1937 to 2024
Life Story of Dr. Harold J. Sala
Dr. Sala founded Guidelines International Ministries and served as its President for 50 years. His Guidelines for Living program is the first and longest running daily five-minute program in Christian radio. Heard in over 25 languages in more than 100 countries throughout the world, generations of Dr. Sala’s listeners have loved the friendly voice that points them to Jesus Christ. Dr. Sala traveled and taught in over 70 countries and authored 60 books that helped people come to relationship with Jesus Christ and practically apply the Bible to every area of life.
Harold James Sala was born July 15, 1937, in Denver, Colorado. His parents, Delmar and Ruby Sala, taught Harold, his younger brother, Orville and older sister, Bernita, the value of hard work at the small motels the family owned in Colorado.
When Harold was 12, the entire family responded to a gospel presentation. The call to preach came as a young teen and by 16, Harold left home for Bob Jones University where he was eventually ordained and began to preach on weekends. He would graduate with a degree in English Bible at 18, but not before meeting a pianist named Miss Darlene Duffield. Harold and Darlene married in 1959 and spent their first year of marriage doing itinerant evangelism in the US and UK.
In August of 1960, while associate pastor of Calvary Temple, Denver, Colorado, the young couple asked God how they could best use their lives for God’s Kingdom. The answer they heard was “Use radio!” Dr. Sala had experimented with running short ads for the church’s College Sunday School class on the radio during baseball games. The ads were successful, and the idea of a short gospel message that wasn’t a sermon, presented on radio, took root.
In 1963, Dr. Sala returned to Bob Jones University to take a PhD and teach Greek and Christian Education. But before the move, Dr. Sala visited Los Angeles and recorded a little radio program called Guidelines, a Five-Minute Commentary on Living. A Los Angeles radio station agreed to air the program without cost and from there on, radio stations throughout the country began to carry the engaging and unique program.
In 1966, Dr. Sala was called to pastor South Bay Bible Church in Redondo Beach, California. By 1974, the church had grown and so had the radio ministry. Dr. Bob Bowman, of Far East Broadcasting Company (FEBC) asked Dr. Sala to come to Manila, Philippines to help with English broadcasting and the decision was made to enter media missions full-time.
Two years in the Philippines were filled with ministry throughout the country and Guidelines broadcasts expanding in the Philippines and by shortwave into China, Russia and Latin America. But the logistics of mailing reel to reel tapes of Guidelines for Living to the hundreds of radio stations in the US proved unworkable from Asia.
Guidelines International Ministries made its permanent home in Orange County, California in 1976. This also began an era of 15 years of the television production of Guidelines for Family Living broadcast in the US and Philippines.
Dr. Sala had a world-sized heart. While broadcasting, teaching and writing, he led Guidelines in supporting children’s homes, encouraging struggling pastors across the globe, helping start feeding programs, a clinic and Christian school of nursing, and was known to offer cash to children for memorizing large passages of scripture.
On August 6, 2024, Dr. Harold J. Sala passed into the presence of Jesus at the age of 87. His voice continues to urge millions around the world to make God’s Word their Guidelines for Living.
“May God help you make His Word, your guidelines for living.”
