Vince D’Acchioli’s Testimony – Promise Keepers New Zealand
Well men, our first speaker for tonight is Vince Dacchioli and I'm not gonna lie I was practicing that name the whole car ride on the way down here tonight Because it kind of sounds like one of those items on a menu that I wouldn't be able to afford the Vince Dacchioli But you're in for a treat tonight Vince is a gifted communicator He's got insights to share for us tonight and some great humor. I hear as well So here's the founder and the president of an organization called on target ministries Which is a Christian outreach for men for pastors and couples which does amazing work. We're gonna hear a bit more about it He regularly speaks at seminars and workshops and churches across the USA and Canada And and you know, he's joining us today and he's here in New Zealand for his very first time. Isn't that awesome? All right, so why don't we give him a warm round of applause?
Welcome up Vince Dacchioli All right, who picked the theme from the godfather to introduce me You know, thank you for that introduction The you know the last emcee introduced me on my way up to the platform. He says hey Dacchioli, we figured out why you Italian guys were all those gold chains. I said, oh, yeah, why he says so you know where to stop shaving So these guys are these guys are Very nice. Can I greet you in my native language? That was pretty weak.
Can I greet you in my native language? Are you doing That's the only Italian I know, you know, so I Listen before I get started tonight, it is it is a real privilege to be able to be here with you guys I am really enjoying your country. It is just an amazing place I just want to make one mention we do have just I think not a lot of these left but in in my country We've come out with two years worth of curriculum for men that is we're really pretty proud of and and we've taken nine a nine week study With a study manual out of that curriculum and produced it in Promise Keepers, New Zealand Has made it available by producing it here, which makes it a lot more affordable So if you're interested in that there is a table out back that you can go I'd love to visit with you guys if you decide to go there. Is it okay to have fun at these things All right. Well, I got a story you want to hear a story Three guys want to hear a story You want to hear a story?
On July 20th 1969 is commander of the Apollo 2 lunar module Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the moon many of us are old enough to remember that you guys remember watching that on TV I actually have a picture of it on my TV screen for when that happened his first words after stepping on the moon That's one small step for man one giant leap for mankind were televised to earth and heard by millions But just before he re-entered the lander he made the enigmatic remark good luck. Mr. Gorski Many people at NASA thought it was a casual remark concerning some rival Soviet cosmonaut You know, but upon checking there was no Gorski in either the Russian or the American space programs Over the years many people questioned Armstrong as to what the good luck. Mr. Gorski statement meant, but Armstrong always just smiled On July 5th 1995 in Tampa Bay, Florida while answering questions following a speech a Reporter brought up the 26 year old question to Armstrong this time.
He finally Responded mr. Gorski had died so Neil Armstrong felt now he could answer this question It turns out in 1938 when he was a kid in us in a small Midwestern town He was playing baseball with a friend in the backyard His friend hit the ball which landed in his neighbor's yard by the bedroom windows His neighbors were mr. And mrs. Gorski As he leaned down to pick up the ball young Armstrong heard Mrs. Gorski shouting at mr.
Gorski sex You want sex you'll get sex when the kid next door walks on the moon Now Here's the really funny part of that story First of all, it's not a true story. Okay, but but secondly when I first heard it many years ago I thought it was a true story So some of you guys know who pastor Jack Hayford is he's my pastor and my mentor for years very very well known guy And so I shared the story with him as a true story and he fell on the floor man It took him like a couple of minutes to compose himself. He was laughing so hard he got up And so I left and then the next week he traveled overseas to do a International four-square pastors conference with 5,000 pastors from around the world and he shared it as a true story He hasn't spoken to me ever since that happened I I Want to tell you another story this one is true and it has to do with what happened in my life and The whole purpose of this is to prepare your hearts for one thing and that is that No matter what has happened in our lives There is nothing God cannot redeem. How many of you really believe that I? Was born in Rhode Island in 1945 and to a very large Italian family and my family moved to California when I was only eight years old We thought we were going to visit relatives there But it turns out we never went back to Rhode Island and I didn't really discover why until I was about 14 or 15 years old My mom and dad were running from the law now They hadn't it wasn't a Bonnie and Clyde thing that they got into some financial trouble and the family said why don't you go to?
California start over again, and we'll send the furniture later So here I am in Southern, California eight-year-old boy. We never went back to Rhode Island. I'm kind of like wondering what is going on But the first eight years of my life I was really raised by my grandma and my grandma spoiled me I was the first born in my dad's generation So anything I ever wanted my grandma would buy for me and then typically if I'd go to the store shopping with my mom I'd see something on the shelf that I want, you know, and she would say no and I could never understand that I would yell and Scream and throw temper tantrums and my mom would always give in to me Which of course we know is not a good thing to do I as a result of that learned at a very early age how to become a controlling person It's not something that you intellectualized But you just learn and you kind of grow up behaviorally thinking you can control things by the way you act So when we got to Southern, California, my mom and dad didn't know what to do with me I was an audit control spoiled rotten little guy, you know So what they did was they put me in the Catholic school system and in those days the Catholic school system They had the teachers were they call them nuns or sisters and they all wore that, you know the habit thing I think that was so tight that they couldn't smile because they never smiled, you know They looked like Zorro and then it was just like and I make fun of it now But if it wasn't for some of the discipline that got through I don't know where I would be today But in those days corporal punishment was in and they really liked it Okay, and so I mean I was getting beat up every every single day mother Anthony big woman man Could shit hit really hard, you know and every day she'd be beaming up my mom and dad had come bail me out And I barely made it through the the grade school system, you know And they finally I graduated to the Catholic high school system in the high school system. They didn't have sisters They had brothers And if you think sisters are tough you haven't lived until you've been under the brothers of the Holy Cross Yeah, I only want I remember one brother His name was brother Marcel and he was the guy who brother Marcel was the guy who led the detention class That's the class the bad guys go to every day up to school And so I'm in the detention class every day and the day they finally Kicked me out in this school by the way, not only was corporal punishment in they would hit you so hard They'd actually draw blood. I mean these guys were serious, okay?
And so I was constantly in trouble and on the day they kicked me out This is what happened I was in the class and I was in the back of the class and brother Marcel is up front And he's wearing the full robe, you know, and he's writing on the chalkboard, okay? And his back is to the class well brother Marcel had a hearing aid and we thought the hearing aid was because he couldn't hear Now the hearing aid was so he could have his back to the class and in his robe He had an adjustment that he could turn it up and he could hear a whisper in the back of the classroom Well, of course, I did not know this and so so he's up there and I'm in the back making fun of him You know and his manhood and stuff and everybody's in the class is laughing, you know He knew it was me and so I'm gonna show you what he did in kind of in slow motion, okay? He slams down the chalk Turns around grabs the eraser like this turns around and go spots me and it goes Boom I'm gonna hit me directly between my eyes chalk in my eyes big dot on my head I can't see everybody's laughing. He comes down the El Graz me takes you out in the hallway and beats me up And he drew blood and they took me to the principal's office and that's the day they kicked me out of the Catholic High School I out I was a bad guy, but academically I had four F's and a D Yeah, yeah laugh if you want the D was in religion They they kicked me out and that's where I went to the public school for the very first time and that's where I met My wife Cindy Cindy is the first person in the history of my family that is not Italian She's got a German background, you know and Yeah, have you ever seen my big fat Greek wedding? Well, then you've met my family.
It was kind of like that So anyway, we we got married and and very early on in our marriage She was very her family very soft-spoken Lovey huggy. It was sickening to me My family yelling and screaming all the time, you know, and so with little kids So we were like 15 16 when we met got married right out of high school. We were like 18 19 years old We were just kids. We didn't understand what was happening I was this overbearing Domineering man and I was suffocating her Psychologists would call call it a winner-loser pattern It happens when one person's personality suffocates the personality of the other person and did we didn't know what was going on So I was growing up We got married. I kept living my bad lifestyle never told Cindy anything about it I was a I was lying cheating stealing drugs alcohol.
You name it I did it all the wrong role models and I was their king. I also had an uncle Louie My uncle Louie was busted at the highest level of our government back in the 60s and 70s In fact, if you Google Louie the couch You'll find my uncle Louie the cop the FBI nicknamed him because he would he was a hit man And he got and commit murders, you know at night and then during the day be laying on the couch They had his apartment wire tapped, you know and and the FBI be listened to him And apparently he was laying on the couch watching soap operas and yelling at the TV Why did you marry that bum you idiot? He'd be crying, you know, the FBI was hysterical So they nicknamed him Louie the couch But I was in a courtroom one day as a about a 20 year old boy. My uncle was on trial for 26 murders The prosecutor comes in and asked the judge to dismiss the jury because he needed to make an announcement The jury wasn't allowed to hear we didn't have to leave of course So we were there and the announcement was your honor the star witness against Lou along with his wife We're shotgun to death in their hotel room in Las Vegas last night. We have no case.
I'm the guy going yes That's where I came from you know, I When I title this message in churches, I title it overwhelmed by the grace of God Because honestly guys, I am overwhelmed by God's grace and some of you know what I mean You've got stories like this and you look back at your life And you think we're not for the grace of God. Where would I be in my case? I'd probably be dead Got married and didn't want to go back to the Catholic Church We got married in the Catholic Church and I never went back Cindy was was searching my wife And and she went to a little Lutheran church and her brother Ted was a hippie flower child with a red aphro out To here growing marijuana in the backyard birdbath and selling it at school You know, he was my hero and so Ted got thrown in jail and we went and bail them out and his mother threatened him that he needed to go to this Campus Crusade for Christ meeting or she wasn't going to help him anymore. So he went away Spent them the the weekend up there and he came back And I remember him being in our front door knocking on the door And I looked out the side window and he looked horrible man his aphro was all wilted looked like he'd been crying You know and Cindy answers the door it says Ted what happened and Ted says Cindy, you're not gonna believe it I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I can't wait to go back to school and tell all my friends They don't need their drugs, you know, he says I want to come back here tomorrow And I want to talk with you so he leaves comes back tomorrow and and he brings his Bible any and he leads my wife to the Lord Okay, so my wife comes to me and says Ted came and he told me all this stuff and guess what I said what she says I'm I'm a born-again Christian.
I said yeah Get away from me. I Wanted nothing to do with it. We used to call them Jesus freaks or and our ends religious nuts my buddies and I used to get drugs and alcohol and watch Christian TV You know with the people with all the buffoon hairdos and stuff like that and we get high and laugh at them It was just I mean it was horrible. And so my wife was smart enough smart enough not to push it on me What she did she went out and got 950 million people praying for me. I didn't have a chance and I didn't know So they're praying for such a she's living her life I'm living my life.
And so one day out of curiosity I decided to follow my life my wife and her friends to a meeting that they'd been attending and it was in Westwood, California Just off the UCLA campus. There was a there was a old converted sorority house They called it the light and power house and every Wednesday night a young man at that time by the name of Hal Lindsey Would speak there some of you have heard of him He wrote a book years ago called the late great planet earth and I didn't know who this guy was I get there and This guy Mike Bartell who's one of my dear friends to this day my big strapping guy big You know Hell's Angel former Hell's Angel gang leader a former mafia guy an ex army Ranger that used to go behind the enemy lines in Vietnam and us an Assassinated his target and come back over again. You know, these are the people that the government say don't exist He was one of them. He I mean he just telling these stories and he totally blew My stereotype of what a Christian was. I mean, I certainly wasn't gonna call him a Jesus freak You know and so he tells his story and then how Lindsey comes out tells his story.
Well Enough information how Lindsey had this way. He would open up the Bible now guys You have to understand when I was in the Catholic Church The they didn't even talk it. They didn't speak in English It was either Italian when we were in Rhode Island or in Latin and you didn't have to know what the Bible said the priest Did it did all of that and so when he opened up the Bible and started teaching out of it It was like really this stuff is for today. I mean, I didn't have a clue And so one day I was on my way home after several months of going to these meetings Not I didn't go to a regular church on my way home and I gave my heart to the Lord and I just said the words Lord I want to ask you into my heart. I want you to be my savior and I got home and I shared that with Cindy And of course she was ecstatic But if she were here, she would tell you after I asked Jesus into my heart the next eight years would become a living nightmare In fact, I did more damage to the kingdom of God as a new believer than I did before I knew him Why because it was around that time I had bought three or four thousand people working for me in the business world and I went around telling them I was a Christian the only thing is my life did not change There was nothing listen guys.
It's not the words. We speak. It's the life. They see in fact in my closing remarks tomorrow I'm going to be talking about that very very important. So If you hear nothing else, I say you need to tune in right now because I'm going to describe Unfortunately too many of us that are in this room right now.
I Accepted Jesus as my savior Not my Lord and there is a big difference gentlemen It would be eight years before I would let him be Lord of my life Okay, depending upon where you are the Theologically, maybe I had heaven insurance. I don't know all I know is that I didn't want any part of him ruling me Listen guys, this is very important. There are two gods not one over here is a god that we want Over here is the god who is they are not the same god You pursue this god at your peril That's the guy who says you'll make it if you're a good person I'll help you if you help yourself and you can change that bible verse and make it say anything your little heart desires to Suit your unique lifestyle You pursue that god at your great peril the god who is listen gentlemen. He's real He lives in heaven and he has an opinion And guess whose opinion don't count We don't like that We want it to be about us Well, that's the God I was pursuing Cindy would say it came to almost a black hole We had people saying Cindy you need to leave that guy We could see we could see the Ayatollah Khomeini coming to Jesus, but not vance. They gave me no hope Okay, it was unbelievable even Christians.
That's how bad I was I Wasn't longing after that. I was in Dallas, Texas on a trip. I called home, which is my custom Phone rang Cindy answered and she was crying. I said, what's wrong with you? She began to tell me everything that she had learned over the prior two days And you know how when you uncover a rock and you find something and you go whoa And then you uncover another one and another one well in two days She found out every dirty lie of my life all the affairs all the lying the cheating the drugs Everything and I believe God sovereignly had me 2,000 miles away when this happened so that I could not be there and control this thing and make it out Make it come out the way I wanted it to and I've never been so scared guys.
I cried myself to sleep I kept saying what are you gonna do? She had every right to take our two little girls at that time and leave me legally morally spiritually But she said I don't know what we're gonna what I'm gonna do I got home and she said well, there's any big gonna be any any help At all is there gonna be any chance at all we're going to church. I said, okay, honey Let's go to church right how many of you guys know as a man. I was out of bargaining chips Okay, I didn't have any more bargaining chips, you know, we have to store those puppies up and use them every now and then I didn't have any let's go to church. Well, that's when she began attending a little church in Van Nuys, California Known as the church on the way and if you know, that's the ministry of pastor Jack Hayford very Pentecostal church Charismatic church I came from the Catholic church, which you know, you have to do anything to this Pentecostal church and man It freaked me out and I'll never forget my first day at church on the way They in those days Pastor Jack wouldn't allow you to sit anywhere.
You wanted to sit every day Usher you in you have to fill every seat one row at a time. Okay, so you couldn't sit where you want it See you guys when you go to church, you have neighborhoods. You have your own neighborhood Yeah, I say I say that's honestly That's pretty dumb get out of that neighbor because that way pastor doesn't know if you're there or not, you know You just forget the neighborhood no neighborhood So I'm stuck in the middle of an aisle and the worship team comes out like these guys Okay, and they're and they're praising God and they're and they're raising their hands and I'm going what? What is this? I'm sweating through my clothes.
I mean, I'm just so I'm hyperventilating Cindy's a it's okay It's okay. No, it's not okay And so they're they're worshiping God and standing and so they get all done worshiping God and we sit back down and I'm thinking Oh, man, and then this pastor Hayford comes out and begins to preach Right in the middle of his message. Okay. I turned to Cindy. I said you told him didn't you no I didn't say anything you had to have told him about us.
No, I didn't say anything everything that man said was about me He even looked right at me. Have you ever had that happen? You know what that is? You know what that is that that's God up in heaven calling the angels over say look look look at Vince Look at him squirm, you know That's what that is. So anyway, so that he gets all done with his message and I think we're gonna leave now No, we're not gonna leave now now we have we are gonna form circles of prayer I said, what's a circle of prayer?
It's when you turn in you in your aisle and you you meet with total strangers and you hold hands and pray out loud What I turned to Cindy what and she so she's so fed up. She turned informed her own circle She went away So I'm standing here and there's three guys three guys behind me and I learned later The the guy has a sense of humor these three guys were elders in the church, okay? Three guys behind me and they're looking at me and one guy and one of the guys is a chewing gum You know that the last time I chewed gum in the church the nuns come and they take you by the ear You don't do that and so this guy's chewing gum. Hey Got any prayer requests? So I said, you know what I'm just gonna blow these guys over dead, you know, and I told them our story real quick told them the story And so the guy chewing gum Here's my story.
I think he was gonna faint. I thought he was gonna faint or something. Here's my story and he goes like this Huh Okay, let's pray shall we It was like nothing to these guys and they ended up praying over me Have you guys ever had to experience where where somebody will get around and pray for you that really doesn't know you that well But yet they're praying almost a prophetic prayer. They're praying something. There's like whoa that had to be God That's what it was like and I got all done and we're out in the parking lot now And I'm walking through the parking lot with my wife I just feel like I've been just run over by 14 Mack trucks, you know, and I said I said honey What are we gonna do now?
She says now we're gonna go see the counselor counselor Timeout what counselor? Yeah, we're gonna see the counselor got a babysitter. Well, I had no chips So I'll kind of close the story with the scene in the counselor's office We go in and the counselor asked Cindy. What's going on? She tells our story Then he says, okay, Cindy, what are you going to do?
She said I don't know Then he said what did Jesus do and she said well he went to the cross. Yeah, he went to the cross But what did he do then? He died. Yeah, he died. He died for who?
Well, he died for me That's right And then he called me over he said Vince I want you to come over here And I want you to stand in front of your wife now. I'm six foot. She's five foot two So I'm looking down at her and he says I want you to look into your wife's eyes So I began to look into her eyes and I kept kind of turning away No, no, no, you keep looking into her eyes. Keep looking into her eyes He made me look into her eyes for what became an uncomfortably long period of time That's anything more than four seconds for us men It's been said please listen That you can tell the character of a man by looking into the eyes of his wife Let me repeat that You can tell the character of a man by looking into the eyes of his wife and gentlemen I'm here to tell you that is a true statement And as I'm looking into her eyes He said words that reverberate in my soul to this day He leaned down into my ear and he said I don't see a lot of life in there. Do you?
And it was like In that moment it was like a dagger went through my heart You know how they say that a drowning person sees their life flashing before them, you know It was like in that moment the Lord allowed me to see this incredible Panoramic picture of all the incredible hurt and pain I had heaped upon this precious child of his and I was never felt so ashamed and Cindy believes that she heard the Lord speak to her at that moment and Said words to her that she wouldn't share with me for some time He said Cindy if you will decide to forgive Vince, I promise you there will be a third day resurrection and She made a decision that day that would forever change the course of our life together She made a decision to let me go let God have me to forgive me and to move on and from there We got involved in our church We ended up teaching the marriage class at our church, which is a which was amazing and We've been growing ever since But I want to tell you as I close why this story is so important to many of you right now And in order to do that I need to have a volunteer that has a $20 bill that I can use I promise you I will give it back. I just someone with a $20 bill right now to jump up. Come on, sir. What's your name? Tim Jeff Jeff, okay, Jeff.
Thank you. You can go ahead. I'll bring it back to you You know, I'm Italian, but I well you maybe maybe Anyway, this this is a nice crisp clean $20 bill let's now it's not mine obviously, but let's pretend for a moment that it is and I just happen to have way too many of these and I do not need this one if I had a bunch of these I could give them out freely. I don't need them. How many of you would say sure I'd take one Raise your hand if you take one about half of you.
The rest of you are very wealthy apparently, but okay, so so now You would take it if I were giving them away, right now watch this Now Look at that. It's not so pretty anymore It's kind of a little wrinkly and kind of crumpled up a little bit little broken kind of is there anybody that would still take it Really? Oh, okay, wait a minute. I'm not getting this. Let me let me Let's do this.
Let me put it down on the ground and kind of Squish it into the ground, you know and and kind of like get it dirty and filthy and cracked and broken Now it's really pathetic looking. Anybody still want it? Really? Let me make sure I understand what you're telling me You're telling me That know how no matter how wrinkled how broken How messed up how dirty how pathetic How smelly this worthless piece of plastic may be and make no mistake about it gentlemen This is nothing more than a worthless piece of plastic the only value it has is the value you and I place upon it And you're telling me no matter its condition. It has value to you Come on guys, are you getting this are you and how dare you?
Think that no matter how broken how messed up All the garbage of your life as you look at it flashing before you whether it's porn or drugs or alcohol or a fair So matter what it is how cracked How filthy how pathetic your mice life may look to you that your heavenly father Could possibly see you in that light He is Crazy about you. You are the most beautiful Beautiful creature in his eyes So the next time you want to throw a pity party for where you are gentlemen. You remember the $20 bill Okay, and no you cannot have this one, but you can come on up here I'll tell you what I'm gonna do for you I'm not gonna give you this one I'm gonna give you this brand-new $20 bill as a representation of what Jesus Christ has come to do For you in smoothing out all the wrinkles and all the bad He he just asked me if I had an American one Yeah, that's When you come from America here, that's really that's so funny actually anyway But let me just say this and I want to pray for you guys The the takeaways typically that people have and the reason why promise keepers wanted me to share that story There are two things that are going through your mind right now Many of you are stuck on the the idea and asking the question Which God am I seeking? A God that I want or the God who is that's where a lot of you are You're wondering have I accepted Jesus as my Savior or am I allowing him to be Lord of my life? Others of you are maybe remembering the looking into the eyes of your wife because perhaps with a crowd this size There's a lot of Relationship issues that are at stake as well But I want to say this to you before I pray and turn it back over Later tonight as we close Daz is going to come and issue a real challenge for all of us My prayer is that you will allow this time now To let the Holy Spirit really soften your heart and sensitize you because when when Daz comes many of you You're going to sense God's presence in this place and he's going to your heart is going to be wanting to thump out of your chest That's okay.
That's a good thing Guys don't let this weekend just become another event Get serious about Your walk and your surrender to the only one that can turn your life around amen Bow your heads with me. Thank you. Thank you, Jesus Thank you for tonight. Thank you for these precious men And I pray Lord that you would not allow anything of the world the flesh or the devil to get in the way of your Intended purpose for every heart represented here tonight Do a mighty work Lord as we look forward in great anticipation for what you're going to do And it's Jesus name that we that we pray and all God's kids said a rousing Amen