Rock

Way back in the early years of the Jesus movement there was this group from southern California named Love Song. They were a rock group before they became Christians, but they were all searching for the truth, the meaning of life. In their search, they came across this church called Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, where the pastor, Chuck Smith, had been successfully reaching to the hippie culture with the message of salvation. Within a period of several weeks, each of the members of Love Song responded to this message and were born again. They turned their musical skills to writing and performing songs for their Lord, but kept the original name of their group.

After several years of singing and touring, the group decided to disband. One of the members, Chuck Girard, still had a desire to write and sing new songs, and so worked on releasing an album of solo music. He had originally wanted to name the album Rock ‘N’ Roll Preacher, but this presented a problem. In the 1970s and 1980s, it was most common for Christian music to be sold through Bible bookstores across the country; typical record stores just were not interested in stocking that kind of music. But the kind of music that was done by many Jesus music artists was performed in the style that they had grown up with, namely rock and roll, and for many who were in the church, this was still viewed with suspicion and sometimes outright hostility.

The label that would be releasing Chuck’s first album urged him to not put that title on the album. They told him that in many cases a Bible bookstore would refuse to put an album with “rock and roll” in the title on their shelves, and secondly there would be many who would refuse to purchase an album with those words in the title. So, he relented and released the album under his own name, Chuck Girard. The result was that it did fairly well in the Christian marketplace, despite the fact that the first track on the album had that awful term in the title.

Some of the songs I like from Jesus music appeal to me because they bring me closer to the heart of God; sometimes it is because it speaks to where I am or where I have been in my life. And sometimes it’s just because it’s a fun song that makes me smile and simply sing along. And that is the case with the song, Rock ‘N’ Roll Preacher by Chuck Girard, by his self-titled 1975 album. Enjoy!

When I was young,
My life was rock ‘n’ roll music
Just diggin’ the wonderful sound
I’d get home from school
And when I’d finished my lessons
I’d listen to music
‘Til the sun came around

I’d sit by the hour
And pound my old piano
Pick out the chords to the songs
I’d heard on the air
And on American Bandstand
Just learnin’ the words
And then a-singin’ along

But who’d ever thought
I’d be a rock ‘n’ roll preacher
‘Stead of just singin’ the blues
Who’d ever thought
I’d be a rock ‘n’ roll preacher
Singin’ my song
So you can hear the good news

Now that I’m free
My heart is filled with the gladness
That comes when a life has been changed
The song I now sing
Has a different ring
The lyrics have meaning,
but the tune is the same

But I want you to know
I still love rock ‘n’ roll music
But now I have something to say
I’ll sing you my song
And maybe you’ll sing along
And we’ll make us a noise
They’ll hear in Heavenly places

Who’d ever thought
I’d be a rock ‘n’ roll preacher
‘Stead of just singin’ the blues
Who’d ever thought
I’d be a rock ‘n’ roll preacher
Singing my song
So you can hear the good news

©1974 Dunamis Music

This album can be purchased from Chuck Girard’s     web site here.

Tags: Chuck Girard, rock

For my wife and I, it has been our great joy to have the opportunity to have two children and see them grow from tiny newborns to college age. We have experienced the pleasure, the pain, and the responsibilty of protecting them, nurturing them, and helping them to become adults who may, in turn, take the love we’ve shown them and someday raise the next generation.

In the past couple of years I’ve enjoyed taking out old photos and scanning them, to make them more available to view than it has ever been possible in the past. And as I do this, and relive my own life growing up in a loving family, I look at my own family, and hope we communicated to these two wonderful kids the deep love that we felt for them.

Kodak aired this commercial back in the 1960s:

Ever since I saw them, I’ve been a sucker for a story that talks about life and the inevitible changes that it brings. And one of the best of those types of songs in the era of Jesus music is Goodnight Kiss from Steve & Annie Chapmnan’s 1984 album Circle Of Two.

I count it as a privilege
I count it cause for praise
To kiss my children goodnight
At the close of every day

For I know too soon
They’re up and gone
And walking out the door
And I’ll never have a child to kiss
Goodnight anymore

It’s very strange how times have changed
From the present to the past
When did they grow so quickly
The time has flown so fast

For it seems that only yesterday
I helped him with his shirt
Or pat my baby on the back
Kissed away a hurt

Tell a story, read a book
Wipe a nose, or tie a shoe
They never ask me to rub their back
The way they used to do

Once it was a bother
Just a troublesome kind of chore
But now I would give anything
To do it just once more

Mommy, bounce me on your knee
Daddy, flip me in the air
Throw a rubber ball to me
And help me comb my hair

Mommy, tickle my tummy
Daddy, hold me tight
Let’s go outside for a while
Or make a kite to fly

I count it as a privilege
I count it cause for praise
To kiss my children goodnight
At the close of every day

For I know too soon
They’re up and gone
And walking out the door
And I’ll never have a child to kiss
Goodnight anymore

And I’ll never have a child to kiss
Goodnight
Anymore

Although I cannot find a link to the song to download, here is a link to their website, where you can purchase the CD An Evening Together, which contains this song.

Tags: children, family, love, Steve & Annie Chapman

As a followup to my last post, here is another song that deals with the example of Jesus to love the unloved (and sometimes unloveable). Rachel Scott usually introduces this song in concert by telling a story about Mother Teresa of India. She once encountered a man who was deformed by disease. She didn’t just pat him on the hand and say, “bless you”. She didn’t hold her hands over him and pray for him. She offered the kind of human contact that many lose with their own mothers: She kissed him.

You could argue that the man needed medical attention (he probably did). You could say that he needed money, clothing, food, and water (again, most likey true). If you want to get to spiritual matters, you might say that he needed salvation from Jesus (which is true of each one of us). What he got, in this story, is a kiss. And that might have reached more deeply into his scarred and wounded heart than any other kind of help that could have been offered. It was the least deserved and least expected help that he ever could have hoped for. And he was given it.

Obviously, the take-home message from this is not to go out and start kissing people on the street. It does mean that we are called to love others and meet their needs as we are able. The goal of meeting those needs is to let them know that another person in the world loves them, and make it possible for them to see that there is a Father in heaven who loves them even more. All of those ministry outreaches that were mentioned in the last post are ways in which this might be accomplished. Can we learn to see Christ in these people, to love and serve them as we would if it were Jesus Himself we were facing?

From her 2008 album, Resolution, Rachel Scott sings about this in her song The Least Of These.

What kind of logic is this
The repulsive one is the face you kiss
There must be something in this
Can you explain how you love like this?

Is it Christ you see in the least of these
Maybe that’s what is intriguing to me
And I want it to change me
I need it to change me

It’s easy to say “I believe”
But what matters most is how I receive
The hungry
The thirsty
The stranger in need

Is it Christ you see in the least of these
Maybe that’s what is intriguing to me
And I want it to change me
I need it to change me

Is it Christ you see in the least of these
Maybe that’s what is intriguing to me
And I want it to change me
I need it to change me

Change the way I see
The hungry, the thirsty
The stranger in need
The naked, pris’ner
The ones who are weak

The hungry, the thirsty
The stranger in need
The naked, pris’ner
The ones who are weak

The boy who is praying for food on his knees
The woman who is selling himself on the street
The hungry, thirsty
The stranger in need
The nations held captives and long to be freee

Is it Christ you see in the least of these
Maybe that’s what is intriguing to me
And I want it to change me
I need it to change me

Change the way I see…

Buy this on iTunes   using this link

Tags: Rachel Scott, service

Last Sunday was Life Sunday, when we remember the sanctity of life. At my church we had a panel of five local ministry leaders with whom our pastor talked during the sermon time. We heard from:

• AAA Center For Pregnancy Counseling, working to encourage women to seek alternatives to abortion when facing an unplanned pregnanacy
• Embrace The Heartland In Prayer, focused on dedicated prayer for the city of Omaha
• Good News Jail & Prison Ministry, ministry to those serving sentences, to bring hope to those who are hopeless and giving them a reason to not return to crime
• Abide Network, working in the underserved and poor part of the city to restore and empower children and families to change their world through the transforming power of Jesus
• Threefold Cord, which focuses on ministry to the elderly in nursing homes, many of whom are forgotten, lonely, and facing death

Photo credit -- Flickr, Romanlily

As each representative spoke, and told of the work they do, and the lives they have impacted, it was startling to see the great need present in the very city in which I live. I was shown how lives from pre-birth to the grave all have their own unique problems, and how some people had been called out of their comfort zones to help and minister to these underserved groups.

Amongst the songs we sang that morning, our worship leader chose one that specifically focused on getting a feeling for God’s heart for all of these hurting people. Notice the lines that I’ve emphasized below in boldface, especially this: “break my heart for what breaks yours.” Or, as one of our speakers stated, “I once asked Jesus into my heart. I now learned that I needed to ask Jesus to let me into His heart.”

Oh, Lord, help me see each person you bring across my path with Your eyes, as I do my daily work!

Here is the song Hosanna, as sung here by Hillsong, from the live 2007 album Saviour King.

I see the King of Glory
Coming on the clouds with fire
The whole earth shakes
The whole earth shakes

I see His love and mercy
Washing over all our sin
The people sing
The people sing

Hosanna
Hosanna
Hosanna in the highest

Hosanna
Hosanna
Hosanna in the highest

I see a generation
Rising up to take their place
With selfless faith
With selfless faith

I see a near revival
Stirring as we pray and seek
We’re on our knees
We’re on our knees

Hosanna
Hosanna
Hosanna in the highest

Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like You have loved me

Break my heart from what breaks yours
Everything I am for Your kingdom’s cause
As I go from earth into Eternity

Hosanna
Hosanna
Hosanna in the highest

Hosanna
Hosanna
Hosanna in the highest

Tags: Hillsong, Life, Praise, pray, serve