Category Archives: Anchor Church

The Church Bouncers

One of those things happened last night that makes you shake your head, wondering what was the best thing to do.

A social service group called the Literacy Alliance uses our church’s downstairs areas on Thursday nights. They work with adults who need help learning to read and write. They have maybe a dozen people involved. We don’t charge anything.

The worship team is practicing while they meet. About 6:50, the lady who runs the program came upstairs and asked if our pastor was there (we had a board meeting at 7:00, also, so he was there). I asked her if I could help. She told me they had a guy downstairs who was totally disrupting things, and refused to leave. She was obviously at her wit’s end, deeply frustrated. Didn’t know what to do about the guy, and couldn’t accomplish anything with him present.

So, looked like we needed to kick someone out of the church, and there could be violence. I called to Terry, one of our guitarists, and told him the situation. And we headed downstairs with the woman. We were not exactly a fearsome duo, but we were heading into potential battle. Me–I’ve never been in a fight in my life.

But soon as I saw the guy, I felt okay. About my size, but nerdy looking. As if I’m not. Said he was 24. Terry and I approached him, behind the lady. She repeated that he needed to leave, and he immediately launched into all kinds of verbal sparring. He was asking why, what did I do wrong?, why won’t you help me? who is your superior? Then he asked, “Who are these gentlemen with you?” Then we got involved. “What gives her the right to tell me to leave?”

I said, “She’s in charge, and if she says you need to leave, then that’s it.”

He argued and argued. Pretty squirrely guy. Wanted to know our full names, as if he would report us to somebody. I briefly considered giving him a fake name, but decided that was dumb. We ushered him to the exit, which on that level is through the garage, and he was arguing the whole way. Finally got him ALMOST out, and he said, “I want someone to take me to the entrance where I came in. That’s where my bike is.” I said I would take him, but he said, “No, I’m scared. You might hurt me.” So it was getting funny.

Well, his bike was about 30 feet away. We got him outside, and he kept arguing. At one point he said, “You guys are scaring me. I’m frightened.” He asked Terry, “Will you promise not to hit me?” And Terry said, “No.” I had to laugh.

Anyway, we eventually got rid of him. Two laypersons kicking a young man, a disturbed guy, off of the church property.

Yeah, it was the right thing to do. I talked to the program director later, and she was still a nervous wreck from dealing with that guy. But it wasn’t comfortable for me and Terry. On the other hand, my sense of machismo has been elevated.

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Seven Years

Today was our anniversary Sunday at Anchor, my church. It was seven years ago that about 40 of us, a core group from the suburban Emmanuel Community Church, launched a new church on the corner of Third and Schilling. A United Brethren church had existed there since the 1930s, but this was essentially a new church. A restart. We had spent the night before, Saturday, giving the place a cleaning from top to bottom. And now, Sunday morning, we prepared to get this new thing underway, and wondered if anybody would come.

About 135 people came, if I remember. Some were well-wishers from Emmanuel, coming over for moral support. But others were people from the community who received a postcard in the mail about this new church starting. It was pretty exciting. We didn’t really know what we were doing. We were bringing over some methods and ministry assumptions from Emmanuel, things which didn’t necessarily fit in our working class neighborhood. But we were smart enough to adapt as the weeks and months passed. The attendance settled in around 90-100, and we’ve grown gradually, even slowly. But we’ve grown, and we’ve produced fruit that doesn’t always show up in numbers.

Less than ten of that core group remain. Another six or so from the previous UB congregation still attend. We’ve been running around 150 regularly lately. Going to two services in mid-September was definitely a good thing. Today we had a potluck after the service. Potlucks are always good things.

I love being at Anchor. I love being vitally needed. I love having so many opportunities to serve and lead. I love reaching and interacting with the type of people who come to Anchor. I love the fact that so many of us still have burning within us a desire to really make a difference in this community. That passion hasn’t been extinguished by settling into patterns, focusing inward, and becoming content with the status quo. There are so many things about Anchor that need improved, and that can’t be fixed by throwing money at it, since we just don’t have the money. There are things that won’t happen unless God does it. I love wrestling with these things.

In a few minutes, about a dozen adults will come over for our Sunday night Bible study. They’re fun people. I didn’t know any of them seven years ago. Now most of them are friends. This is just way too cool.

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Who Sets Your Standards?

On Sunday night, Pam and I started a new home Bible study. We had 19 people there, and one person was missing. I believe we are stretching the “small group” definition. But there’s a reason. Last spring, we did a group with a dozen people–a good size. However, many of them had to miss various weeks–they had good reasons–and a couple weeks we were down to just four people. So I decided I’d rather start with a large group, and if everybody showed up, I could just divide them into smaller groups to get the good interaction that a small group needs. So that’s what we’re doing. On Sunday night, I divided us into three different groups for one particular exercise.

We are a “kids free” group. We have a woman in her 70s, and four college-age whipper-snappers. Most of the couples have kids, but they’re grown or at least old enough to leave at home. Two other groups in our church have the young couples with kids. That’s the way I like it. Don’t I sound like a grouch?

In my previous church (before 1998), Pam and I were part of a highly fertile group of young couples. We had a bunch of young’ns running around, and it was hard to get any good study/discussion done. During our snack time, the women were always talking about kid-related things, so Pam wasn’t all that thrilled. (Guys, whether they have kids or not, will talk about sports, so I was okay.)

That group was in a large suburban, rich church. The group included a number of doctors and business owners. They had money, and they had big houses. When Pam and I bought our own home after living in an apartment for four years–a one-story with a basement–I remember feeling at times like it didn’t measure up. It was smaller than everyone else’s home, not as fancy, not in as nice a subdivision. Here was this nice home God had provided for us, and because of my associations at church, I sometimes felt discontent with our new home.

But then we joined a group which helped restart a church in a low-income neighborhood near the city center. Now, we have one of the nicer homes in the church, and I couldn’t imagine “trading up” to a larger house. It would just seem inappropriate, greedy, to do so. I’m totally content and delighted with our home now, but I had to change churches for that to happen. And now I worry that other people in our current not-so-rich church will, upon visiting our home, feel some degree of discontent with their own home. Because I remember how I felt a few years ago.

Peer pressure is alive and well in the 21st century church. Which is why I continually ask myself, “Who sets my standards?”

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The Congressman Comes to Church

A week ago, Congressman Mark Souder spoke for about ten minutes at Anchor. He goes to the Emmanuel Community Church, which is sort of the parent church for Anchor, so there was a connection. A member of Anchor found himself sitting next to the Congressman on an airplane recently, and that led to his appearance at Anchor.

Mark Souder is the real deal. He doesn’t need to don a Christian persona. He’s a genuine, highly committed Christian. I’ve also found him to be remarkably approachable. When I attended Emmanuel, one Sunday I went up to him and asked him a question about something happening in Washington. He didn’t even know me, but immediately opened up with some very frank responses, more frank than I expected from a politician. He was the same way at Anchor two Sundays ago. He stayed around for a long time talking to people, and was amazingly honest about things, regardless of how they reflected on his party, the Republican party. He is extremely refreshing to listen to. And he has your full attention. With some “important” (or self-important) people, they’re half listening to you, but also looking over your shoulder to see who else they’d like to talk to. Not Mark.

And his wife, Diane, is a gem. Turns out they live in the addition across the street from us. Good people,they are.

Their son, Mark, is a very good guitarist. One of my strongest memories from Emmanuel involves him. We were doing the song Blind Man, kind of a stretch for Emmanuel, but it seemed like it would be okay. I was on the piano, Glenn Flint was leading, Nate was on the electric guitar, Wes on acoustic. The song starts out moderately, but then kicks into high gear. And Nate was responsible for changing the gear by switching to a high-distortion setting. I don’t think we’d ever used guitar distortion at Emmanuel until Nate broke the barrier in spades. I thought the song was great fun, and I got an energy rush out of it. But the comment cards were overwhelmingly negative. It didn’t quite go over well.

Oh well. We can get away with anything at Anchor. So when Glenn Flint became music pastor at Anchor, we “redeemed” Blind Man. We did it several times, in fact, and it always went over well. Even with two electric guitars and drums louder than Emmanuel ever played them. And me pounding on the electric keyboard. I think Nate would have enjoyed it.

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Friday Night Ransacking

Kelly and Annie, two young adult women who are new to Anchor Community Church during the past year or so, volunteered to do the groundswork this summer. They’re very good at it. We baptized Kelly last September. Both she and Annie bring a whole truckload of teens with them every Sunday. They fill Kelly’s cab and the bed of the truck. It’s pretty incredible how many people these women have brought to Anchor.

Kelly and Annie were at the church Friday night when suddenly a bunch of cop cars converged on the house across the street from the church, the house on the corner where Faye, a senior citizen and former attender, lives. The cops pulled out their guns, and demanded that whoever was inside come out with their hands up. You know the drill.

Our Friday night youth center was in progress. Kelly and Annie went over there to make sure everyone stayed inside, just in case lead started flying. Nobody was inside Faye’s house. But somebody had been.

As I left church this morning, I saw Faye pull into her garage, returning from her church. “I hear you had some excitement on Friday night,” I said. “I sure did,” Faye said, and she told me about it.

Faye figures somebody was watching her house, waiting for her to leave. Because she was only gone a half hour, and when she returned, her house had been ransacked. Someone slit a screen to break into the house (“It cost $11 to replace!” Faye told me), and then went through the small house evidently looking for money. All of the drawers were open, the cushions removed from furniture, the bed mattress turned over. Faye went to her daughter’s house, where the police were notified.

Terry, one of our guitarists, is kicking himself. He was out walking his dog, and saw a large woman in the back of Faye’s fenced-in yard. He waved, and the woman waved back. It was kind of an automatic thing. Only later, after he heard about what had happened, did he think, “I should have known that woman didn’t belong there!” The police provided a sketch artist so he could describe the person.

As far as Faye can tell, nothing was taken. She had some valuable things around, but it was all still there. The person went out the back door, leaving a large footprint. Maybe Faye scared the intruder off when she returned home. Still in broad daylight, I should add.

Yes, it’s interesting ministering in the city.

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Battle of the Bands, 2005

Friday night was our annual “Battle of the Bands.” This is the third year Anchor has hosted it. We had 12 bands of the Christian “hard-core” variety–lots of screaming and wild antics. Each had 15 minutes to do their very best stuff. Tony, our concert guy, has the system down pretty well. It only takes about eight minutes between bands–time for one band to tear down its stuff and the next one to set up.

We estimate the crowd at 600 kids, maybe more. We parked people at an old Ekrich factory and shuttled them to the church, so kids wouldn’t make our neighbors mad by taking all the parking spaces in front of their homes. That worked well. This year, too, we hired two off-duty cops for the whole event. But there were no problems. Well, one window in the sanctuary got broken from the outside–we don’t know how–and some band member had an eyelid split open (it happened while they were performing–probably hit by a flying guitar from a fellow band member).

We stack up all of the sanctuary chairs against the walls, since the kids always stand throughout the concerts. Stand, and bang around, and do their little hardcore jigs, which I find fun to watch. Flailing arms and legs, wildly thrashing the air. Banging into each other. A space in the center of the sanctuary cleared out as the makeshift mosh pit.

Most of the bands sounded pretty much alike to me. And to others. While I enjoy these concerts, I’m not a discriminating listener. Others can tell the difference between (I’m using terms here in ignorant ways) metalcore, hardcore, emo, and other types of music. I can’t. But I can, at least, tell if they’re together, if they need to be musically tighter, if the bass player knows more than three cords, etc. In other words, I can tell if the band members are musically good. Some are. Most are average.

Six hundred kids. They come from all over the city. We’re about the only place left in Fort Wayne that allows this type of music. I’m proud of that. Other places would get hung up about finding gum in the sanctuary carpet, about breaking windows, about people smoking outside, about T-shirts with unChristian things written on them, about all kinds of things that go on at these concerts. But it’s extremely easy for church people to communicate non-acceptance to kids. Many of these are already out of the mainstream, and they’re expecting church people to be non-accepting. Which is why I think they find Anchor to be a breath of fresh air. We like our building, but it’s not more important than people.

I think we have four windows to fix right now. Three were broken as a result of ministry events. We need to buy ash cans for outside, so kids have a place to discard their cigarette butts. The gum in the carpet is really difficult to get out. But hey–all of this is just the cost of doing business in our part of Fort Wayne. If the cost is too high, we need to get out and let somebody else give it a shot. But thankfully, we’re okay with it. And that makes me very proud to be at Anchor.

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Christian Moshing

We had one of our Christian hardcore music concerts Friday night. I didn’t go to this one, but I talked to Tony about it this morning. He heads up these concerts. It went well, he told me, except for the guy who tried to start a fight.

Our “concert hall” is just the basement fellowship hall with everything pushed to the sides. Everyone stands throughout the concert, and they are close enough to touch the band members. And they often do. Musicians and audience are standing, basically, face to face. Except when they’re moshing. That usually happens right up front. The crowd pushes back, and in the space between them and the band, the kids bang into each other and do little (for want of a better term, something that wouldn’t horrify them) “jigs,” creative little dance thingies that I enjoy watching. Please excuse the technical jargon.

At secular hardcore concerts, people who venture into the mosh pit sometimes leave battered and bruised. That’s not quite the case at our concerts. Yes, they bang into each other. Yes, arms and legs flail around without a lot of attention to whose nose might be in the path. But I’ve never seen anyone get hurt. More often, if something borders on rough, the offending person will say, “I’m sorry, are you okay? I didn’t mean to hit you.” It’s Christian hardcore, after all.

But on Friday, some kid didn’t quite understand that. So as he was innocently watching the music or talking to something–at any rate, not paying attention to the moshing–someone banged into him, and he got mad. He grabbed the offending mosher in a headlock, and was headed in a not-so-nice direction. But other kids immediatley stepped in, stopped it, and basically kicked the kid out. He wanted to fight, and they wouldn’t allow it. They sent him on his way. We didn’t need an adult there to police things. And though we have an off-duty policeman on hand, he’s usually not in the concert area. Instead, the concert-goers took ownership, and wouldn’t allow something bad to happen. Self-policing.

That encourages me. From what I hear, we’re the only venue in Fort Wayne which allows Christian hardcore concerts. The kids appreciate that and don’t want to jeapordize it. They have a sense of owernship, these kids with the tattoos and multitudinous piercings and all-black attire. And that gives me a good feeling.

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Altar Call Encounters

I grew up seeing God reach down into the pews during services, grab hold of someone, and propel them to the altar. That’s basically what happens during altar calls. Maybe nothing in the sermon grabbed me, but come time for the altar call, I would discover that God was, indeed, at work. Someone would get out of a pew and walk to the altar, sometimes with tears. Every once in a while, I made the trek for a need in my own life.

I miss that. Churches shy away from altar calls nowadays, because it’s not considered visitor-friendly or culturally-sensitive or whatever. Maybe God is still moving, but I don’t see it. And I miss that. As I’ve already said.

Yesterday, we had an altar call–not for salvation, but for other needs. Six people came up while the worship team played “Breathe.” Two young women, probably in their late 30s, knelt down just in front of where I was playing the keyboard. Both were in tears. One elder fellow in the church talked and prayed with one of the ladies, but nobody came to pray with the other one. So I left the keyboard and knelt down in front of her. I didn’t know her very well, but she poured out some deep hurts, relationship things. And I prayed with her, feeling totally inadequate to provide any real counsel. Relationships can be so complicated. They defy simple answers, so I didn’t try to provide any. My prayer just affirmed her and asked for guidance and wisdom for her.

The other lady, and the man counseling her, finished up. But I knelt down with her quickly, asking if she was okay. This was someone I didn’t know at all. She poured out her story quickly. Another women with deep hurts. More relationship things. Issues beyond her control.

I had grown up seeing people like this come to the altar, and seeing them kneel with the pastor or a mature Christian to talk and pray. Now I got a good glimpse of what some of those altar-call needs were all about.

I’ve been thinking about those two ladies all day, and the depth of their pain. Can’t get them off my mind.

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Musings on Sunbeams

Last Thursday at music practice, we did Todd Agnew’s “Grace Like Rain.” We then played it on Sunday as the offertory, just to introduce it to the congregation. It’s a great song, and we’ll be making it part of our regular reportoire.

I struggled to find the right sound to use on the keyboard. For kicks, I finally tried a French Accordion sound from my QSR sound module. I’ve used it on “Shout to the North” and a few other songs, but it’s not something I use much. Just doesn’t fit a band’s sound. But in this case, it worked. Nothing in Agnew’s recording even hints at an accordion, but we liked the sound. It gave the song an Anchor twist.

Our backup drummer, who graduated from high school last May, was there. He wasn’t playing that week, but was at practice just to hang around. He got a kick out of the French Accordion sound. I told him it reminded me of Nirvana’s “Jesus Don’t Want Me for a Sunbeam” song from the MTV Unplugged album. (The bass player also plays accordion. Who knew?) First of all, he was impressed that an Old Guy knew anything about Nirvana. Then we wracked our brains trying to remember how the accordion part went. It wouldn’t come to us.

When I got home, I called up the song on my iTunes, and then hacked out the accordion part on the piano. It was quite easy. Maybe someday I’ll play that part as the intro to some other worship song. We’ve done the Doobie Brothers “China Grove” opening to the Maranatha version of “Rock of Ages,” and the “Smoke on the Water” opening to lead into “The Name of the Lord.” That’s always fun. We’re trying to figure out how to use the Free Bird intro–the guitarists have the part down, and have messed around with using it with “Power of Your Love,” but it’s still in the experimental stage. I’m sure if I did a Nirvana intro to a worship song, it would freak out our college students.

Anyway, all of this prompted me to wonder more about the lyrics. The lyrics were actually written by The Vaselines, a group I’m not familiar with. The writer obviously knew the song “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam,” which indicates he had some kind of church background of the Bible-believing variety. The song itself speaks of some kind of inner spiritual battle which was definitely headed in the wrong direction. There is what appears to be an allusion to dying to self, and in singing it, Kurt Cobain is basically saying he’s not interested in doing that.

Anyway, here are the lyrics:

Jesus don’t want me for a sunbeam
Sunbeams are never made like me

Don’t expect me to cry,
For all the reasons you had to die
Don’t ever ask your love of me

Don’t expect me to cry
Don’t expect me to lie
Don’t expect me to die for me

I find all of this fascinating. Why did Cobain choose to perform this song? What resonated with him? Was there some kind of spiritual battle being waged–and lost–in Kurt Cobain? The fact that he committed suicide not all that long after the Unplugged concert speaks of something happening internally.

Anyway, just some musings on a guy I’ve come to appreciate as a truly ground-breaking musical artist who, on the inside, most definitely didn’t have things together.

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When Songs Retire

Our worship band practices on Thursday nights. This week, though, we devoted the time to hearing ideas for new songs. I’m of the opinion that we’re in a golden time of songwriting. Lots of great stuff is being written, at least in terms of worship music. When Anchor started in 1998, we were fully into the Maranatha stuff, a carry-over from our previous church. Then we discovered the Passion movement and fell in love with those great new songs, like “We Fall Down,” “Once Again,” “You are My King,” “We Wanna See Jesus Lifted High,” and so many others. We still do many of them. The Passion music fits our style–live, guitar-driven, as opposed to the studio-composed and brass-section-enhanced stuff from Maranatha and elsewhere.

Wonderful new music continues arriving from various directions, including from several members of our own worship team, who have been writing superb stuff for the past couple of years. I’m a professional writer, but I can’t get the hang of writing music. But our two guitarists and worship leader have “it.” Our previous worship leader wrote a song called “Great Faith” which we still do; people have asked us, “Who performs that song? I really like it.”

Our repertoire of songs has grown very large, and my master notebook–the biggest notebook I could find, a black monster–is beyond full. So in preparation for Thursday, I not only brought several new songs to the group. I also compiled a list of 25 songs I thought we should retire. Maybe we just don’t do them much anymore. Maybe they no longer fit our style. Or maybe I just don’t, personally, like them. Anyway, they approved the whole list. Rather enthusiastically, in fact. And now I can remove them from my notebook.

My list included these songs: “Above All,” “Almighty,” ” “Awesome God,” “Beyond Belief,” “The Cross has said it all,” “God is the strength of my heart,” “Happy Song,” ” I will sing of the mercies of the Lord,” ” Lord Reign in Me,” “Prepare the Way,” “There’s a Place,” “”You are the fire,” and various others. Including six songs with a Jewish beat that, only a few years ago, were fun to do, but which no longer fit our style. Songs like “I will celebrate,” “Jehovah Jireh,” and “The God of Israel is Mighty.”

Lots of still-good songs there. But we’d rather move on to new stuff.

It makes me think of all the songs from previous eras of my life that have been “retired,” so to speak. That I no longer hear in ANY context. In junior high, I thought “He’s Everything to Me” was just the coolest song ever. I think we could pull it out and do it, and it would still work well. But we won’t. That song is history. In high school, I had a book–just cord charts–of a whole bunch of Ralph Carmichael songs. I played those all the time. Can’t even remember the titles off-hand, now, but we used to sing many of them in our youth group.

Then there’s “Pass It On,” kind of a legendary song. I wonder if it could be revived? You really need to sing it around a campfire, I guess. That’s the perfect environment for it. “Soon and Very Soon,” “Greater is He that is In Me, “Because He lives”–those are a few others from my earlier eras.

Of course, we pretty much retired our whole hymnal. We still do hymns occasionally, but not very often. We should probably do them more. But frankly, the world has moved on. Yes, they are good songs. But I’m sure those hymns are contemporaries of lots of other great songs that never got put in the hymnal, and therefore faded into oblivion. Just because a song got put in a hymnal doesn’t make it extra spiritual or enduring.

As for new songs: we compiled a list of about 20. Good songs. I contributed two Newsboys titles: “Presence,” and “It is You.” I love the Newsboys. We practiced four new songs that night, just to give them a try. “Presence” and “It is You” were two of them, since I had developed cord charts for them. Then we did “Grace Like Rain” (Todd Agnew?) and one other song whose title escapes me right now. I played it by ear. It was fairly easy, and fun to do. We’ll work those four songs in over the next couple of months, I imagine.

The world moves on. Songs get left behind. Such is life.

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