As a teenager, I played guitar in a rock ‘n roll band. During the summer months I would find other other rock groups by walking outside and listening for the sound of drums and guitars. You could just follow the music to a garage or outdoor party where another band was playing. That is how we found one another as musicians.
I always had a love for music. My mother played piano and was an avid listener to pop radio. She had a huge collection of albums that included classical, jazz, broadway and big band. When rock ‘n roll began to hit the airwaves in the 50s, she would always find it on her car radio. My father had a beautiful voice and could have been a professional as had my Uncle Herman for a time in the 40s. But, my father lacked discipline and struggled with remembering lyrics.
I got my love of music from both of them and my mother started me on piano, but I just couldn’t suffer through the discipline of daily practice. I wanted to play, not study. I could sing very well and my father wanted me to take voice lessons, but I really didn’t want to study voice either. I needed something to capture my interest and give me a goal to suffer the discipline of study.
Rock ‘n roll was just what just what I needed. The songs were totally captivating and required only a rudimentary knowledge to play. I began taking guitar lessons and soon was in a neighborhood band. We learned everything by listening--there was no written music. You just followed the music that you heard.
In 1983, following the music led me to a new home church. I had stopped listening to rock music in 1970 after becoming a part of Berachah Church. After all, music was the key element of the hippie subculture that I was separating from in those days. And, since Col Thieme was an avid proponent of Big Band music from the 40s, I got rid of all rock albums.
Okay, so by now you are thinking, “What does this have to do with church?”
We were looking for a new home church--a community of believers who would think about and support us when we returned to Africa. The only way we knew to find a church was to start visiting some. So, every Sunday morning we would visit a new church that seemed to hold some promise. Since we were looking for a church that focused on “doing” rather than just study of the Bible, we widened our search beyond the traditional denominations.
One Sunday morning, we entered a traditional looking church building and took a seat in one of the pews. The strange thing was that there didn’t seem to be a pulpit. Instead, the entire stage area was packed with drums, guitars, horns and electronic keyboards. It looked like the setup for a rock band!
A few minutes later, a group of guys in their early twenties took the stage and began playing instrumental rock music. Then, they began singing what sounded to me like rock ‘n roll, but with Christian lyrics. One of the guitar players, who seemed to be the leader began speaking about music as a means of reaching into the hearts of listeners. He denied that rock was “of the devil” as claimed by so many preachers. Instead, he asserted that Christians needed to take back God’s invention of music and use it to spread the Gospel.
This made perfect sense to me, and anyway, I was really enjoying the music! The concert lasted over an hour and there never was a sermon--I guessed his comments about praise and worship in the vernacular of rock ‘n roll was the sermon for the day. Well, I was sold! Maybe we had found a new home?
We returned the following week and the rock equipment still occupied the stage area, but this time there was a pulpit in the middle. After about 20 minutes of congregational praise and worship to rock music, a gray-haired pastor took the pulpit. It turned out that this was a former Baptist congregation that was now “charismatic.” We had been to a few charismatic services and had seen some of the television ministries that focused on miracles, signs and wonders. Although, we were open to the reality of miracles in the present day, we were extremely skeptical of its proponents.
But, this church and its pastor seemed to be different. They seemed to genuinely believe that faith in God could result in miraculous intervention today just as in the time of Jesus. Well, that sure was a focus on “doing” more than “being” wasn’t it? Maybe after 13 years of accumulating biblical knowledge, I could benefit from some practical experience in the miraculous? We had “tested” Thieme’s doctrine to see if it worked. We could certainly test this charismatic doctrine and find out for ourselves.
We were heading back to Africa where belief in the supernatural was a strong element of culture. Jesus had to deal with a similar culture in his day. If Jesus needed to know how to handle the supernatural for his ministry, then it wouldn’t hurt us to know how to deal with the supernatural in ours.
But even more important to us was finding a community who would pray for and support us while we were overseas. And the people at Trinity Church seemingly took us in as their own immediately. They adopted us and we adopted them as our new church home. And even if Pastor Rod’s messages were not a tour de force of biblical exposition, the music was great! [Today, contemporary music is part of most Christian services, charismatic and non-charismatic, but in 1983 it was very unusual.]
We had followed the music to a new home church. Would we be able to follow the music to a church home in Zimbabwe?
Next: Back to the Jameson Hotel
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