[Darris] Well, practice. Yeah. Experience. You know beyond that we started out well at least let's put it this way - Gary. Steve and I started out in the basement of a member in Beloit, Wisconsin - Galen Morrison. He had set up a small studio. And so we would go up there and do like three programs in in one Sunday - each. And experience you you you don't know what you're doing. We didn't know what we were doing. We had been experienced pastors and speaking and teaching for years. But in front of a television, in a kind of a a setting of a studio, you learn to be natural, but it takes time to do that. Those early productions, we were kind of stiff and we were reading off a teleprompter, but we were still learning how to write a script and still learning how to read a script. So, you get more natural with experience.

[Ben] Yeah. Well, and over the 20 years, I mean, you've seen a big change in the equipment and the location and all the shooting, but you know, looking from the original studio, which was very small and, you know, had had the the setup in the way that it was set up to this. I mean, this is a large sound stage that would rival, you know, television productions and things like that.

[Darris] It's a true professional set.

[Ben] You've had a chance to see it all.

[Darris] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[Ben] Kind of speaking to challenges. What sort of challenges did you guys face as presenters with feedback and criticism that was coming in? You know both positive feedback as well as you know any negative feedback that might be coming in from various places and how did that inform your your process?

[Darris] You know, when we began 20 years ago, 21 years ago now, we were we were chosen, the three of us had worked on a previous production. It was called Good News Television. And there was another cable access church program in the Northwest you know about uh that had was had been going as well. And the administration had to make a decision. And there was a a move to consolidate the two into one out of the home office. And so the administration made that decision to go with what we were doing the three of us. And then we changed we came up with the name Beyond Today. So that was a transition that was um challenging for us. I will have to say in the environment of the church when we became the three of us became the public faces of the church, you draw a target on yourself.

[Ben] I bet.

[Darris] And the the three of us had a conversation about that. We recognized that we had to conduct ourselves properly. We had to be careful but we also had to be ready to take uh all kinds of support and criticism that would come. Largely from the membership and many of the the elders and ministry of the church overwhelming support. Vocal minority in some cases were present to critique us. We were reminded that we were not certain luminaries of the past. And that's true. And we were not. We were all three pastors that were asked to do a job on television. And we had we came in and we had to learn. And so we were up against that. We were up against a number of other factors as people judged whether or not we should even be doing a television program. In the let's say the vein of our past sure productions World Tomorrow television and and all from the Worldwide Church of God era. So none of us ever thought we were anybody from the past the Armstrongs or anybody like that we are who we are. We did our job. We took our shots. We stayed in the studio. We stayed at the table. We didn't fold. We did what we were asked to do and we did it to the best of our ability with God's help and but we but we had our moments. When some would have just assumed that maybe we stepped aside or that someone else did it. And of course we always felt from the beginning that we were given a trust handed the opportunity. It was not our show. And anyone could take it away at any time. We actually gave it away on on one occasion. We we said fine here it is. and then we were invited back in later that day. That's just the way it things get done when you step out and especially when you become a public face of the church. But I would say overall it's been for those of you that know the old Disney Land ticketing procedure has been an E-ticket ride. Yeah. All the way.

[Ben] Yeah. Yeah. Well, talking about programs and and kind of feedback, what sort of topics or programs did you find generated the most feedback?

[Darris] Prophecy.

[Ben] Prophecy? Typically from the audience standpoint?

[Darris] From the response, you know, we've always been a response driven show. How many how many people called in? How many requests for the booklet this week? Prophecy always has been, probably always will be. Of the top draw. Some of the other programs that were touching on uh topics of deep personal interest and change in people and you know if Gary or or Steve or I did those well and hit certain other topics we would see a good response as well. I think it, you know, anytime you take a topic and you speak to where people are emotionally in their life and you touch a nerve...

[Ben] Absolutely.

[Darris] ...from the Bible that gives them hope and help, you will always get a good response there as well. You're going to maybe always be topped out with a prophetic topic. But even there you can give hope and you can give help. The challenge is finding the balance in those messages.

[Ben] Sure.

[Darris] And you know those that are will continue to do the Beyond Today program will learn that and how to connect with an audience.

[Ben] Yeah. Trying to find the balance of you know the doom and the hope and just the challenge of of finding that middle road between those things for a person who's looking for that.

[Darris] Try to be relevant and when if you are relevant to what's where people are, what's going on in their life, the everyday life, the Monday to Friday life, and you can also explain the world to them and why it's a crazy mixed up world. And explain it from a biblical viewpoint. That will always help people. There will always be an audience and it you're centered square in the Bible when you do that, right? But you've got to have a balance. We've always had a balance between Christian living, doctrine, and prophecy. That's in our media, baked into our media guidelines. And keeping that balance is, I think, a formula for success.

[Ben] And did you have a topic of those that you really preferred to do and enjoyed doing on a regular? I know you're a big prophecy guy.

[Darris] I always wasn't always that way, but I've always enjoyed history. And so prophecy ties in with that. On a prophetic topic um you know anytime going through Daniel 2 or Daniel 7 was always basic and helpful and you know - fun. Fun to to get into for me. Actually some of the doctrinal topics explaining the Sabbath, the holy days, baptism, that can help people understand that the you know what really changes they can make to help solve some of their issues. Those were rewarding as well. If you asked me for any one program, oh, I'd have to go back at the archive and look at look at all of them. You know I use the story of a guy I ran into in the gym one time called "Tattoo Guy" and I I got a lot of mileage out of that one in programs. But I thi   the program that I did on that one I think stands out in terms of you know just a very really a good topic to help people. 

[Ben] Yeah. Good. Well, there's a lot of preparation that goes into the process of preparing the scripts and shooting and post, you know, everything that has to be done in order to make it work. Much of that's not seen by the viewing audience. You know, when it came to the work that was put in either from a spiritual standpoint or a physical preparation standpoint, um, can you walk us through just a little bit of what that looked like from start to finish? I mean, how much work goes in that people don't see as a result of just watching?

[Darris] A lot. You know, one of the things people have always been most surprised about is that we we actually wrote our own scripts. They thought we had a team of writers...

[Ben] A team of writers..

[Darris] ...and that was not the case.

[Ben] ...myself and I

[Darris] Right? We experimented at one time. We would pull somebody off the staff to be kind of an assistant. And after a few, you know, few months or a year or two of that, we turns out we just were better off to write it ourselves. So we did - takes a lot of we were on a usually a four-week cycle. Production cycle to get to a taping and we would come have to come in first week with an certainly an outline of the topic. By the second week a draft that everybody could begin to read through and critique and by the third week it had you had to have a finished product. And I would find personally no less, you know, to to finally sat down and knock out 3,000 words. I needed to block off no less than four or five hours straight just to get it done. Shut the door. Put the headphones on and...

[Ben] Just write.

[Darris] Just write. Yeah. After you've done all your other preparatory work, prayed about it. And then take that and keep praying about it. Especially keep praying about it after you go through a production meeting. And everybody's got a chance to critique.

[Ben] Evaluate.

[Darris] So, we had to pray some more to u to take all of those. And I will say that through the years we had some really very good critiques given by the staff in the meetings. We had some good give and takes back and forth and and you know what people, again, some of the little known facts is that once we had that script done and we go into a production meeting, we'd read it, but 12, 14 people at times would be sitting around that table and everybody had a chance to weigh in and everybody's comment was considered. They weren't all taken, but I would say 80% were. And they made it a they always made it a better script and so they learned in the process listening to us and we learned from them younger staff realizing you know when I came into this building to work the media staff most of them they've been to my camp as teenagers - young teenagers - some of them I had baptized some of them I'd even blessed as a baby at least one and then I performed their wedding ceremonies. So we knew each other.

[Ben] Those established relationships.

[Darris] Relationships that were there and but then you sat down in in a table production meeting and everybody's a peer and that's a growth process.

[Ben] That takes some adjusting.

[Darris] Yes it does for everybody.

[Ben] As you guys so you're saying a four-week process so you would start one script you'd go into the editing process. At some point you would begin the taping process of those things. But then as soon as that taping was done, the next script is getting started.

[Darris] By the next week you had you had to have the idea for another meeting.

[Ben] Wow. Wow. Wows

[Darris] Yeah. Wouldn't be taping 10 times a year usually - 10 months out of the 12. And so most you know on those you came back the next week with an idea.

[Ben] Wow. Wow. you know, thinking about the next 20 years potentially, what kind of advice would you give to presenters that are coming in potentially and stepping into this role as you guys begin to transition into preferment and other opportunities? What what would advice would you provide? What would you suggest?

[Darris] Take the job seriously. You are speaking the Word of God to people. You are teaching them the truths of the Bible. So take the job seriously and do and prepare and on your knees and from the Word and then don't take yourself too seriously. Recognize that you're just a human being and you know one of the things that we had to do again - Steve and Gary and I had to keep each other honest. We would we were able to needle one another. Not that any of us were ever getting the big head or anything. We don't know anything, but you know, we we could hit each other on the you know, the whack-a-ole type thing. And do it as as brothers, knowing that not no one of us was the the the preeminent one. We were all peers, equals on in on this operation. So, whoever's going to do this in the future better check your ego at the door. and don't take yourself so seriously but take the job very seriously and also recognize that you are a face for the church publicly.

[Ben] Well, when you envision the future of the Beyond Today program overall, its tone, its mission, its impact, what do you hope to see done with it in the future as as it goes forward?

[Darris] It's going to adapt to the platforms and I think we may have been a little bit behind the curve. Some would say a lot, but yeah, we were behind the curve on that. You know, the time of a man in a suit sitting behind a desk with books in the background. Is past.So shorter uh to the platforms that are out there where people are. That's the agora of the day. That's the marketplace of the day. And that's where Paul would be. And so more and more of that and in a short shorter form which is a good and a bad there's a two-edged sword to that. Look, you're not going to preach the gospel in three minutes, right? 60 seconds. I'm sorry. You can attract attention. You can ask a question, but you got to draw them into a body of work or something ultimately the Bible that is going to give them the the whole story.

[Ben] Sure.

[Darris] And before then it may be an article, maybe a booklet or something on a website. But the challenge probably is going to be to to do that well, to grab that attention. And I suspect that the next generation will be able to adapt to that really well to draw people into a body of work that can feed them and bring them along in the truth of God and where they will you know spend the time to read whether it's on the web on their phone or in a hard copy. I don't think hard copy will go away so there'll be a place for that. So, I think that shorter form is going to be there. There's going to be a bit more engagement. I think that there will always be a need. If you're going to be teaching the truths of the Bible, you're going to teach them the true doctrine. You're going to teach them how to live this way of life.

[Ben] Right.

[Darris] And to be a disciple. And you're going to teach them about what the Bible says about the world today and the world to come, which is prophecy. And so those topics are timeless. That not going to to change it. You're going to have to be everyone's going to have to be very much attuned to where people are on those topics and reach their pain points. And to the degree that that the research the effort can be put into by the the production team to identify that it will make the program better and have the honest talk. So you know if you're asking where I see the program going it's going to be in in those platforms. It's always going to have the timeless truths of the Bible, but I I think that you the the the next generation will have to understand what they're building upon. We had to understand what we're the shoulders that we stood on. And there is a long tradition of being relevant with world news, with history, with prophecy, but at the same time to be able to draw people in to give them answers for the everyday. And that's what it's all about. To the degree that the future programmers and presenters do that, they'll be successful with God's help. But it it will take effort. I would hope that there could be more dedicated people to that. By that I mean dedicated in that that's their primary job.

[Ben] Sure. Sure.

[Darris] We you know we were always wearing three or four hats. This is one we always talk we always talk about full-time presenters. Well, guess what? We didn't have it. I don't see that in the short term. But even the part-time presenters have got to have a full-time approach to it.

[Ben] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just the amount of preparation is really a full-time job.

[Darris] It is.

[Ben] In a lot of ways. Is there anything else that you want to share about your time? Anything else memory-wise that you can think of that you want to share with the audience?

[Darris] Oh boy. It was a privilege. It's been a privilege to do Beyond Today and work with the team. Relationships have been formed for life. You know it's the people that you've worked with that probably stand out more than anything.