by Steve | Jan 27, 1985 | Archive - 1985
Archive: My Hard Rock World
By Lenny Stadler with Ruth Snyder
It was like I was falling and there was no bottom. The surgeon had given me the prognosis … a 50/50 chance. Just like flipping a coin—heads you live, tails you die!
We had a concert at Chapel Hill, North Carolina that night. The mammoth wall of amplifiers screamed heavy metal rock and roll behind me. My ears pounded from the blast of music, and my eyes burned from the thick cloud of smoke. I played my bass—knowing that I was dying.
The guys in the band offered me a joint. “Smoke this,” they said, “you’ll feel better.” They didn’t care. It was me, not them.
But God was close by that night. And I was strangely aware of His presence. He wanted to speak to me: “Choose this day whom you will serve.”
I was raised in a Christian home. But I had lost interest in church and in God. I knew if Christ was the Lord of my life I couldn’t “do my thing.” So, I chose my god—rock music. I chose my goal—to become successful in a musical career that would bring me fame and fortune.
My parents tried to convince me to pursue a college education. But I had no interest in studies. One morning during my sophomore year at Elon College I heaved my books down the hall in disgust. I was finished. I dropped out of college to pursue my goal.
I bounced from one rock band to another. Each band was a bit more successful than the previous one. I investigated every potentially successful avenue. A “roadie” told me of a band from New Jersey named Blackfoot. The group had disbanded, but there was a possibility of their regrouping. I was willing to try to help bring the band back together.
Through some negotiations the members were reunited and the band relocated in North Carolina. I was the new bass player. Big time rock and roll … I was sure I had arrived.
As the bass player for Blackfoot I had an image to project. I grew my hair very long and my mustache drooped down over my chin.
I dressed like a rock musician was expected to dress. I acted like a rock musician was expected to act.
We toured the eastern seaboard, playing in nightclubs and colosseums. Soon we began negotiations with a major record company for a recording contract. We were beginning to taste fame, and “super-stardom ” appeared to be within our grasp.
Traveling was tiresome and hazardous, sometimes even life-threatening. But playing music was my only happiness. I lived to hear the crowds cheer. I lived to please the fans and took pride in their devotion to us.
Night after night my performance was almost exactly the same as the concert before. It became routine. Some nights were monotonous and often I didn’t feel like performing up to expectations–on or off the stage. When finally the lights were turned out, the crowds had gone home, and the concert hall doors were closed, we were left with emptiness and loneliness.
Drugs temporarily filled the barren gap between performances. Rock and roll came to mean “gigs” and “joints,” feeling low and getting high.
All the while my parents faithfully continued to greet me when I returned from a concert tour. They kept on loving me and praying for me. My family was always there, like a good thorn in my side.
Nearly every week I went to my grandparents’ home for a meal. My long hair dangled close to the table. I sat in silence as my grandparents filled my ears with Bible stories. They relentlessly pursued me.
I will never forget the look on my grandfather’s face when he told me, “I don’t know what it’s going to take, Lenny, but some way God is going to wake you up. Someday God is going to answer our prayers for you.” His words lingered, but my obsession with rock music continued.
Behind the scene, big bashes and pot parties were all part of rock and roll life. One night after a concert some friends invited the band to a party being given in our honor. Dozens of people were crowded into the house. Someone brought out cafeteria trays filled with every drug imaginable, and booze was available to everyone.
There I was, indulging in it all when suddenly a violent pain struck me in the chest. It was so severe that it took my breath and I fell to the floor gasping. I couldn’t breathe. It was as if someone had stabbed me with a dagger.
My friends hovered over me. They were high themselves, though, and didn’t know what was happening. “Man, he must have had too much,” somebody muttered. Soon the pains left, just as quickly as they had come. But after that attack they began re-occurring nearly every day.
Mentally and physically fatigued, I reluctantly consented to see a doctor. An examination revealed a tumor on my bronchial tube near the heart. The surgeon said frankly, “If there is any malignancy you only have a 50/50 chance to live.”
I was scheduled for major surgery at Duke Medical Center. For two weeks I waited in anguish. I isolated myself. I contemplated … everything. My false god could not help me now. My world had collapsed.
“Lenny,” Mom said, “we want you to come over to your grandparents for dinner. The whole family is getting together in your honor before you go to the hospital.” I agreed, and arrived at the house early. As I pulled up in the driveway my grandfather’s words echoed through my mind. “One day, Lenny, God is going to wake you up.” I was aware then that I was a spiritual battlefield. Suddenly I didn’t want to confront my grandparents.
I was certain something strange was going on when no one greeted me at the door. Hesitantly, I moved through the house and turned the corner to the living room. There were my grandparents sitting with their faces in their hands, praying for me. I sat down next to my grandmother. She continued in prayer. My hard heart melted. I began to cry.
I hadn’t cried in years. I had forgotten what tears tasted like. I had forgotten many things—including who I was. Maybe I had never known. But whoever I was, my life was about to end. I couldn’t afford to pretend any longer.
“Papa,” I said to my grandfather, “will God hear my prayer? Is it too late for me?”
Through his tears I saw his blue eyes widen with joy. “Yes, son, God is always ready.”
So I prayed, “Jesus, if You are who You claim to be, I need You in my life.” A spiritual healing and reconciliation occurred in me that night, the eve of my 21st birthday. For the first time I knew real peace because I knew Jesus. This was the greatest miracle of my life.
In a few days I left for Duke Medical Center. My anxieties about the surgery remained, but I was peaceful and resigned to the will of God.
After an extensive examination the doctor came into my room and told me, “Mr. Stadler, we don’t understand what has happened. There is no tumor, it has disappeared!” But I did understand. For whatever reason, I had been healed! God had performed another miracle in my life, and He had used my sickness to awaken me.
Even after this wonderful experience I was torn. I sincerely wanted Christ to be the dominant force in my life, but at the same time I wanted to continue with Blackfoot. I loved playing the music and performing, or so I thought. I began to like it less and less.
I felt like a fish out of water. I went through the motions. But I was deeply concerned about the young people in the audience. I felt like the pied piper leading them all into the river. “This is not really me! It’s all a show!” I wanted to scream. “And this is not the way to live!” Playing rock music had been my only happiness. Now it was my greatest anguish.
For four weeks I wrestled with indecision. I carried my Bible on the road and read it at every spare moment. While the other band members continued to smoke and drink, I stayed alone and absorbed whole chapters of God’s Word. It became increasingly clear to me that I had to make a clean break from my old lifestyle.
I left the group and joined a contemporary Christian singing group, The Sammy Hall Singers. Through this ministry I shared my story with thousands of young people. While singing and sharing at Tyler Street UMC in Dallas, Texas, I met my wife, Shana Morell.
I eventually left the singing group and returned to Elon College. There I received a BA in religion. Later I felt a nudging toward the ordained ministry, so I went on to receive my Master of Divinity degree from Duke Divinity School.
Some time afterward I journeyed to Greensboro, North Carolina, to share my message of Christ with the members and entourage of Blackfoot and to see the band in concert. It was an awkward moment, to watch as my friends came on stage. The fans were in a frenzied state.
I raced out of the concert hall after the first song with tears of sorrow and of joy. I was so thankful that God had worked in my life, but my heart was saddened for my old colleagues. What were they doing to themselves? What were they doing to the crowd? Oh, that they might know Jesus and how he can make a difference! That was and is my prayer.
Today I serve as a pastor of Christ United Methodist Church in Drexel, North Carolina. As I share my testimony with young people and parents I tell them that the glamour in the rock and roll scene is only a facade. Rock and roll creates a spirit of rebellion against God. “If it feels good, do it”—that is its message. I encourage parents to be aware of what is happening in the lives of their young people and to stand firm on what is brought into the home.
My ministry continues. As a pastor I seldom play my bass. But when I do, my music is a joyful noise to my Lord. And my bass … well, it’s like an old friend.
by Steve | Jan 17, 1985 | Archive - 1985
Books that Helped me Grow
By Bishop W.T. Handy, Jr.
January/February 1985
The books that have been most helpful to me in my spiritual walk (exclusive of the Bible) are:
- Christian Way in Race Relations edited by William Stuart. This book taught me that protest against injustice is an absolute necessity, but that it must always originate and be grounded in the Christian perspective. Also, protest must be self-critical and self-restraining, it must be designed for the good of all, and must be certain that the objective is not the substitution of one evil for another.
- A trilogy: A Case for Theology in Liberal Perspective by Harold DeWolf, The Case/or New Reformation Theology by William L. Hordern, and The Case for Orthodox Theology by Edward John Carnell. These three books together helped me understand that there is some intellectual truth in all of the major theological systems; but that no theological system has the whole truth, and all human theology ends in mystery, to the glory of God.
- The Province Beyond the River by W. Paul Jones. This book is the diary of a professor of philosophical theology, which he compiled while living three months in a Trappist monastery. Jones’ work has helped me in the discipline of my devotional and spiritual development. His statement, “I am a professing Christian and a functional atheist” led me to serious soul-searching and recognition of the importance of solitude with God through Scripture, devotional reading, prayer, and contemplation. This has helped me understand that to be alone is not necessarily to be lonely.
Bishop Handy is episcopal leader of the Missouri Area of the United Methodist Church.
by Steve | Jan 17, 1985 | Archive - 1985
Books that Helped me Grow
By Robert Coleman
January/Febraury 1985
The books that have been most helpful to me in my spiritual walk are: The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, Pensées by Blaise Pascal, and Christian Perfection by Francois Fenelon.
The Pilgrim’s Progress has a realism about it with which I could identify. While simple in style, the allegory has insights that speak with profound eloquence. l have read it at different times in my spiritual pilgrimage and always have found something fresh and beautiful to ponder.
A book reflects an author’s values and aspirations. Perhaps that is why Pascal’s Pensées has gripped me. It shows an insight into human experience that reflects an extraordinary sense of priorities. Coming from an author who was probably the greatest intellectual of his time, the simplicity of Pascal’s conclusions are the more invigorating. No one can gainsay the platform from which he speaks, both in his scholarship and Christian commitment.
The essays by Fenelon on Christian Perfection have a depth that one seldom finds in literature. I think it was this quality that most challenged my interest. Reading the book made me see greater dimensions of spiritual reality to which my soul aspired. Other books which have had real impact upon my life include, among others, Jonathan Edwards’ Treatise on Religious Affections, the Sermons of John Wesley, The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, and The Holy of Holies by Andrew Murray.
Robert Coleman is director of the School of World Mission and Evangelism at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. His books include the best-selling The Master Plan of Evangelism, and Dry Bones Can Live Again.
by Steve | Jan 17, 1985 | Archive - 1985
Books that Helped me Grow
By Charles Colson (1931-2012)
January/February 1985
First and foremost, for me, is Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. It is the book which God used to lead me to Christ. I was impressed most of all by the chapter on pride, because it so thoroughly and accurately described my own life. As a matter of fact it brought me powerfully under the conviction of sin and caused me to seek out the righteous God who would cleanse me. In the first week that I was given Lewis’ book, I read and studied it the way I used to study law books. On a yellow pad I made notes under two columns, one headed “there is a God,” the other headed “there is not a God.” On another sheet I had two more columns: “Jesus Christ is God” and “Jesus Christ isn’t God.”
As I went through Mere Christianity I was confronted with a mind so powerful, with arguments so compelling, that I was left with no recourse but to accept the reality of the God who is and who has revealed himself through Jesus Christ, Lewis’ logic is magnificently presented in this wonderful little book. It is number one on my list.
If I were to put the other books in order, the second most influential for me would be Augustine’s Confessions. I see so many parallels between Augustine’s life and my own – living in the world, then suddenly confronting the Scripture and the truth of Christ and being dramatically converted and giving his life to serving Christ. In Confessions one finds the most eloquent explanation of the nature of the human will, of the besetting sin which is within us, and then of the redeeming work of God. Though written almost 1600 years ago, it is as timely as today’s newspaper. I don’t know any other book which has given me as much insight into the nature of man and the nature of God.
Under number three I would have to list all of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s writings, but most particularly the chapter in Gulag Archipelago entitled “The Ascent.” In it Solzhenitsyn describes his own conversion. He also gives a magnificent insight into the nature of man and the sin which is in each of us. I was profoundly affected by Solzhenitsyn’s work and consider him to be the most significant prophetic voice of God in the world today.
The Cost of Discipleship by Deitrich Bonhoeffer, along with his Letters and Papers from Prison, made a significant impact on me in the early days of my Christian life. Though I would have some theological differences with Bonhoeffer, his emphasis on obedience and the necessity of the Christian to die to self in order to serve Christ has shaped much of my thinking as a Christian. His attack upon cheap grace is very pertinent today.
I also had a particular identification with his Letters and Papers from Prison, because so many of the things that Bonhoeffer wrote about I experienced while in prison. In prison he wrote the poem “Who Am I,” which is found in the preface of The Cost of Discipleship and is my favorite poem. I think Bonhoeffer wrote it for himself and for all mankind at the same time.
A man in a bookstore gave me a copy of John Pollock’s book, George Whitefield and the Great Awakening. It stirred an interest within me for history, particularly the history of the Church, and led me to read many other volumes, particularly the works about the great Wesley awakening.
Other books that have greatly influenced me include:
The writings of Francis Schaeffer. They are a powerful exposition of Christian truth and a call to Biblical fidelity for 20th-century Christians.
The Political Illusion and The Presence of the Kingdom by Jacques Ellul. These are two magnificent and prophetic books that talk about the Christian’s role in the world and warns us of the danger of putting our trust in institutions. Ellul brilliantly deals with the relationship between the church and the state, a particularly timely issue these days.
The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges. This book opened my eyes more fully to the question of what it means to live a holy life. Bridge’s work is a magnificent contemporary discussion of what I believe to be the central covenant of the Christian life – that is, holiness.
Real Christianity by William Wilberforce. Wilberforce is one of my great heroes, a model for my life. He is best known, of course, as a campaigner against the slave trade, But he was also a great Biblical expositor, and this book, recently edited and re-published by Multnomah Press, is a classic statement on Christian living.
The works of Malcolm Muggeridge. Muggeridge is one of the best social critics of the 20th century. His books have enormously influenced my view of contemporary culture.
John Wesley, Anglican by Garth Lean. This is a marvelous, short, pithy biography of Wesley, a man who, along with Wilberforce, is a great model for my life. The book has recently been re-published under a new title.
Charles Colson, former “hatchet man” for Richard Nixon, was converted to Christ while imprisoned for his involvement in Watergate. Now the director of Prison Fellowship, he is also the author of Born Again, Life Sentence, and Loving God.
by Steve | Sep 27, 1984 | Uncategorized
Archive: New Power for the Church
By Albert Outler
September/October 1984
Good News
Albert Cook Outler (1908-1989) was the preeminent John Wesley scholar in America. He served four pastorates in Georgia before becoming a seminary professor. He taught at Duke and Yale and finally for many years at the Perkins School of Theology in Dallas. A prolific author, Dr. Outler was editor of the four-volume collection of John Wesley’s sermons in Cokesbury’s series, The Works of John Wesley. The following article is adapted from the sermon Dr. Outler preached at historic Lovely Lane Church in Baltimore on Sunday, May 6, 1984 – the Sunday between the two weeks of General Conference. The text for his message was Acts 1:4-8. This Bicentennial Sermon, “Empowered to Witness,” is a timely and prophetic word for the entire church.
–Good News
We are met together here this morning sharing a special heritage at a special moment and in a very special place.
This Sunday is a time “between the times.” It’s the midpoint of our Bicentennial year, the midpoint in this Bicentennial General Conference.
Thus far the General Conference has been largely preoccupied with celebrations and maneuverings. Now come the times of hazard – of shortened debates and of hard decisions, with less time for deliberation than will be needed and more decisions than can be made wisely in the time allotted.
We are proud and thankful for Methodism’s history. And yet, deep down, we also have this uneasy awareness of a certain sense of loss of momentum in our church and in her sense of mission, a certain malaise in her espirit and morale, a shift from a consensual mood to an adversarial mood.
Altered self-image. There are, thank God, many churches across the country and around the globe that are alive and life-giving, but they are too readily thought of as exceptional. We even make the feeble boast that our overall losses last year were less than previously. Time was when we pointed to our statistics of burgeoning growth as proof of God’s special favor. Now we have shifted to the logic of Gideon’s band. Now it is fashionable to argue that it is quality that really counts. We have altered our self-image from that of a church on the march to that of a church in a mode of maintenance.
The world about us grows more and more foreboding. The political processes on which we placed so much reliance seem more and more decrepit and ineffectual. The Western dogmas of progress and human perfectibility are no longer devoutly believed or believable. The shadow of the mushroom cloud grows darker.
After two centuries of success in an atmosphere of triumphalism, we must now recollect that historic Christianity, in all its branches, has had a long history of surmounting successive institutional and cultural crises. Its prime confidence never has been in the teeter-totter of optimism and pessimism. Rather, its assurance has been in the invincible sovereignty of God’s grace and providence – and in the constant action of the Holy Spirit in upholding the Church and empowering her in mission, in good times and bad.
This is the point of our text in the first chapter of Christian church history, “The Acts of the Apostles.” It is the risen Lord’s first promise to his befuddled disciples facing a perplexing future: “After the enduement of the Holy Spirit, (and presumably, because of it) you will receive power, and will then become my ‘martyrs’ (my witnesses): in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and away to the ends of the earth.”
This, as we know, was the secret of Christianity’s survival and growth – in the first age, and ever since. It was a fellowship of men and women empowered to witness, not their own and not just to each other, but by exclaiming the Gospel to the world that “Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior to the glory of God the Father.” This has also been the secret of every re-invigoration of the Body of Christ ever since – and never more so than the Evangelical Revival of the Wesleys and in American Methodism. What real power we have ever had is spiritual power.
This is Wesley’s point in his Explanatory Notes, on Luke 1:35: “The power of God is put forth by the Holy Spirit as the immediate agent in this work, and so exerts the power of the highest as his own power – who, together with the Father and the Son, is the most High God.”
At the heart of the true Methodist there has always been a robust doctrine of the Trinity! On this special Sunday we are aware of the myriad issues confronting the General Conference. You will understand my temptation to editorialize on at least a few of them. “Keep back thy servant, Lord, from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me.” I recall Wesley’s wry reference to the medieval Spanish king who said that had he been present at the creation he would have had some very helpful suggestion to make.
The point is that there are tensions in the legislative committees and disruptive proposals still hanging in the balance. There is, therefore, a natural tendency to suppose that United Methodism’s fate and future are about to be decided by what happens between now and Friday [the close of General Conference]. So it is, in a very important sense.
But not finally, and here we must be clear. Our real empowerment for effective witness still will come from its only valid source: the Holy Spirit in our hearts and lives and in the church at large. The larger end we have in view, therefore, is not just legislation but empowerment to witness – the proclamation and the exclamation of the Gospel – its manifestations in our sacrificial love.
We should not underestimate the decisive role of General Conferences, but not overestimate either. It may be useful to remember how many “great occasions” have actually been stultified by their consequences, and yet also how many “minor occasions” have been surpassed by their consequences.
Authority from God. The formal authority of an ecclesiastical body and its actions is never decisive in and of itself. “Councils,” said Wesley, “can and have erred.” Authority comes from God through the consensus of the truly faithful, as they are guided by the Holy Spirit, by Holy Scripture, and by the Christian tradition. Ask not, then, how this conference fares. Ask rather how much it will have been refreshed by the Spirit to renew the church with fresh hope and vigor for fruitful Christian mission.
The Christmas Conference, large as it looms today, was a minor affair at the time and made only a slight impression – not to mention the bad example it set for later Methodist Conferences: “We were in great haste (reports Asbury in his Journal) and did much business in a little time.” But what momentous business it was, and what splendid consequences it made possible!
Thus, this Bicentennial conference and all else this year will have to be judged, not by this vote or that – but on whether or not what is now a dispirited church becomes an inspirited one – enlivened for her urgent tasks.
As we enter our Third Century, it is increasingly plain that 19th century conservatism and 20th century liberalism are both spent forces. The former never really understood the richness of Wesley’s doctrine of grace; the latter never really grasped his doctrine of sin and sanctification.
Wesley had ransacked the Christian tradition to come up with a creative and powerful understanding of sin and grace, of justification and sanctification – and we must do likewise. Until Ephesians 2:8 is restored to the heart of our message, “we are saved by grace through faith,” the power of our witness will continue to be enfeebled.
Wesley’s teaching about the Holy Spirit, and also the sources of that teaching in Scripture and tradition, could be newly instructive and relevant for us. It certainly has been at the heart of earlier Methodist renewals whenever they have come.
Christian existence is life in, with, and under the Spirit whose indwelling presence is the divine energy that is the ground of our human spirituality. It is the Spirit’s prevenient grace that is the divine initiative in human hearts.
The Spirit is God within us, witnessing to the grace of assurance of sins forgiven as well as to the supreme grace of love, not as a means but as in itself the end of faith and hope.
It is the Holy Spirit who represents Jesus Christ as Lord to each new age and culture. It is the Holy Spirit who empowers his faithful followers to faithful discipleship in word and life. This was the secret of Methodist outreach in Century One, of Methodism’s prophetic courage and vision in Century Two. It will be the open secret of refreshment and renewed vitality in Century Three.
The Spirit-Wind is blowing across the world in our time and in places that one might have thought unlikely – Indonesia, Korea, Africa, even here at home (on college campuses and even in some churches!).
In the new world unfolding the Christian power of authentic witness will come less from human ingenuity than from eager hearts, minds, and lives open to the leadings of the Spirit. It will come less from mutual exhortation than from the recognition that it is his work in the world to lead men and women into the fullness of their true humanity in Jesus Christ.
It is in this sense that our hopes and prayers for the Bicentennial General Conference must be for its willingness to be led of the Spirit – and not to confuse emotive rhetoric and trendy ideologies with the the Spirit’s leadings.
We are not talking about subjective piety here – but about the objective, operative gifts of the Spirit, especially the gift of “discernment of spirits.” We are talking about the objective, manifold fruits of the Spirit – especially love, joy, and peace and the rest of that laundry list of Christian virtues in Galatians 5:22. Let these be the tests of judgment – of every speech and every vote.
The horizons of the future are already opening up beyond this Conference. They look toward a future that God is still holding open for his human family, whom he will never abandon and yet will never coerce. What will matter most in that future is the recovery of our singlemindedness in mission – the mission of human salvation in all its fullness, for all the peoples in all the world. This is a Gospel beyond class and ideology to dignity and true “liberation,” beyond race and sex to true community, beyond adversarial theologies of all sorts toward justice, righteousness, and the “rule of grace.”
The distinctive design of “The People Called Methodists,” it was once widely agreed, was “to reform the nation and to spread Scriptural holiness over these lands.” Here is a task that demands the best and the most of us all, for it means a truly renewed kind of evangelism, truly renewed conceptions of Christian growth and maturation, renewed commitments to Christian social action, or “social holiness” as Wesley called it. It means preaching and suffering and living and caring, and turning the upside-down world right side up again.
This task of spreading “Scriptural holiness” remains our task, to be helped or hindered by General Conferences and by our boards and agencies but not preempted by any of them. The United Methodist Church exists to manifest the power of the Spirit – not the other way around.
This wonderful old church [Lovely Lane] in which we are worshipping today, with its lilting name and all its indelible memories, is “The Mother Church” of American Methodism. Our presence here is a token of our appreciation of a wondrously rich heritage, and yet also a sign of our commitments to a new future in which our hungers and hopes for yet another Great Awakening may find at least the beginnings of their satisfactions.
The men who came to Baltimore 200 years ago were empowered to witness. So may we still be. They were evangelists. So should we be. They had a vision of a New Zion in the wilderness. Our vision must be of Zion in a new wilderness – of humanity in its current dire disorder. From Baltimore their witness to the Gospel spread to the uttermost parts of the earth, and that now has brought us back to Baltimore once again for a new beginning. But all truly new beginnings are spiritual. They come from inspirited churches, enlivened and enlivening. It is not for us to know or try to control the final ends of the history. We are commissioned to help shape them. The end of it all is the Father’s business.
It is enough for us, says our text, to open our hearts and minds to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that we may be empowered to give word and life and winsomeness to the true Gospel of Christ, to our nearest neighbors and out to the uttermost human frontier. So may it be here in these next few days and in the years that stretch out beyond. So may it be with all the people called Methodists everywhere in all the world. So may it be with God’s people in every place and every future – secure, as we all may be, in the unfailing providence of God. Amen.
