Oct 212014
 

babyFifty-nine years ago today, baby “Wayne” (as his family called him) was born in Reid Memorial Hospital, Richmond, Indiana, home of the Purdue Boilermakers, due east of Indianapolis near the Ohio border.

 

It’s a rare and wonderful experience to meet and interact with a “famous” person, without knowing who they are. That’s how I met Wayne, forty years later, in March of 1995, in the Navajo Nation near Window Rock, Arizona, 1995 - Window Rock AZ 2during a week-long stay at Hilltop Christian School on the reservation with my mother and father, Christian author and film maker, Ken Anderson. Our purpose: to collaborate with local Navajo believers on an exploratory Teen Missions video script with the working title, “Forgiveness.”

 

I was alone at the guest house one morning when he burst in like a prairie twister, looking for someone who wasn’t there. We talked briefly. He looked scruffy, wearing only a white t-shirt and tattered denim shorts (even though it was snowing outside). He seemed uncomfortable, nervous, distracted, and out of place. I had no idea who he was.scruffy

 

Over time, I learned he was a fellow Hoosier, just two years older than I, and, more significantly, that he was Richard Wayne Mullins, better known as Rich Mullins, the extremely gifted musician through whom God had produced such classics as Sing Your Praise to the Lord (Amy Grant’s first hit), Awesome God, and Step by Step (Sometimes by Step).

 

hoganWhat I didn’t know, was that Rich was actually living in a hogan on the reservation. Though nearly 40, he was about to graduate from Friends University with a degree he pursued just to officially qualify to teach music education to the native children at Hilltop.

 

One evening, I sat on the living room floor at a small youth group gathering as Rich talked about writing Awesome God, and Step by Step (with Beaker), then played guitar and led us in those, and other, worship songs.

 

I noticed him several times that week, working on various service projects around the compound with college students who had come to minister on spring break.

 

The last night of our stay, Rich generously played piano and shared from his heart for about a hundred people in the school auditorium. It was my first exposure to the more innovative spiritual insights and incisive music and lyrics of this agitated, eccentric, poet-prophet. Rich seemed ill-suited in his own skin and misplaced on the planet. I found his spiritual transparency and musical talent alarming and magnetic. As a delightfully childlike treat, he divided us into sections and taught us to “make rain” using just our hands to produce simple sound effects, which, when combined, did sound remarkably like rain.

Though his music made millions, Rich gave everything away to Christian ministries and the poor, except for an allowance equal to the average American salary. Following in the bare footsteps of St. Francis, he literally accepted the same invitation Jesus gave to the rich young ruler in Luke 12:15-21, to give up everything and become rich toward God.

closeness quote

When I learned of his death in a traffic accident two and a half years later, my first reaction was relief. It seemed he didn’t really want to be here anyway, and now he was released to explore the boundless love of God unfettered by earth’s limitations.

Once when a friend told him that the friend’s grandmother had just died, Rich simply replied, “Good for her.”

 

In his own words, from the song “Elijah”:

 When I leave I want to go out like Elijah
With a whirlwind to fuel my chariot of fire
And when I look back on the stars
It’ll be like a candlelight in Central Park
And it won’t break my heart to say goodbye

 

Be sure to check out Ragamuffin, the 2014 movie on the life of Rich Mullins. As of this posting, it can be found on Netflix, Amazon, and Google Play. Also, here’s most of a Wheaton College chapel concert at my alma mater, just 5 months before he died.

© 2014 Melody K. Anderson
All Rights Reserved

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Dec 252011
 

Yesterday morning after stretching class, my combination lock somehow reset itself (I could feel tumbler resistance when it happened) and I couldn’t open it.

Since lockers (what a fitting name!) at this all-women gym are day use only, bolt cutters are kept handy, but none of the all-women staff had the strength to vanquish my resolute padlock. At one point, me and two staffers ganged up on it, but to no avail. What a pitiful sight – all the grimacing and grunting – as we put no more than a small dent in the shackle.

The Master Lock website aptly describes its shackle: “Made from hardened steel for maximum resistance to cutting and sawing.”

Women-only gym; absolutely no men around; car keys securely in the locker; – a desperate need for some muscle! I could picture one of my brothers, or just about any guy for that matter, grabbing those cutters and, snap, the lock would be off.

My best friend and I were just about to give up and call for a ride, when we decided to try the cutters ourselves, with quiet faith in the power of two believers united in heart and purpose.

“Two are better than one,

because they have a good reward for their labor.”

Ecclesiastes 4:9

Our daily reading recently brought us to Judges 6 and the Gideon story. God’s people had fallen under Midianite oppression after turning away from the Lord and worshiping other, so-called, gods. Things got so bad, the Israelites were hiding in caves and dens.

Now the Angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites. And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him, and said to him, “The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor!” Gideon said to Him, “O my lord,if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.” Then the LORD turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?” So he said to Him, “O my Lord,how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” And the LORD said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man.

Faced with an unyielding obstacle, I, like Gideon, initially doubted the power available to me. God reminds us in Zechariah 4:6, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit…” God also encourages us at the beginning of that great spiritual armor passage in Ephesians 6, “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.”

So it is never my might, and yet, sometimes, God “might” ask me to exercise His power within me, as He did Gideon.

Well, I’ve kept you waiting long enough, yes, you guessed it; the two of us, with focused intent and a unity of spirit forged over years of mutual submission and focus on God’s truths, were able to pool our might (and perhaps our ministering spirit angels pitched in too!) and snap! the stubborn shackle yielded; it was glorious!

I cleared my locker and walked away with a fresh sense of victory and power.

Who might you partner with, as a Thinking Christian Woman, to unlock the mighty power of God and break some shackles for His kingdom?

© 2011 Melody K. Anderson
All Rights Reserved

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Nov 212011
 

Yesterday, my church celebrated its 100th anniversary.

A hundred years ago, in 1911, Ronald Reagan and Roy Rogers were born, Madame Curie won the Nobel prize for chemistry, the first photograph was taken from an airplane (in San Diego), Titanic launched, Ray Harroun won the first Indy 500, Crisco shortening was introduced, and an audience threw vegetables at actors for the first time in recorded US history.

And here’s an interesting webpage – a woman, springing from entries in her grandmother’s journal, talks about what was going on 100 years ago today.

Well back to our church centennial service, I was anticipating a large dose of nostalgia, but instead was inspired by a resounding message of purpose for right now, and the future.

We aren’t the oldest congregation in San Diego – that distinction goes to the Roman Catholic Mission San Diego de Alcala, founded in 1769. Many local protestant congregations predate ours also, like the First Presbyterian Church downtown, founded in 1869.

And we certainly aren’t the biggest church. I jokingly tell people its the kind of church you might find as a prize in a cereal box. To me, sometimes it feels like a little country church in some small farming community. As our pastor said at the celebration, “This church never became big, but the hearts of its people have grown large.”

But in our little community niche of North Park, we currently are the singular century church. In the book, North Park: A San Diego Urban Village, we are listed first in the chapter on Pioneer Schools & Churches.

From humble beginnings in a tent on a dirt lot (you can get away with that sort of thing in San Diego’s climate), this congregation has trusted God and banded together to withstand the pressures of depressions, recessions, World Wars and other conflicts, and many other turmoils without and within – only by the grace and faithfulness of God.

We have stood as a beacon of hope in our community, consistently announcing for well over 5,000 Sundays, and other days in between, that

Jesus the Christ is coming again,

and through Him, it is possible to live life at a higher level!

History and context are important; they should be studied, understood and remembered. And yet, what a thrill for the Thinking Christian Woman to contemplate that God trusts her to represent Him in her moment in history. With Esther, we can confidently and faithfully ponder how God is using us in our spheres of influence, “for such a time as this.” (Esther 4:14)

God has promised in 1 Corinthians 2:9, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

Hallelujah! Press on!

© 2011 Melody K. Anderson
All Rights Reserved

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