Part II - My How Things Have Changed - Turning Point

So, in Part I of this series, I outlined the very first time I participated in a modern day worship experience in church.  The upshot of it was that it was nothing like I expected- we had nothing but good things coming out of it; the congregation dug it; God was glorified.  All good.

In the days that followed, we saw a ground swell of acceptance and real change towards this mode of service and participation.  By early 1983 (I was gone by then) this type of service was becoming more and more the norm in a lot of places.  The "youth" service (as it was referred to at my church) had a congregation that was growing by leaps and bounds, and easily made the ratio of 2:1 over the more traditional services.  Some of that ratio was borne out of the fact that the more traditional folks were older, but a lot of it was that we found that the traditionalists were starting to come to the more "youth" oriented services because it made them feel "more alive".  This presented a bit of a challenge, actually.  While the music was more "up" and the interaction was on a more personal - rather than corporate - vibe, the need to provide more meat to the message was something that just wasn't quite there.  The traditionalists were concerned that "the show" of it all was becoming the focus, rather than the teaching and applicative parts of the message.  Their concern was somewhat founded.  It was on one of the occasions of me being home from a rather hectic touring schedule (I had left college early, as I managed to get a really good playing gig while there) that I was picked to give "the message" (no longer called "the sermon") to the younger crowd's service.

Before I go too far in telling you this part of the story, I want to make one thing abundantly clear.  I had no delusions of grandeur, and I had no intention of doing something that would translate into a trend-setting, neauveau-riche style of preaching.  I wasn't really trying to make a new "statement"- I just wanted to give my side of the story.  I had left a rather small community and had been travelling a good part of the world while still extremely young, and to some that made me a bit of a celebrity.  (That is a VERY relative statement.)

The topic I picked was "Why is it so difficult to be a Christian?".  The immediate thing that most people think of is "we are in the world but not of it" or "we are light in the darkness" or a host of other Christian platitudes/cliches - and those are good, solid messages - but I think of those as too ambiguous and too referential.  I wanted something more applicative.  So, I decided to use an analogy - and props, too.  My props were a small, metal lunchbox (it was a "Gentle Ben" lunchbox, from the 60's TV show- one of my faves when I was very young) and a 6.5' x 4' wooden cross, made hastily by me out of 2x4's.  After playing with the band, I went to the stage (pulpit) and brought out these two props and placed the lunchbox on the dias, and then leaned on the cross while I talked.  My topics of discussion were:

1. Both of these can represent faith.  They are nothing but objects.
2. One is small and fairly easy to hide or forget to take with you.  The other is not.
3. One contains faith; the other can hold faith, but it is in the open where all can see it.
4. One can contain other things, but the things inside it must shrink to fit other items; the other can contain far more items, but the world will see them all, eventually.
5. One is easy to carry; the other is not.  They require different commitment levels if they are to be carried with you.
6. One can be leaned upon.  The other will be crushed by that same action, even if there are things inside it.

Our senior pastor worked it out so that he could be in attendance for this service.  I did not have a chance to tell him what I was going to do - I was supposed to run it all by him, but never managed to do it - and he was absolutely stunned by this delivery.  He never used props - it just never occurred to him.  He sat in the back, watching and listening, and when I got to point #6, I could see him crying.  So was most of the congregation - and so was I.  Even though I had written the words to "The Cross And The Lunchbox", until I read the words out loud, I hadn't fully grasped my own concept.  It was a pretty cool moment.

At the end of the message, I did something that to this day has never been repeated in that church- I had an altar call.  I hadn't planned on it, it just happened.  I looked into the audience, and I thought, "if I have had any impact at all, now is the time to find out", and asked if there was anyone who didn't know Jesus but wanted to.  Come on down to the front, and we'll pray so you can accept Him.  (Yes, I had seen this done several times)  I won't aggrandize this- I had like 4 people come forward out of a crowd of about 200.  At the time, that bummed me out, but in retrospect, this was just something that most weren't comfortable with in a Presbyterian/Methodist-ish tradition.  (I have since come to terms with this.)

This church's tradition was to pronounce a Benediction to the congregation from the pulpit (which I did) and then to go outside to shake hands with the congregation as they leave.  I did that, and had some mixed reviews- about 50% of the crowd thought it was one of the cooler things they'd ever seen/heard, but the other 50% seemed to vary from shell-shocked to non-plussed, but there was no overt "Man, I just HATED that" type of comments.  At the end of the line was my pastor, who waited until everyone was through the line.  He walked up to me and kissed me on the cheek and whispered in my ear "I loved it", and then motioned me to his office to talk.  (We had planned to "debrief" after the service, so not a surprise)  All he wanted to know was how I came up with the topic and execution, and my answer was, "I dunno.  I just wanted to be different, and I wanted to challenge folks."  In the time that followed, I heard that the senior pastor was now fond of using props, and was challenging the congregation more and more each week in much the same way.  No altar calls, however- but that's ok.  The dynamic had changed again, and although the traditionalist service went through a period right after this of dwindling numbers, the youth service seemed to be gaining more momentum.

After this, for me, life would take a very different course, and my time in really being a participant in that particular community was at an end.  I had made a difference, though, and in the years to come, whenever I ran into someone from that community of Believers, they remembered these things vividly, and seemed to all think that, for whatever reason, that message was a turning point for them and their walk with God.  I, however, had other things on the horizon - some good, but many bad - and we'll go into that in Part 3.