Same Old Song
When I was in college, I majored in radio and TV. Part of my education was funded by my 20 hour a week job as the Continuity Director of our campus station. In those days, we had a varied format that included everything from AOR (album oriented rock) to news. We were a commercial free college station manned by students who loved radio. Our communications director was a personal friend of Timothy Leary, the granddaddy of LSD if that helps clarify the picture.
Without a profit motive, radio is a delightful free-for-all. I still love listening to local community and not-for-profit stations because of the free artistic expression found. I maintain to this day that radio is a much more creative medium than boring TV - yeech! - because there are no retakes. When (potentiometer) pot #1 is hot, the microphone is on, and we’re live!
Commercial radio is a business, driven by and paid for by advertising. No problem making a profit. Once the profit motive is introduced, radios’ role as a medium of community expression is greatly diminished and it becomes just another business.
One night, a daring friend hatched a devious plan. She called 2 of our mutual friends who had graduated and were now gainfully employed at local commercial stations and suggested that at 11:00 pm that Saturday evening, the three of them play the same AOR classic, “Radar Love.” Imagine a Friday night where for a few brief minutes all the competing rock radio stations in town were in harmony working together!
Kids, this was long before crooning boy bands and profit-driven pop that dominates pop culture today. Back then, the early 80s, my Catholic friends prayed to Madonna; they didn’t dance to her. Disco still sucked, and ‘N Sync was ‘N Diapers!
So, on that warm summer night, I had my radio on at 11 p.m., tuned to KRCU, the college station, when that Golden Earring pre-grunge classic was suddenly pumping at a blistering 100 watts of pure commercial free power. I quickly flipped to the other stations. All had started the same long playing LP - kids, that’s kind of like a vinyl CD the size of a medium pizza - at almost the same instant.
As it was a weekend, the cruzers who had their radios cranked were amazed to hear the same song on all three stations. It was the campus buzz for a few weeks and it was beautiful. In that moment, I understood why I loved radio.
Flash forward a number of years. John and Suzie Saint have a dream; to start a ministry working with Goth kids. Most people see these freakish young ‘uns draped up in black, wearing skull rings and spider ear rings, with their faces painted cadaver white, and well, it’s pretty clear they’re not part of the local Baptist youth group.
John and Suzie live in the suburbs surrounded by steeples and nice houses. Defying suburban Christian convention, they open their home on the weekends to these Goths, hosting barbecues and swimming parties in their backyard. Their home becomes a safe haven for the kids no one wants and surprise, surprise, they start coming to Christ. Delighted, John and Suzie try to bring their unusual harvest of souls to local churches, but are politely told to first “baptize them, and use soap when they’re under the water,” before they are welcome into the company of the church.
Frustrated, John and Suzie finally end up starting their own church. They weren’t competing with anyone, but no one would welcome them for who they were. A few years pass and the Goths grow up, get jobs, have lovable little freaks of their own, and suddenly John and Suzie find themselves competing with the other respectable churches in the area. After all, there are bills to pay, salaries to meet, and they sit wondering at the spirit of competition as other pastors are now trying to lure away the now grown and respectable adults that a few years earlier no one wanted.
John and Suzie are angry with competing area pastors and start responding by marketing and beginning to attract members from other churches to their church - the place God is really moving. It becomes a cut throat war of “Come Grow With Us!” Weirder still, down the street there is this “rebellious” couple who are opening their home on the weekends to these weird looking kids, making noise at all hours of the night, making the neighborhood feel ‘less safe.’ Don’t these so-called Christians know that decent people have to work in the morning?
Sigh…
Wouldn’t it be wonderful, even for one glorious weekend night, if we laid the profit motive aside and quit competing with the other churches in our community and remember why we all got into ministry in the first place? Perhaps we could all play the same song; not “Radar Love,” but “God’s Love,” and then go out into the byways and highways with that same message.
Imagine it’s the weekend, and the passersby who have their hearts open standing in amazement hearing the same love song coming from people of different churches working together because they purely and simply love God. It would be beautiful. Perhaps in that moment, we would remember why got into ministry in the first place. Perhaps it’s time to repent and return to commercial free ministry. It would certainly be a lot more fun.
By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. John 13: 35
Bryan Hupperts © 2001-2009
www.sheeptrax.com/xpress
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