You Whisper Something

I’ve been doing my best to listen to God lately.

Of course we should always listen to Him. Sometimes, though, we get so preoccupied in prayer laying out our talking points; our hopes and fears we forget prayer is meant to be a two-way conversation.

He’s been pressing on my heart the need to modify my approach to the next book. Whereas originally I had envisioned it as running parallel to God’s Not Dead (And Neither Are We), only covering more generations and genres, I now know I need to more closely follow its predecessor’s outline in focusing on a specific genre and time. The new book will be centered on the first generation of artists from Maranatha, with the inclusion of other artists whose work began in the ’70s.

Why, other than the obvious “because God said so?”

First, there is the grim matter of time no longer being on our side. A statement I occasionally utter in the sports realm is the problem with saying “wait’ll next year” is one day you realize you don’t have an inexhaustible supply of next years. I couldn’t talk to Gene Eugene for God’s Not Dead (And Neither Are We). I can’t talk to Larry Norman. I can’t talk to Mark Heard. I can’t talk to Denny Correll. I can’t talk to Rick Griffin, who did several classic album covers such as the one for Sail On Sailor by Mustard Seed Faith. It’s time to get moving and get chronicling.

Also, there is the fact that so much of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa and Maranatha! Music’s history has been left to collect dust. This is due, as I perceive it, to two reasons. One is the common bond that very few people are able to grasp the historic nature of their life and work at the time of living and working. When you’re in the middle of doing something, you’re thinking about its impact maybe five minutes from now. Not often is our vision five years down the road. Or fifteen, or twenty-five and so on. Yet the impact these artists had has reverberated for this length of time. The direct testimonials are still living, breathing human beings whose lives bear the direct impact of those concerts and records. It’s time to take a moment and record this.

The second reason is so much of the work done by Calvary Chapel et al was based on the belief we wouldn’t be here in five years as the Rapture was coming down (or going up, if you prefer) any minute now. As we now know, Jesus had other plans. But I digress; back to the ’70s. Working under the premise we wouldn’t be here for long, the emphasis was on the immediate and overwhelmingly directed toward evangelism. Neither of these were or are wrong, but they both lend themselves toward the mindset of taking little if any time to record what you’re doing now so when now turns into yesterday it’s available for reference. Well, the now of the ’70s has turned into yesterday. A yesterday worth commemorating not only for what was back then, but also for what it’s still doing today.

There’s the side issue of how Maranatha has neglected its back catalog. Many important recordings are either presently unavailable or require archeological expeditions to uncover. A multitude of records have never seen the light of day on CD. Of those that have, several were released only briefly and now go for a king’s ransom. For example, used copies of the short run of Sail On Sailor on CD released several years back start at seventy dollars with unopened copies starting at twice that amount. Not that Maranatha is alone in this; try finding the original Love Song or Chuck Girard records on CD. This duly noted, I’m hoping perhaps this project will give all parties involved a wake-up call to no longer ignore the music that spoke to us then and still speaks to us today, not as nostalgia for when we were the young lions but rather reminding us of our faith’s fundamentals.

That’s what God has been whispering to me lately. May I respond as He has commanded me to do.