October is Fall Celebration month for this radio ministry tagged ‘the gift of FM 104.5’.
Ministry is the best way to express what this station has done each day for 35 plus years. I’ve often said WBVN is not a radio station that does ministry– it’s a ministry that uses radio. Ministries have certain challenges each year, and making budget is just one. This summer another challenge occurred having to do with the moral failure of a national CCM artist. It has impacted not just the station or the CCM industry, but the Church as a whole.
WBVN pulled the music associated with that event but the specific response we pretty much left to others. However, there are lessons to be learned anytime the Gospel created by Jesus Christ has it’s ‘ambassadors’ do embarrassing and sad events. While we have personal concerns about justice, accountability, and consequences, as a ministry we are saddened by what personal failure does, in this case, to the ‘CCM industry’ and what it does to the Church.
Contemporary Christian Music has been strong since the 1970s, and there’s still a purpose in its continuing. WBVN has done 237 concerts. We’re amazed not only at the skills of the artists, but just as importantly, their attitude and purpose about the Gospel. WBVN acts as a ‘porter at the door of ministry’. We have the responsibility to present songs, programs, concerts and events that evaluate the importance to people that listen and attend those events. When we ask you to come or listen, we’ve evaluated them as ‘having purpose’ in your life. We assume a responsibility to ‘guard your heart’ when we ask you to be involved with a WBVN produced radio broadcast or concert.
Sometimes (it seems like every 10/12 years) CCM needs a little spiritual adjustment, a little ‘soil remover ‘, sometimes a chiropractic adjustment to the Church. It sometimes needs a spotlight shown on it; it needs a Jesus moment. Perhaps this moment will be one of those. I hope so.
Let me share a little story. Back in 1986-7: a couple of national ‘ministry leaders’ were caught in failure and were exposed. One was publicly humiliated, another sent to prison for fraud. In 1988, we began the process of creating what would become WBVN on January 8th, 1990. As we worked on the reality of doing a listener supported CCM radio ministry, I asked friends and family what they thought. Almost universally, because of the national mood, they all advised they’d stay away from it. However, most all did agree ‘but we really need it.’ The little thing that kept creeping into the conversation was how much we needed a contrast to the national failures, contrasting that with a ministry of integrity.
Songs bless.
There’s no argument about the scriptural nudge in the Word to sing hymns and psalms.
Has a song blessed you?
Now is not the time to let one person take away the creation of a song for the Gospel’s sake. It is so easy to list dozens of artists that have spoken directly to my thoughts and heart over the years.
My first CCM song I ever heard still blesses today. Blessings are treasures. A single person or a group of people should not be able to take that treasure away. It’s a treasure God designed and inspired.
We all can name a song (some many songs) the have changed our lives. I suspect you, as I do, have a whole list of favorite artists. The Gospel has filled 18,900,500 minutes at WBVN. Now subtract how much of that you want to take away because of the hypocrisy of one believer. For me it’s a small price to pay to have ‘Hold Me Jesus,’ ‘I Can Only Imagine,’ ‘In Christ Alone,’ ‘Rise Again.’ Since the early 1970s I remember artists’ names that are considered founders of this kind for music testimony (Keith Green, Honeytree, Angus-Blackwood, Scott Wesley Brown, Phil Keaggy, Grant, Francisco). Their influence and purpose is not in vain because of some individual that stains CCM today. Millions of people have been influenced in special and creditable ways for almost 50 years of CCM. During those years, sometimes it seems CCM may need to be rebooted but not deleted. CCM has given believers much peace and confidence in spite of ‘scallywags’ popping up occasionally.
We (the faithful) will recover. We will be touched again by the Spirit of God. We will overcome the damage caused by people who appear to be ambassadors of the Message but make huge mistakes.
In Paul’s instructions to Titus we have many leadership lessons. A Gentile, Titus traveled and preached with Paul for years. Paul instructed Titus to ‘ordain elders in every city.’ All three chapters give Titus a pocketful of wisdom to follow. In doing so, Paul lists the expectations for the kind of people Titus should appoint. I’m not going to list them; it’s readily available in the Scripture. I do want to identify the subject of Titus: elders. The original Greek word implies dignity and wisdom. The elders were to give earthly wisdom to the church. Elders should only be entrusted with authority in the church under an umbrella of serious accountability; elder type of authority should not be handed out without a certain discipline of life.
We don’t have to stone believers that make mistakes but we do need to follow Paul’s teaching of future ministry responsibilities for that person. Someone who has abused the giftedness of God (the appointment of teaching the body of Christ by using music/lyric in this current case) can be forgiven, shown mercy, prayed for, they can be welcomed in the Church if a true believer, but they are not to be appointed to any future authority positions. Artists are gifted but they must handle the gift carefully. Gifts and calling are without repentance (Rom 11:29) but they are not without responsibilities. They are gifts considered to be precious. I suspect in the current situation many people will appropriately, and in various ways, be held accountable. In the most recent embarrassment, someone in a CCM position of leadership had major failure, they must forfeit authority in the Church. In that particular case it appears to be not just a simple mistake but perhaps predatory behavior. Consequences!
Something I learned years ago is to have a confidence in this Gospel; put our confidence in Jesus alone. In spite of everything we see and we hear, Jesus is in this Church and He is a Redeemer, a Comforter, a Savior. He’s the one to watch, not a CCM artist, not an industry head.
Being famous is not ministry….ministry is Jesus.
I hope the people in the CCM ‘industry’ as a whole will embrace a needed correction. The industry has changed a bit since the 1970s. They’ve occasionally made a mess of things, but it’s far from needing to be abandoned and thrown away. Too many blessing have taken place. Too much inspiration and encouragement has been present to let a single person swipe the kind of value CCM has in our lives. Failure in the Church has happened many times before. Every time the Spirit has revived the Church to again bless believers. I’m not going to let a person (or a cluster of people) steal ‘my Joy’ in Christ Jesus.
Tomorrow’s too important to permit other ‘believers’ failures pull the rug out from under my heart.
What we are able to do is keep going, keep declaring, keep trusting with confidence in the fingerprints of God on the Church…..believers will occasionally fail in action or attitude but Christ never will.
We’re encouraged in the Word (Galatians 6:9 & 2Thessalonians 3:13) not to grow weary of ‘well-doing’ (literally) don’t give up on the beautiful, spiritual things, things with deep meaning inside our hearts and things that are appropriate and beneficial for our hearts to do. We should not grow weary (faint) of doing the ‘proper’ things just because the world may seem to be against them. Failure can, with the Lord’s help, be the beginning of something, not the end of something. We ask for your continued support to make our community a better place.
With your help, WBVN has always been a ministry of encouragement. Our role is to be an encouragement to you that ‘He is Worthy’ in the good times and the bad. Thank You for your prayer and financial support.