2009 – US Odyssey Part 1 – California Roaming

Our visit to the U.S. this year began when we entered Los Angeles in June at Harvest Rock, with many friends in this great church. I was embarrassed but deeply honored when visiting as a family to be asked by our friend Che Ahn if I would speak for them that morning. A sad event had taken place in Hollywood, and many of Che’s congregation are in some way involved in the music, film and theatre industry .ON THE DEATH OFA KNIGHT, A KING AND AN ANGEL: That Thursday the 25th began reports of the deaths of two of three major figures, each icons in the media world. Michael Jackson, the ”King of Pop” at 50, died after suffering a heart attack. While people will remember his Thriller as the highest-selling album of all time, Michael’s hit single We Are The World co-written with Quincy Jones raised hundreds of millions for the starving in Africa. Before him was Farrah Fawcett, the gorgeous Charlie’s Angel of the 70’s and 85 million best-selling poster child of all time who battled cancer for three years before succumbing to it at 62. Farrah’s dramatic stint in TV-movies drew attention to real-life situations like the plight of the battered wife in The Burning Bed. Ed McMahon who died two days before them lived most of his adult life in commercials and late-night television as Johnny Carson’s sidekick, was 86. Each of these much-loved personalities lived his or her life in limelight. Each of them affected the world and each of them lived as some of the best-known entertainers of all time.What can you say about the death of legends? Heath Ledger, the fast-rising new young star of blockbuster hits like A Knights Tale and The Dark Knight had sent the media world into shock by his accidental overdose death only the year before. When someone has become world-renown in any field, their deaths may affect millions. When it happens in the field of entertainment it may become remarkable.Some still remember where they were and what they were doing when they first heard the news of the princely President John F. Kennedy’s shocking assassination. His last speech, written but never delivered, ends like this “We, in this country, in this generation, are — by destiny rather than by choice — the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of “peace on earth, good will toward men.” That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: “except the Lord keep the city, the watchmen wakes but in vain.”Few may remember that the best-loved Christian apologetics writer of the last century, C.S. Lewis of Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters and the Narnia series died on the very same day. When two celebrities die in one day, the passing of one less known may be overshadowed by the death of one who made more headlines before their deadline. Yet the significance of a major celebrity in our newspapers are not necessarily the same as those published in the other worlds. Remember this however; celebrity death is always significant, and always has spiritual implications. While God comes to the funeral of every little sparrow, when Kings, Angels and Knights and Princesses die, something is being said also in heaven.Decades later the jaded world was shocked again by the terrible car crash death of the beautiful British princess Diana who used her royalty, her wealth and status to go to places where people were hurting; to visit orphaned children and AIDS victims. The massive national and international mourning that followed her death for weeks overshadowed the quiet passing of a wrinkled old Albanian nun at the same time who lived with the starving, the poor and the dying in Calcutta to bring to their funerals a lovely shred of dignity and love for those tabbed as truly unlovely. Malcolm Muggeridge, the famed British journalist and television celebrity who met Christ in his seventies and so shocked his fellow-cynics of the world by his bold and penetrating witness wrote a book about her life; he called it “Something Beautiful For God.” She was no stunning model. She was not young. She did not live at all in the life-style of the rich and famous. Almost nobody even knew her last name. Most simply called her “Mother Teresa” Few knew that the nation she came from was one in which claiming Christian conversion was an automatic death sentence. When a young man wrote her to ask what he might do to also affect the world, he waited months before he got her four-word reply: “Find your own Calcutta.”

Paul Bruton, a friend of mine who helped me so much by asking me to speak in my early days as an almost unknown young evangelist in his Northern and Southern California Assembly of God youth camps from the late 60’s on into the 70’s, told me a story. I think it was probably about him as a little boy when he and his missionary parents returned on furlough after many years serving in Africa. With them on the boat was a celebrity porn star? returning from a cruise to the accolade of many fans and press gathered to welcome her dockside. Through some mix-up those who were supposed to be there to greet and to pick up their little family did not even arrive. They stood forlorn in the trash aftermath of the celebrity welcome with their so few belongings in cardboard boxes, unknown, un-welcomed and alone.

“It isn’t fair” said young Paul. “It just isn’t fair. We have spent all these years serving Jesus and helping people. She didn’t. She had this great welcome. But when we come home there isn’t even anybody here to pick us up.” He said: “I can never forget my Dad’s reply. He looked at me with tears in his eyes and he said: “Son. We’re not home yet.”

What do you think is on God’s heart when someone loved, sometimes worshipped and mourned by millions passes into eternity? We know that people who loved Christ are now finally home at last. We know that their relatively short life on earth, whether known or unknown by the multitudes however beautifully or terribly they died is only the beginning of a grand adventure with their Maker that will never end. As Ray Hildebrand sung in the seventies – “Good news! Children of God never die” and followed with a second song, the happy abandonment of “If I live, well praise the Lord – If I die, well praise the Lord – If I live or die, my only cry will be – Jesus in me,Praise the Lord.”

What we may not know about the Lord is His often hidden and usually private dealings with people that while you knew them as celebrity you would never know or suspect had from their very birth a Divine calling to do something special for Him in His world. We all know, for it is obvious, that they were gifted. We also may know there was something special about them, right from their very early days.

We all now know that whatever happened to them along their journey, they did indeed affect their world. What we may forget is where that gifting came from and Who it was that gave them those gifts. And what we may not know or realize is that there are sacred callings rooted in the very nature and character of God that are not in the slightest bit religious, but as utterly needed and wanted in our world as those with a Levitical callings of evangelists, pastors, prophets and teachers with apostolic, prophetic, wisdom and knowledge or healing gifts.

This, as previously mentioned, has been for me one of the most surprising discoveries in the beauty and wonder of God that I have ever seen. Working on the second volume of Divinity, the focus here will be on His nature and character as revealed in Creation. What He makes and does, what He created and called to live and flourish on Earth are evidences of His wise, loving and caring Reality. I found so far, that there are in the Bible at least 35 major vocations that find their genesis in Who He really is. And the same God Who calls people to professional religious ministry can and does also call people to a sacred vocation that may not be religious at all.

This is not just what we now call “market-place ministry” where we have recently seen more and more evidences of God working in the business world with men and women who have dedicated their lives and fortunes to the advancement of His Kingdom. This is not just God offering to help out some earnest Christians who want to use their skills or talents to influence those who don’t really come to church. This is deeper, even more basic. Martin Luther found out four hundred years ago that you don’t have to be a monk or a nun to be a real Christian. I found out for the first time for me, that you don’t have to be called to a religious work to have a genuine sacred calling, and you don’t have to be a religious person to have real Divine call on your life to do something of destiny.

I think God can call people long before they become Christians to do something for Him. I believe He can and does call people, even from the very womb to be His representative in some way in the world. I also believe the “gifts and callings of God are without repentance”. I believe these gifts and callings are quite distinct from salvation and do not in themselves guarantee an entrance to heaven. But they are real gifts from God, and carry with them glories and dangers, as deep and serious as any religious vocation will.

The one most surprising to me of all these “sacred vocations” is by far the largest Biblically-documented non-religious calling. It reflects what John Wesley, founder of the Methodists said in effect more than three hundred years ago: “If you want to understand a nation, study its entertainment. It is the one thing they pay money for that they don’t need.” What almost shocked me is that the greatest amount of space is given to it.

When Harvest Rock asked me what I was going to speak on that morning of mourning, I told them my topic was going to be called “The God Of The Entertainment World.” I simply shared condolences with them on the loss of two wonderfully gifted icons and how much they affected the world before they were side-swiped by the mortality we all have to face, expected or unexpected. Death wears a T-Shirt: Coming ready or not.

Then I shared with them what God’s calling is for the Entertainer. Here is a small part:

“The entertainer is always caught between two currents in a culture; the desire to do what is right, and be both real before God and true to ones own calling; and the desire to please others by the performance of their gift. In such a sea it is easy to drown. Many who diligently train to shape their ship to carry them on the crest of the wave do not take the time to forge the steel of a character strong enough to sustain them in that rushing tide.

There is no “balance” to this; the very calling itself implies a dynamic tension that can only be sustained, like the prophet’s calling, in truth and love. To understand that this gift represents the very purpose of the Maker ought to bring a reverential fear to the performer, and that the trust involved in the carrying out of such a mission is great. He or she who is called to the ministry of entertainment is torepresent God’s own heart.

The sacred calling of an entertainer then is to live a life that brings genuine pleasure to others by the constant reminder of the reality of what life ought to be as it was designed in its original fullness. To do this by humor, drama, dress, parable, song and story or some form of grand celebration, demonstration or loving provision is the province of the actor, model, comedian, athlete, host or hostess, M.C. or festivities director. We were designed to bring pleasure to God and to the rest of His creation. To help celebrate that truth is Divine” (Divinity II – The Nature & Character of God As Revealed in Creation © 2012 W.A. Pratney)

The response to this message was a profound stillness; a large portion of Che’s congregation in that beautiful building with its proximity to Hollywood and itself a landmark in the area are in that very industry. I believe God has something deeply significant to say to those who are involved in such a calling and yet have to struggle with the legitimacy of their own lives and ministries to a field become so very fallen. We must not abandon as hopeless and worthless those areas first given by God to glorify His Son that have become in so many ways degraded, defiled and sometimes even demonized. The arts were once the voice of the Church to the culture; we must not stop speaking even if we did long ago give these platforms of worship over to darkness. While the voice of the tempter whispers “All of this can be yours” we don’t have to listen. If the world is laid before me as I reach the top of the mountain, when we are shown by the devil all the kingdoms of the world, we can remember Who first gave us them to bring glory to His Son. And as Bono said in U2’s blockbuster Vertigo = “I can kneel”.