Steeple Song

This morning I had listened again to Reggie McNeill's farewell address to the crowd at Shepherding the Staff 2007 where he was talking about how we think all we have to do to experience kingdom growth is to get the building right, get our marketing right, get us a "sexy sax player" (Reggie's words, not mine ... in other words, get our worship style right), get a new pastor (or other staff member) ... or get rid of the one we've got, etc. There were a couple of songs from my teen years that came to mind, and I thought how things are so very different from the way they were 30 years ago ... and how gifted prophetic voices still echo with God's truth. As I listened to Reggie, Ken Medema's "Kingdom in the Streets" came to mind. The text of this beautiful, yet difficult song can be read in this story. Medema was saying some things 30 years ago that we're just now coming to grips with.

I was thinking about Reggie's stuff (which is very similar to the Kingdom in the Streets concept) this afternoon when I happened upon a list of 10 ways to grow your church without God at MondayMorningInsight. As I read that list, another relic of my youthful spiritual journey came to mind in Don Francisco's "Steeple Song" ... which I located in a youtube video of a 2004 performance. I found it interesting that Francisco (whose father was noted Baptist preaching professor Clyde Francisco) doesn't appear to have aged one whit in the last 30 years. Everything he talks about was state of the art in the 1960s and 1970s. It would be interesting to hear a 21st century update of the song.



Just some more stuff to think about. It all seemed so simple 30 years ago. I'm coming to learn that it's far simpler AND far more complex than any of us can fathom.