Remembering a Christian broadcasting pioneer

By Mark Ellis –

His daily five-minute radio program, “Guidelines for Living,” is the longest running daily five-minute program in Christian radio. Now translated into over 32 languages in more than 100 countries, Harold Sala’s teaching continues to touch untold millions around the world, imparting faith in Jesus Christ.

He passed to his reward August 6, 2024, at 87 years old, leaving behind his beautiful wife, Darlene, who still records her own radio program for the ministry they founded together. Their daughter Bonnie continues the legacy of faith in the broadcast arena, now heading the ministry as president and CEO. She also serves on the board of the National Religious Broadcasters.

“When I think about my dad, I remember watching him and my mom get up, and the first thing that they would do every morning is go to God’s Word together,” Bonnie told God Reports. “I would see them praying at the kitchen table.

“I always knew my dad had a rhythm of first getting into the Word and having that quiet time with God.”

Following that devotional time, with a cup of coffee and a cookie, he scanned the morning newspaper and began clipping articles that might make their way into his radio programs.

At the end of the day, he retired with a book. “I also remember him in the evenings reading, he would always be reading a book. And I definitely got my love of reading from him. He gave me Solzhenitsyn when I was 13. He was a student of God’s word, but he was a student of the world, of life, and of people. He was always interested in in people and what was happening around the world, because he would connect those to the truths of God’s word,” she recalls.

Harold began to follow Jesus when he was 12 and later studied at Bob Jones University. He and Darlene were married in 1959 and spent their first year of marriage evangelizing in the U.S. and the UK.

While serving as associate pastor of Calvary Temple in Denver in 1960, Harold first got the idea of broadcasting concise, non-sermon-style Gospel messages on radio.

After earning a Ph.D in Greek and Christian Education from Bob Jones University in 1963, he took his concept for a program to L.A. radio station KFSG.

“The station manager wasn’t a Christian, but he listened to the program and said, ‘Sala, I like that,’ and he put it on the air,” Bonnie recounts.

“Guidelines, a Five-Minute Commentary on Living,” grew in popularity, which led to it being syndicated throughout the US.

After pastoring South Bay Bible Church in Redondo Beach, California, Harold joined the Far East Broadcasting Company (FEBC) in the Philippines.

“The radio ministry began to grow and the church was really growing. And my parents began to pray, ‘what are you calling us to? And that is when Bob Bowman, one of the founders of FEBC, came to Dad and said, ‘Would you go to the Philippines to work with us there?’

It was a big transition for Bonnie at 13. “I went from the PK to the MK stage, and we were missionaries for several years there.” Harold became a columnist in the Philippine Star newspaper, and appeared in the Sunday magazine for decades, which led to him becoming one of the most recognized American Christian leaders in that country.

They returned to the US, because of the practicalities of getting the radio program’s reel-to-reel masters back to the US. “Those were pre-digital days, and they would get stolen in the mail. They had to be taken to the airport, put on a plane. So two years later, we returned to Mission Viejo, and we’ve been there ever since,” Bonnie recalls.

Sadly, Harold battled dementia in his final years. “He did have Alzheimer’s, and so progressively, he began to change. I will tell you though, he became sweeter and sweeter and that really was a blessing.

“He gave everything he had to the work of the Kingdom. I felt like there was absolutely nothing he held back. And there were some beautiful handfuls of grace during that time.”

God allowed something remarkable to occur, even as his mental acumen deteriorated.  “Our conversations became less and less as the disease progressed. But one thing that he could do is pray beautifully, all the way to the end. It was a miracle how he would pray. He was talking to God with all his faculties!”

Bonnie’s transition to oversee the ministry happened unexpectedly. “I am so thankful that God arranged the circumstances of my life, that I came to work with the ministry at just the right time, never dreaming that I would end up taking it over.”

She began to volunteer with Guidelines in 2014 and at one point, the board thought they might wind down the ministry after Harold’s retirement.

But as they sought God’s will for the future, they recognized they had thousands of valuable devotional programs in their archives based on God’s Word. “By and large, they’re timeless, because they speak to the felt needs of people’s lives,” Bonnie notes.

The needs transcended the US. “It is around the world, places that are unreached by the gospel, where people do not have resources, where they barely have any Scripture in their own language.

“That really resonated with me, as a missionary kid. I had taken the Perspectives course on mission, so I had a whole year of missiology, and things really began to click,” Bonnie says.

“We’ve gone from three languages to over 32 and we work with a large network of Christian media ministries, focusing in places where people are unreached, where the access is limited, and where there are new believers or where they are living under persecution.”

Bonnie and her team have been curating Harold’s thousands of programs into a seven-year series. “Mom has her weekly two-minute program called Encouraging Words. And four years ago, I began a two-minute devotional program called Reset.

She is following her father’s example of short programs. “Our partners tell us the way the human brain works (in learning) is frequent, short exposure.”

Sometimes the programs are heard several times a day and people record them. “The Holy Spirit is preparing the ground of their minds. And when it is softened, then the seeds are planted, and then they bear fruit.”

Like her father, Bonnie seeks associations between life and God’s word. “Those connections are always there. We will never run out of those connections, and we will never run out of needing to be reminded. So everything I write, it’s because it was a reminder to myself in the beginning.”

Bonnie is resolute in her focus on the mission. “We’re filled with a great sense of urgency. We see two things happening. We see opportunity opening up like never before because of technology. We see advances coming in digital radio, where not only can you be sending audio, but you’ll be able to send packets of information even in places where they don’t have inexpensive access to the internet.

“There are so many different ways we can get God’s word to people. So we see an explosion of opportunity, but we also see an explosion of persecution. Many of our partners regularly are receiving death threats. They have constant harassment from governments trying to shut them down, people trying to bomb their radio stations, take their antennas down.

“For us at Guidelines, it’s go time. We are not holding back, because if anything should happen (in restricted countries) and our relationship be cut off, we would have helped equip those believers with tools, with resources, and they can go on using those and discipling their people, sharing Jesus with their people.”

To learn more about the work of Guidelines, go here