When I was growing up, church music meant one thing- "turn to page 319 in your hymnal" and the pipe organist would play the last 4 bars of the chorus, and the congregation would belt out "Blessed Be The Tie That Binds" as best they could. As a youngster who was into rock things like Zeppelin, Cream, Floyd and jazz things like Miles, Coltrane and Adderly, these tunes left me really flat.
You see, by the time I was old enough to attend "big church", I was already a fairly seasoned musician. It began with violin, then piano, then bass. By the time I was in junior high school, it was also low brass (euphonium and tuba) as well as percussion (mallets and snare) and even more strings- viola and cello. I found myself playing in high school and community college orchestras and even the occasional pit orchestra. I had a fascination with the pipe organ, too- and whenever I could get into my church's sanctuary and play it, I did so. Bach, Handel and Mendelsohn were some of my favorite things to play on it, but so were Procol Harum and Pink Floyd. (You haven't truly lived until you pull out all the stops and play "Great Gig In The Sky" on a pipe organ.)
But, I digress.
Even though my walk with Jesus was, at best, tenuous, church played a tremendous role in my household. My paternal grandfather was a highly thought of Methodist minister, and a musician, too. It was he that first germinated the seed of playing violin with me at age 3, and my grandmother taught me piano for many years- and all of it was based on early Wesleyan hymns. My immediate family considered themselves to be "intellectual Christians" and although they pushed church on me, they themselves didn't really believe it- even when my father and stepmother ran my church's junior and senior high school groups for a time.
I, however, found the church to be much more than a social thing. Being the child of a divorced home (and my biological parents being absolutely horrible to each other) I found it more as a safety net- but also a place with answers. Although I had a difficult time grasping the concept of a loving and fogiving God - in the face of a mother who was physically abusive - I knew that there was something here, and if I participated, I'd proibably find it. What I did know was that music was very much part of the equation. I latched onto the concept of playing music for God at a very young age, and was bound and determined to do that, no matter what. My early attempts at that were to ask the organist at church if I could play piano with her during services. I was 12 at the time, and she thought it was crazy. After just pestering the life out of her about this, she decided to let me do that for a Wednesday night prayer service just to see how it would go, and the congregation LOVED IT. The organist was impressed, and I was given a Sunday a month to accompany the organist on piano. Still, I wanted more.
About this time, I started hearing about artists like Larry Norman, Keith Green and Randy Stonehill - the Jesus People movement. I checked out their music, and although more initial reaction was "it's a little bit pedestrian" (and, remember- I was about 13 or 14) it was a means to an end. I convinced the pastor to allow us to have a "Youth Sunday" where the kids would do the entire service, sermon and all. I was picked to lead the band, and my best friend at the time (who was also a really good drummer) would do the sermon. My job was to play piano on all but the special tune, and on that I would play bass. I'll never forget it- the special tune was "The Victor" by Jamie Owens-Collins and sung by my new favorite singer, Keith Green. It wasn't exactly a rocker (not like "American Dream" by Resurrection Band - which is what I wanted us to play) but it did have this cool 3/8 feel that was more like a dotted quarter note.....very progressive.......this would be fun. We all practiced our collective butts off for weeks ahead of time.
So, Youth Sunday arrived. This was such a relatively new concept that it had made the papers in town, and when that Sunday arrived, the church was really packed- and it was packed with more young people than I had ever seen. Our congregation wandered in to the sanctuary - which now sported my friends Tama Superstar drum kit (double kick, too!) and an electric guitar amp and a bass guitar amp- and my then prized possession - a 1972 Rickenbacker 4001. There were vocal mikes in stands at the front of the church, and we had brought in a Shure Vocalmaster to amplify the vocals. Even the piano was miked! This was too much for some of the congregation, and some of them walked out before the service started.
I distinctly remember the organist, Susan, walking in with her husband and going down to the first row and sitting down while holding his hand. She and I had become friends, and while she was most definitely in the camp of "this is a bad idea", she knew my heart and she knew that the church needed to change. Several other old folks joined her as though it was "safe" to do so, and the front row's average age was something like 65. There were kids everywhere else, and this being the mid 1970's, a lot of them were very "hippy" looking, which got a few more jaundiced eyes from our congregation. Our senior pastor was also in the front row, smiling. He was a great guy.
The service starts. Instead of telling the congregation to open their hymnals, we had mimeographed a "set list" into the church bulletin. I went to a microphone, welcomed the crowd and told them that we would be referring to that piece of paper for the songs instead of calling them out from the pulpit. There were murmurs. I went to the piano and began playing- and our singers from the band (I was one of them, too) began leading the congregation from mike stands and thru a PA system- murmurs ran through the crowd, but the front row all stayed and beamed and sang at the top of their lungs. My friends sermon went off without a hitch, and then it was time for the special tune.
Everyone has those watershed moments in their life when something big changes. Some of us even get the priviledge of knowing that when it happens. This was one of those times. I got up off the piano bench, and made my way to my bass guitar and picked it up. Our guitar player, Rich, did the same thing. My friend, who had just delivered the sermon, sat down at his drumkit, and older his sister (our lead singer) took center stage with a microphone in her hand. The whole place was eerily quiet, and it made me look at the crowd- about half of whom I knew well, but not the other half. It dawned on me- no one in the congregation that I knew had ever seen me play bass- and none of them had ever seen this kind of a thing in church. My drummer friend clicked his sticks and we launched into the tune- and crushed it. When the tune finished, the entire room erupted in applause. Then they stood up. A standing ovation- in a very protestant, non-charasmatic church- this was amazing. The whole front row even cheered. I was absolutely elated, as was the rest of the band. We dismissed the service, and went outside to greet the congregation.
When we got outside, we were warmly greeted by everyone, and even the folks that were against the idea of the youth doing the service were complimentary- yeah, there were some who were guarded - "Well, that was.....different.......but I really liked it. I didn't think I would, but I did!" - but by and large there were no bad comments. The kids from town who came were exuberant in their praise of what we'd done - "Are you going to do that again?" and "Are you guys gonna play out anywhere" and "Where can I come see your band?" - that's what I heard. That's what we all heard. Even our senior pastor was elated at what we had accomplished.
That was the beginning of the change. Our pastor agreed to a quarterly event with the band in the sanctuary (once every three months) but that only lasted two times, and then it was monthly. Then bi-monthly. When I left for college, that church had split into 2 different age group services - a "regular service" and a "youth oriented service" every Sunday, but even the regular service had an acoustic guitarist in it with the organist- who was now playing piano.
I had no idea what we'd actually done, and how much things in church were going to change. That'll be Part II.
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