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February 13, 2012

Home > 2002 > October (Web-only)Christianity Today, October (Web-only), 2002
The Dick Staub Interview: Dave Alan Johnson
The creator of Doc talks about balancing entertainment with spiritual depth and TV shows with evil plumbers


Dave Alan Johnson, along with his brother created the PAX television show Doc. The show follows a small-town Montana doctor (Billy Ray Cyrus) who followed a woman to New York. The girl leaves him, but he soon realizes that he was meant to be in the city. Johnson has extensive television credits, including a 1996 collaboration with Steven Spielberg called High Incidence.

How did your own faith journey get started?

I was raised in a Christian home and have believed since an early age. But like many people, I never really understood what that meant. It's probably been in the last 10 to 15 years that I have understood what it all means.

I then realized why I'd been placed where I'd been placed. I had created shows for all the networks. I was on the top of everybody's A-list. I was a believer and I thought I was doing God's work, but I just didn't have a complete peace.

Hollywood is a tough place because people lie to you on a daily basis and cheat you and stab you in the back. One day I went home to my wife after continually feeling beaten up and said, "I just want to go be a missionary someplace. Let's just forget all this."

She looked at me and she said, "Name me one place on earth that needs missionaries more than where you are right now."

I still can't talk about that without getting choked up. That moment changed my life. I realized why I had been placed where I'd been placed and why I had been given the gifts I have been given.

What changed at that point?

I was still doing the same things, but I had a renewed sense of purpose. I learned something very valuable during that time, which was that products come and go. TV shows come and go. If God wants a God-honoring show on the air, he'll put one on.

God put me in the path of 100 ...

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