One of the best concerts I ever attended was Chicago, 1970-ish, in Boise, Idaho. I loved Chicago, Moody Blues, Heart, Doobie Brothers, Bread, among others. My favorite over the years was Chicago—because inside their big band rock was an optimistic, hopeful life giving and fun celebration of life.
At that same concert was my first real sense of the sweat smell of pot which hung in the air near me. I remember that actually saddened me and chose to ignore and settle in for the musical ride. Nor was I disappointed.
That memory is juxtaposed with another concert of the same era on NNC’s (now NNU) campus by Larry Norman of “I wish We’d All Been Ready” fame. His concert was in the dark, a single light focusing on an obviously talented and apparently sincere artist simply bringing attention to a world on the cusp of chaos and asking the only question of import, as he saw it, “When hell breaks out into the earth, will you escape to heaven?”
Two very different versions of the gospel are represented in each concert.
The one I grew up with was focused on conversion, a transactional, experiential relationship with God reserved for those who arrive at the concert with the free ticket and have it punched. In my Naz tradition there were actually two punches; one to get in and the second to see that you never left—a Holy Spirit Baptism of love that would forever keep you rock’n to the rhythms of the beat.
The only problem with the two punch theory was that I couldn’t seem to nail the thing down. God knows I tried, believed, trusted but the two punches turned into several hundred until I finally decided the best I might ever achieve is a deep passion for the concert itself; a groupe kind of thing deeper than love itself.
It was inside the tent, in my college years, I discovered another kind of gospel concert and began to face somewhat honestly my own struggles with the first conversion concert—namely that more were excluded, on the outside than in, most who never even knew a concert was in the community. For the first time I realized I was actually pretty uncomfortable outside the tent, quite certain that these less than “saved” had nothing on me. I wondered how in the world I could ever truly love God with my whole self, if the only self I knew was the one who needed the concert more than God.
These were my Wynkoopian-1 years in whom Loving God was center and confessions over never really enjoying the concert were allowed, even questions about the whole ticket thing. She, Dr Wynkoop, turned my eyes away from being Christian to being human, from guilt to love, from walking inside everyone else’s experience to walking in my own skin.
In these years I discovered men, curious, fun, intelligent who had no felt need of God but in whom life and laughter were abundant. They genuinely seemed more “saved” or at least human than me and so began my curiosity with The Creator as opposed to only The Savior, with things human and of this earth instead of seeing this journey as only prep for another. It finally dawned on me that if I were to truly love God I would need to start living instead of hanging outside the concert just long enough to capture a soul and ticket them.
Two other changes were transformative.
1) Just before my senior year I got this job running a 4-way leveling huge wheat combine with a 16’ ability to lean into a hill at a 20-25% grade. I should have been fired and thought I might die a couple of times, seriously considering walking off and away from the whole thing. Somehow this 12 hour a day, six days a week job put me, inside me. I loved it and swore, literally, that if God got me out of the job alive I’d never do it again.
2) I was taken with C.S.Lewis for the next two years and discovered a Christian vision very much like my Wesleyan roots but very unlike my revivalist roots. For the first time I understood that “becoming fully human” was at the heart of salvation and had very little to do with the mechanics of the concert, focusing instead upon the music.
Finally a 2nd concert began to take shape in the open air, welcome all—hang the ticket. Evidently Jesus was the Ticket and he had already taken the punch. Come or don’t come. Just listen to the drummer and allow the music to flow in and around and through you. If God wants you saved, then God will work it all out in, through and in spite of you.
In this concert labels were irrelevant; only love fullfilled by integrity and responding to another’s needs. For the first time I was listening and discovering just how lavish is God and far reaching the Jesus event; having been in play from before time itself. (See Ephesians 1 for a descriptive).
My job? Live, be human, listen and when and where appropriate announce the good news that the open air concert was already present and the only condition? Respond.
Have I thrown away the old concert? Yes! In favor of one where all are honestly welcome and no tickets are sold, where love is the coin of the realm and Jesus is the magic that makes the whole thing worth living.
Conversion? Yes, daily, as I grow up into Christ in all ways. See you at the concert! Happy New Year!
Blessings! Terry :)
1 Dr. Mildred Bangs-Wynkoop, professor of theology and author of “A Theology of Love,” among others.
Purchase at: https://www.amazon.com/Theology-Love-Dynamic-Wesleyanism-Second/dp/0834134934/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1W8GT2
Happy New Year from Chicago
Greatest Hits-Vinyl
https://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Hits-1982-1989-Vinyl-Chicago/dp/B01H3KUHFM/ref=pd_sbs_1/139-2265490-
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