CHILDHOOD

Interesting, and I am still not done reading but I wanted to comment before I forgot. We did the same kind of stuff -- we had a traveling youth choir and would peform contemory songs of the time. I remember we did Petra's Grave Robber, How Majestic Is Your Name, Friends and a few other MW Smith and Amy Grant tunes. We would go to camp and do similiar things with VHS tapes. I can even remember the SAME Billy Joel song being played in church, an instrumental version on saxaphone and the theme of it was "Just The Way You Are" as being a spiritual song. Not only that I remember the church musicians doing "Taking It To The Streets" by the Doobies and the message was "we need to take the message of Jesus to the streets".

My youth pastor, Jeff, was also in a Christian Rock band. They were similiar to Crowded House, Husker Du or U2. Someone set up a page for them here and it was nice to hear their tunes again:

https://myspace.com/vesselknoxville1980s/music/songs

Check them out if you are curious. They used to practice in our church gym and allowed me to sit and listen. The drummer was my youth pastor. My second year of college he ended up leaving the church and left ministry altogether as far as I know. I believe he is now a counsler for teens at a halfway house.

And those NBA games -- classic! I can remember watching The Pistons and The Blazers on a small, battery operated B&W TV that I took with me to camp (mentioned above) so I could watch the game that night! As a Pistons fan I was excited and also had new respect for the Blazers. Some classic match-ups back then!

Dynamis wrote:

Once the song had ended, I expected him to go on a strongly worded and long-winded diatribe about the evils of rock music, how we need to burn our secular records and how certain artists or styles of music we should not be listening to as Christian youth.  He did not do that, but rather turned towards the gathered youth and in a matter of fact manner said, “I believe the Holy Spirit inspired that song”.
 
WAIT a minute?  WHAT did he say?
 
Did a youth minister in the all too conservative and at times hard-line to a fault church environment of the eighties actually provide endorsement for a song from a secular artist?

Very cool!  And given that you still remember it, I would say it had a profound effect on you.

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Interesting, and I am still not done reading but I wanted to comment before I forgot. We did the same kind of stuff -- we had a traveling youth choir and would peform contemory songs of the time. I remember we did Petra's Grave Robber, How Majestic Is Your Name, Friends and a few other MW Smith and Amy Grant tunes. We would go to camp and do similiar things with VHS tapes. I can even remember the SAME Billy Joel song being played in church, an instrumental version on saxaphone and the theme of it was "Just The Way You Are" as being a spiritual song. Not only that I remember the church musicians doing "Taking It To The Streets" by the Doobies and the message was "we need to take the message of Jesus to the streets".

Sorry that my post was so long-winded- I have a tendency to overdue it with detail at times.  Often when I start a writing project I have this bad habit of forgetting when to stop.  This past weekend when I decided to respond to the Childhood thread, I kept going and going and going until things got out of hand.

But sounds like we have a somewhat similar youth church background with the youth choir touring thing and all.  We did mostly hymns or modern worship pieces but in a more contemporary style.  The only contemporary song of the time that I recall us performing was "Soon And Very Soon" by the late Andre Crouch.  I believe our former youth pastor is now doing mission work in either Central or South  America.

As for the NBA, I believe the respective conference finals are starting and I could not even tell you who is playing...

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Very cool!  And given that you still remember it, I would say it had a profound effect on you.

It is one of those unmistakable quotes that for whatever reason has always stuck with me and that I have never forgotten (for whatever reason).  I guess the lesson learned is to always question things.

I've got older brothers. One's 8 years older and the other 7 years older.
They were influential in my love for rock music at a really young age.. and in a way, I was influential in their interest in Christianity. My oldest brother came around several years after I came to faith and he and his wife have become huge workers in their church (I just hope he's not adhering to "Grace-Coated-Works" that's so prevalent.. gonna have a talk with him sometime soon).  Then my other brother, who's always been quiet and kept to himself, he's come to faith just in the last few years.  He was the only one in the family to finish college and for many years had nothing to do with Christianity. So it's nice to see him come around. He's divorced with a 10 year old boy. So it's great to know he's taking his kid to church now.
I'm really close to my brothers and would be devastated if anything happens to them.