the view from ... John Fischer

Tell us a little about how and why you became a Christian.

John Fischer: I grew up in a Christian home and have believed most of my life. My issue has not been believing but making real what I believe.

What lessons have been the most valuable to you during your experience of following Christ?

John Fischer: A Christian is to be real. There is no need to hide. It is not how good we are but how honest we are to ourselves with Christ living in us.

You helped usher in Christian music during the '70s with many songs that became campground favorites of that youth generation. Tell us a little about that experience and how you perceive the current Christian music culture (or subculture)?

John Fischer: I have books written about this. The short of it: The Jesus movement was turned out towards the world. The subculture that grew out of it is turned in on itself.

In one of your CCM columns from years ago, you wrote a statement that I've had tacked on my office bulletin board ever since. You said, "Is there anyone out there fool enough to think they can still change the world with their guitar? I don't think anything's going to happen until there is." Do you still hold to that statement? How do you think it applies to this current generation of Christians, even those without musical talents?

John Fischer: We can make a difference in the world through living as an honest Christian in our own sphere of influence.

One of the things I've enjoyed about your writing is the sense of honesty and realness and transparency that comes across in your books. Do you make a conscious effort to stay real or does that come naturally to you? Why is that important to you and your writing?

John Fischer: When I gave my life in service to God as a college student, it was on one condition. That following Him -- being a Christian -- would be real. He's kept his side of the bargain. I've tried to be honest about mine.

In your earlier books Real Christians Don't Dance and True Believers Don't Ask Why you wrote of the hang-ups that plague Christendom and keep Christians from focusing on the truly vital issues of being salt and light in the real world. Do you still see those hang-ups getting in the way? Or does each new generation develop it's own set of hang-ups to focus on?

John Fischer: We have new ones as culture and society and people change. I see the big issue now being fear of the world and a desire to hide in the Christian subculture where we can be safe.

 ================================

The In's and Out's Of It
by John Fischer

"In it not, of it," the statement was made
As Christian One faced the world, much afraid.
"In it, not of it," the call was made clear,
But Christian One got something stuck in his ear.
"Not in it, or of it," was the thing that he heard.
And knowing the world was painfully absurd,
He welcomed the safety of pious retreat,
And went to the potluck for something to eat.

Now Christian Two, he knew what to do,
He show those fundies a thing or two!
How will the world ever give Christ a try
If we don't get in there and identify?
So "In it, and of it," he said in his car,
As he pulled in and stopped at a popular bar.
"I'll tell them the truth as soon as I'm able
To get myself out from under this table."

Now along comes Christian Three jogging for Jesus,
In witnessing sweats made of four matching pieces.
His earphones are playing a hot Christian tune
About how the Lord is coming back soon.
"Not in it, but of it," he turns down the hill
And stops in for a bite at the Agape Grill.
Like the gold on the chain of his "God Loves You" bracelet,
He can have the world without having to face it.

While way up in heaven they lament these conditions
That come from changing a few prepositions.
"Not in it, or of it," Christian One thought.
But who in the world will know that he's not?
"In it, and of it," thought Christian Two.
But who in the world will know that he knew?
"Not in it, but of it," thought Christian Three.
But who in the world watches Christian TV?

And Jesus turns to Gabriel, shaking His head.
"'In it, not of it,' wasn't that what I said?"

(used by permission)

=================================

One of your books contains a poem that perhaps best illustrates how Christians have misunderstood Christ's intention for our interaction in the world and have created a Christian subculture. In your opinion, how and why did such a "counter-culture" develop and why is it such a danger for Christians to pull away from the world at large?

John Fischer: It developed out of a preference for the familiar and a desire to be safe -- to protect our kids from the world instead of prepare them for it. We created an alternative world with a Christian version of everything cultural so we could reject the world and still enjoy it anyway.

What do you think are the biggest trouble spots or blind spots contemporary Christians face in trying to impact their culture and develop ongoing, genuine relationships with people who may not believe as they do?

John Fischer: Most Christians are trying to prove the world wrong. The world is not wrong as much as it is lost. We don't know how to dialogue with our culture. We spent our time and effort fighting culture instead of making a difference in it.

Any advice for Christians who want to impact their culture rather than retreat from it or judge it from a "safe" distance?

John Fischer: Don't surround yourself with Christian things. Be a Christian in the world. The world doesn't need Christian music; it needs Christians making music. You can substitute pretty much anything for "music" and get the point.

Just as your writings have influenced many people in this generation, who are some of the writers and thinkers who helped to influence your views on faith and living out that faith? Why are they important to you?

John Fischer: C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, Frederick Buechner, Harry Blamires

Tell us a little about the concept behind the book 12 Steps for the Recovering Pharisee (Like Me).

John Fischer: The biggest errors of Christians are in attitudes of self-righteousness and condemnation. I felt the recovery model would suit breaking out of those attitudes well. Someone came to me after a talk and said my writing was like a 12 step recovery program for a Pharisee. I told them right then and there that I wanted that for a title of my next book. Two years later at the same event I was able to give that person a copy of the book!

the view from ... Charlie Peacock

Charlie Peacock is an American singer-songwriter, pianist, record producer, session musician and author. While growing up in California Peacock began playing the piano. (Wikipedia) For more info about Charlie and his music, writing, and speaking, visit http://www.charliepeacock.com.

Tell us a little about how you became a Christian. What experiences led you to believe that there was more than just this life?

Charlie Peacock: A saxophonist told me the story of Jesus. I wanted to become a student/follower of Jesus. The story wooed me and taught me how.

How did those experiences and that decision to follow Jesus Christ impact your life and the relationships you had with others?

Charlie: It reconfigured the DNA of life.

You write in one of your early songs "We can only possess what we experience." How does that relate to your journey of faith?

Charlie: So-called truths or certainties need to be embodied in day to day life or they are hardly convincing.

What lessons have been the most valuable to you during your experience of following Christ?

Charlie: It's all grace -- a gift. Live as one who is grateful. 

While many Christians today seem to retreat into a subculture of Christian music, Christian books, Christian TV, your music seems to speak openly and honestly about faith and life in fresh ways, speaking so that both Christians and non-Christians equally can listen and wonder. Do you feel that this retreat into a subculture has kept many Christians from being able to have a real voice in the world?

Charlie: Of course. At its heart, retreat is an open abandonment of the calling to care for the planet -- to care for God's creativity.

How do you avoid that retreat, particularly as a songwriter and artist?

Charlie: I try not to compartmentalize my life and I spend time around people who often don't agree with my spiritual conclusions.

One of the things I've enjoyed about your music is the sense of honesty and realness and transparency that comes across. Do you make a conscious effort to stay real or does that come naturally to you? Why is that important to you?

Charlie: If "real" is good I can't choose the opposite -- that is fake.

What do you see as the biggest hang-ups keeping Christians from being able to impact culture, or becoming what Bob Briner refers to as "roaring lambs"?

Charlie: Christians stand outside the gates of culture and try to impact it. They should forget trying to impact culture and first learn to be human, to be cultural. Then, if they are truly following Jesus, impact will occur.
 
What do you see as the real issues Christians should be addressing to a postmodern generation?

Charlie: Love of God and neighbor. Justice, mercy, a humble life.
 
What do you think are the biggest trouble spots or blind spots contemporary Christians face in trying to develop ongoing, genuine relationships with people who may not believe as they do?

Charlie: Having too many unembodied certainties and not behaving as if they still need a Savior.

You've recently taken to addressing John Coltrane's spiritual jazz composition "A Love Supreme." What can modern-day seekers learn from Coltraine and his work?

Charlie: At the point in his career of "A Love Supreme," there was no bifurcation between his spiritual life and his work life.

Just as your music has influenced many people in this generation, who are some of the writers and thinkers who helped to influence your views on faith and living out that faith? Why are they important to you?

Charlie: Wendell Berry, Os Guinness, Daniel Doriani, Steven Garber, N.T. Wright, and Dallas Willard.

If I were an honest skeptic standing before you right now, what would be the one thing you wouldn't want me to leave without hearing?

Charlie: You don't have to sign off on a list of propositions and certainties to begin following Jesus, but you do have to be genuinely curious. And if you are, the words of Jesus, "Come and seek." If you follow and seek the way of Jesus, see reality as he sees it, and decide that he does in fact have the best thoughts and actions regarding the most important things, then commit to be his student/follower. Commit to his ways of knowing, being and doing.

the view from ... Chuck Dixon

Tell us a little about how you became a Christian.

Chuck Dixon: Well, I was born and raised Catholic. And no matter what that teaching stays with you. Those nuns had a big impact on me and I thought that priests had to be the coolest guys on the planet. I still do. And I suppose I'm still a Catholic in a cultural sense. But my wife introduced me to the Church of Christ and their beliefs seem so simple and streamlined with strict adherence to The Word and none of the mystical mumbo jumbo. And that's where I call home.

What experiences led you to believe that there must be Someone or Something out there beyond just this life?

Chuck: Simple faith. You look at the life of Christ and His words and you'd have to be in total denial not to see that He was a model for humanity and civilization as well as the Big Answers. Once I had faith the rest fell into place. I could clearly see how everything around me sprang from Somewhere; Someone greater than us. The simple fact that science consistently proves rather than disproves the words in the Bible should convince anyone. As someone recently said, "The only reason you wouldn't believe in The Word is because you're afraid to admit it's true."

How did that decision impact your life and your relationships with others?

Chuck: Not terribly. It's not like I hung with the Hell's Angels or anything. I've always been a quiet, straight arrow kind of guy. I didn't fall to rise again. Hey, I'm just a comics geek.

Many Christians seem to have retreated to a subculture where they can recreate the world into a "safer," Christian morals-based mirror of reality, with Christian TV, Christian music, Christian fashion. Do you feel this retreat from the world has helped give the impression that Christians don't really care about people but instead care about protecting themselves from the "bad" influences out there?

Chuck: I think you have to be in the game to win. I could have retreated to Christian comics and probably been happy creatively and financially. But that's preaching to the choir. I think it's better to present moral values in the wasteland of general entertainment. I dealt with the abortion/adoption issue in a Warner owned publication and reached an audience I would never have reached otherwise. I backed out of a government funded project to produce an anti-drug comic because it was ill-conceived and poorly executed. One of the participants accused me of being some kind of heartless jerk saying, "You'd rather make money writing Spider-man." Truth is, I probably reached more readers with anti-drug stories featuring Batman and Robin than any government handout could have.

All that said, as a dad I can see the allure of all-Christian entertainment. It can serve as a filter to block out the crass and vulgar stuff thrown at kids today. They say kids are growing up faster than they used to. That's a load. They're FORCING the kids to grow up by spewing puerile muck at them.

The notion of separating the sacred (that spiritual existence) and the secular (the "real" world of jobs and flat tires) -- what's your response to the person who tries to divide the world into these simple divisions?

Chuck: One of my favorite quotes of all time was said by George Foreman when someone challenged his devotion to Christ when he was a boxer. "I think Jesus and boxing is a great combination." He went on to explain the relationship between sportsmanship and Christian ethics. I agree with him. Jesus' teachings can guide you through anything. The answers are all there. 

In what ways have you had the opportunity to see your beliefs and writing career integrated?

Chuck: Mostly in the fortunes God has allowed me. He granted me the talent to write stories in a series of static pictures and then guided me to a career in that area. With His help and guidance I've had an unusually long and successful career.

I mentioned the other ways earlier -- the opportunity to introduce a moral element into stories.

 I notice in your writing that you don't limit yourself to writing "Christian" comics or "Christian" books, or even turning the stuff you are writing into outreach publications. And some of the publications you've written for aren't markets most Christians who write would consider (such as The Simpsons comics or war comics). Is that intentional?

Chuck: The Simpsons are the only characters on television or in comics who attend church regularly. Even that insipid family on 7th Heaven only rarely stops in for a service. The Simpsons also deal with BIG issues and their experiences cover the entire moral spectrum. When they address religion, they are often irreverent but never sacrilegious. As far as I'm concerned the episode where Bart sells his soul to Milhouse should be shown in Sunday Schools. C.S. Lewis couldn't have done a better job explaining sin and redemption.

As far as war comics go, it's a part of human experience and fascinates me because it represents the best and worst in human behavior. I've never written stories that wallow in gore and carnage and excuse myself by claiming that my story was "anti-war." I usually emphasize sacrifice and heroism and deprivation in my war stories. My war stories for The 'Nam and Savage Tales were also blatantly anti-communist. As far as I'm concerned that's serving God in a BIG way.

Do you find that by being in the real world and not in the Christian subculture you have opportunities to meet people where they are and discuss your faith naturally instead of using the memorized or "canned" approaches many church outreach programs use?

Chuck: Certainly. I think my job as a Christian is to get atheists and agnostics to question their LACK of beliefs. I'm not out to convert by evangelizing. I think it's better to start by shaking others arguments and at least opening them up to The Word.

What does your faith mean to you? Why is it important to you to believe? What has believing in and following Christ benefited you as you look back on your life?

Chuck: Well, every time I ignored what I knew to be The Truth I made enormous mistakes in my life.

But more importantly my faith gives me courage. Or it helps give me courage to face what comes at me. I'm not one of these guys who shrugs and says, "Oh, it's God's will" when some calamity strikes. But I will explore the nature of the bad news to find what good God meant in it. I find that as my faith deepens my doubts are more easily swept aside.

My belief in Christ also prepared me for my most important job; as parent to my children. You can throw out all those parent guides and how-to books. Raising kids is all covered in the books of the Bible. It's also given me the patience to deal with kids. And that's the most important element of being a parent.
If I were an honest skeptic standing with you right now, what would be the one thing you would tell me in regard to opening my mind to the idea of believing in God and following Him?

Chuck: The Book of Genesis blows it all away.

What other religion or mythology has a creation story that is proven to be true each year by scientific research?

Our universe was created in a series of stages from an explosion of light to the birth of life. And each of these stages happened in a particular order. Science has proven that these events in this order are the way it happened. How did the ancient Hebrews, essentially a bunch of nomadic shepherds, know about the Big Bang Theory, astronomy, biology, thermodynamics, geology, etc., to get all that right? Especially when other cultures had patently ridiculous ideas like the world resting on the back of a turtle or everyone walking down to the earth along the blade of a sword. Hey, maybe somebody TOLD them how it happened. And Who was that Somebody?

the view from... Brian McLaren

Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is an ecumenical global networker among innovative Christian leaders. He is primarily known, however, as a thinker and writer. His first book, The Church on the Other Side: Doing Ministry in the Postmodern Matrix, (Zondervan, 1998, rev. ed. 2000) has been recognized as a primary portal into the current conversation about postmodern ministry. His second book, Finding Faith (Zondervan, 1999), is a contemporary apologetic, written for thoughtful seekers and skeptics. (It was later re-released as two short books, "A Search for What Makes Sense" and "A Search for What is Real.") "More Ready Than You Realize" (Zondervan, 2002) presents a refreshing approach to spiritual friendship. "Adventures in Missing the Point" (coauthored with Dr. Anthony Campolo, Zondervan, 2003) explores theological reform in a postmodern context. "A Generous Orthodoxy" (Zondervan, 2004), is a personal confession and has been called a "manifesto of the emerging church conversation." (For Brian's official site, go to http://www.brianmclaren.net/)

Tell us a little about how you became a Christian. What experiences led you to believe that there had to be something more than just this life?

Brian McLaren: I was brought up in a committed Christian family, and like a lot of church kids, I had to reach a point where I either rejected the faith or made it my own. That happened for me in my teenage years. Right at the point where I had the opportunity to walk away, God brought into my life several friends my age or a little older than me who lived a life of radical discipleship, and they challenged me to join them, and I did. During this time, I had some very powerful experiences with the Holy Spirit which led me to the conviction that God was real.

How did those experiences and that decision to follow Jesus Christ impact your life and the relationships you had with others?

Brian: Interestingly, the first thing that I remember was a desire to get along better with my parents, and the second was to "cease and desist" from some of the crude and hurtful behavior that a lot of my buddies were part of. The third was to begin sharing my faith with some friends.

What does your faith mean to you? Why is it crucial to you?

Brian: I think that life boils down to a choice between running my own agenda (or some other agenda created by human beings) or seeking God's agenda. My own agenda will focus on my personal interests, pleasure, prosperity, security, and so on. God's agenda will focus on love, joy, peace, justice, character development, and so on. One will make me part of the problem in the world, and the other will make me part of the solution.

What lessons have been the most valuable to you during your experience of following Christ?

Brian: I'll mention three. First is the importance of staying in close contact with God. It's so easy to keep up religious activities but not actually be "abiding" in God. So, disciplines or practices like prayer, practicing God's presence, solitude, silence, Scripture reading and meditation, and so on, have been central to my life. Second, I've learned how important it is to see Christ in the people most often rejected or forgotten by others. The Holy Spirit always draws me to find the loneliest person in a crowd, or the youngest, or oldest, or most different to befriend them and connect with them - and this has been very important to the direction my life has taken. And third is the need to keep learning. I'm in my early fifties now, and I feel that I have more to learn than ever. I've seen some acquaintances become complacent or even proud - as if they have all the answers - and I don't think this is a good sign. So I try to keep learning, keep asking questions, keep aware that however old I am, before God I'm just a little kid who knows next to nothing.

Many Christians seem to have retreated to a subculture where they can recreate the world into a "safer" version of reality, with Christian TV, Christian music, Christian fashion. Do you feel this retreat from the world has helped give the impression that Christians don't really care about people but instead care about protecting themselves from the "bad" influences out there?

Brian: Yes. Sadly, there's a dangerous religious impulse - I read where someone called it a "religiously transmitted disease" - where people create us/them, in/out groups. They become culture warriors and exluders instead of healers and peacemakers as Jesus was. Jesus' movement in the incarnation was downward, to come among us, to bring God to us, while the Pharisees movement was upward, to place themselves above others and look down on them in judgment. This whole movement into a Christian subculture and parallel religious universe, it seems to me, is both understandable and problematic for people who want to be followers of Jesus, not modern-day Pharisees.

How do you avoid that retreat, particularly as a writer and established "Christian thinker"?

Brian: I remember feeling this very much when I left my first career as a college English teacher and became a pastor. I had to take intentional action or I would have been isolated in a religious parallel universe. What I did back then was to get involved in community soccer and start doing volunteer work in an area of interest for me. Just yesterday, my wife and I organized a picnic for all our neighbors and we had a great time getting and staying connected with everyone.

Because my works are considered controversial by some people, I could easily get sucked into intramural arguments with my critics. But I've chosen instead to focus on issues that are common to all humanity - not just religious folks - so I'm increasingly focused on what the gospel says to global crises like the environment, peace and war, and the gap between the rich and poor. This puts me into increasing contact with people in the society at large who care about these things.

The notion of separating the sacred (that spiritual existence) and the secular (the "real" world of jobs and flat tires) -- what's your response to the person who tries to divide the world into these simple divisions?

Brian: This shows the degree to which we've become devotees of the Greek god "theos" instead of the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus. The Jewish concept of God was not dualistic -- God was the creator of the physical world and all its stuff, and God called it all "good" and "very good." The Greek god "theos" was interested in spirit but not matter, souls but not bodies, eternity but not history, and escape not incarnation. So, I would encourage the devotee of the Greek deity to reconsider how different Jesus was, and what he reveals about God - a God who "became flesh" and "dwelt among us," who ate with tax collectors and sinners, who immersed himself in our world of dust and dirt and sweat and tears.

In your open letter to worship songwriters, you address several concerns that could be leading to a lesser level of spiritual depth or at least to a less well-rounded faith that goes beyond just "me-nes." How has recent spiritual songwriting contributed to generating Christians that don't seek to engage the world with the mystery of Christ?

Brian: I think that "the worship industry" has great intentions, but sadly, it begins to function like the mass media of which it is part. TV, radio, video games, even the internet have a way of sucking you out of "real reality" and into "virtual reality." You watch "Animal Planet," but you never get out and see an osprey diving for fish, or ride a real horse, or make friends with the neighborhood squirrels. In a similar way, we can become addicted to a "feeling" of "God's presence" which we experience "in worship" - maybe like Peter wanting to stay on the mount of transfiguration in the Gospel story. We want to build our tents there. But Jesus always leads us down the mountain and into ministry. I love to be on the mountaintop and have those intense experiences, but I find that they go stale. As Jesus said, he is is the kind of shepherd who leads us in and out to find pasture ... he doesn't lead us in and in.

Who are the thinkers, artists, and writers who have influenced your understanding of the life of faith?

Brian: There are so many, it's hard to know where to begin. In my early years, C. S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer were a huge influence. Then, Walker Percy's writings really helped me. In the last decade or so, Lesslie Newbigin, David Bosch, Walter Brueggemann, Wendell Berry, and N. T. Wright have helped me so much. In the last few years, I've been tremendously inspired by African, Asian, and Latin American theologians - like Alan Boesak, Jon Sobrino, Leonardo Boff, Rene Padilla, and others.

I'd have to say that the music of Bruce Cockburn, David Wilcox, Carrie Newcomer, Mike Blanchard, and others like them has been the kind of soundtrack for my spiritual life. The poetry of Wendell Berry and Mary Oliver mean a lot to me, along with William Wordsworth and William Blake and John Donne.

What do you see as the biggest hang-ups keeping Christians from being able to make an impact in the world at large, or becoming what Bob Briner refers to as "roaring lambs"?

Brian: Lately, I think it's the culture war mentality that has swept through Evangelical and Charismatic Christianity. I think its long-term effects will be so negative. Put that together with the Prosperity Gospel, and I think you have a religion of power, aggression, selfishness, and greed ... hardly what Jesus intended. Much of this is made worse by the "left-behind" eschatology that encourages Christians to dream of evacuating or abandoning the earth rather than incarnating the gospel into it and seeing it transformed by the good news of the kingdom of God. Some of this comes from a theological assumption that God hates the world because of its sin, and that God wants to destroy it as soon as possible. So, I think the causes of these problems are deep, interconnected, and highly related to some bad theology.

What do you see as the real issues Christians should be addressing to a today's generation and its culture?

Brian: This is really the subject of my newest book, which is called Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope. I try to understand the world's most serious crises and see what the message and example of Jesus teach us about how to respond. In the book, I describe four crises - the prosperity crisis, the equity crisis, the security crisis, and the spirituality crisis. I'm very hopeful that the book will get people thinking about the question you raise - and help us focus on deeper issues than we've been preoccupied with.

Suppose I'm an honest skeptic standing before you at this moment. What's the one thing you wouldn't want me to leave without hearing?

Brian: First, I'd want to say I'm sorry for all the confusion and aggression that religious people create in the name of God. I would want you to know that I can see why, in light of crusade and jihad, in light of religious scandal and hypocrisy, you would feel that being a skeptic is a better option than being a religious bigot or hypocrite. But then I'd say that there are many of us who are devoting ourselves to seeking a better way, and we believe that this is the way God showed us in Jesus. I would want you to know that you're welcome to come along and see what we're up to, what we're learning, and whether there is good reason to move from honest skepticism to honest faith. I would want you to know that we're not perfect and that you'll see a lot of problems and failures in our lives, but that we won't expect you to be perfect either, because in the end, we believe that God loves and accepts us all just as we are.

the view from ... Kim and Jim Thomas of Say So

Tell us a little about how you became a Christian. What experiences led you to believe that there had to be something more than just this life?

Say So: We both became Christians at an early age and grew up in the church. Later on, during our high school and college years, we began to understand that being a Christian is about more than just sin management.

How did those experiences and that decision to follow Jesus Christ impact your life and the relationships you had with others?

Say So: Discipleship means integrating our faith into all the other areas of our lives. Because we have decided to follow Christ, it means we look at life in a completely different way than we used to.

What does your faith mean to you? Why is it important to you?

Say So: The Christian faith begins to answer all the BIG questions of life i.e. Why are we here? What is the purpose of life? How can we know the difference between right and wrong? Where are we going?

What lessons have been the most valuable to you during your experience of following Christ?

Say So: Understanding the importance of seeking hard after God and studying the scriptures which reveal God's thoughts.

While many Christians today seem to retreat into a subculture of Christian music, Christian books, Christian TV, your music seems to speak openly and honestly about faith and life in fresh ways, not just telling Christians something they want to hear or repeating the same old things over and over again, but speaking so that anyone can listen and wonder. Do you feel that this retreat into the subculture has kept many Christians from being able to have a real voice in the world?

 Say So: Perhaps. American evangelicalism has on occasion fallen into the trap of trivializing and sloganizing the Christian faith.

How do you avoid that retreat, particularly as songwriters and artists?

Say So: In the lyrics of our songs and in the books we've written (Jim: Coffeehouse Theology and Streetwise Spirituality, Kim: Simplicity and Living in the Sacred Now) we've tried really hard to speak in a language that anyone could understand. We try to think more in terms of worldview and less in terms of a Hallmark card approach to our faith. We feel we should sing/speak/write about all of life from a Christian worldview.

How do you perceive the state of Christian music today?

Say So: It's probably fair to say there is some very good, some okay, and some bad. But that's nothing new.

One of my favorites songs you've recorded has the line: "water and blood and flesh and bone ... mysterious jewel in a plastic box." That line has always stuck with me since. What was the genesis of that song?

Say So: The first part speaks of our solidarity in physical terms and the second of our solidarity as creatures made in the image of God. The mysterious jewel is the image of God that sets us apart from the rest of creation and gives us the capacity to know our creator as a heavenly Father.

Who are the thinkers, artists, and writers who have influenced your understanding of the life of faith?

Say So: C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, Dallas Willard, John Stott, Alister McGrath, Francis Schaeffer, Annie Dillard, Madeline L'Engle

What do you see as the biggest hang-ups keeping Christians from being able to make an impact in the world at large, or becoming what Bob Briner refers to as "roaring lambs"?

Say So: I think we are doing better than we were in the past couple of decades. But there are probably several things that still hold us back at times. Our use of "Christianese" or, insider language. The arrogance we so often display. Our lack of unity. Our lack of social responsibility. etc.

What do you see as the real issues Christians should be addressing to a postmodern generation?

Say So: One thing is that we need to rethink evangelism. I think we need to approach it on more of a relational level. This takes more time and involves more listening and less talking which we aren't used to. But that is definitely what it will take if we're going to make more Christians and better ones at that.

Okay, supposing I'm an honest skeptic standing before you at this moment. What's the one thing you wouldn't want me to leave without hearing?

Say So: That the Designer of your brain (God) really does exist or you wouldn't even be able to think your skeptical thoughts. That the ancient scriptures reveal how this Designer desires to be in relationship with you, so much so, that in spite of your doubts, He loves you and is in hot pursuit of you.