Editor's note: Dr. York has graciously provided this manuscript, from which he spoke during our conference. It is the second of two addresses (see index for the first address). There may be differences in this text as compared to the actual delivery (audio file download above).

Prayer: “Open my mouth, and let me bear gladly the warm truth everywhere; open my heart, and let me prepare love with Thy children, thus to share. Silently now I wait for Thee, ready, my God, Thy will to see; open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine.” Amen.

Hey, you’re back! I never take that for granted when I speak for a second time in the same place. Again, my sisters and brothers in Christ and the call, I greet you in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus, the Christ. The Lord is with you.

Yesterday we thought out loud about the simple but profound truth that we need each other and we need God. Today we’re going to think out loud about our call.       

Yesterday, you imagined in huge bright neon, the letters SBCMC. This afternoon I want you to imagine two much smaller items: a pecan and a paper-mâché ball about the size of a beach ball.

Suppose I walked up here this afternoon carrying a big paper-mâché ball and one of you shouted, “Hey Terry, what’s that?” Suppose, I shouted back, “It’s a pecan.” You would say, “No, not that little one, I know that’s a pecan, I mean that big round ball looking thing made out o fpaper-mâché, what’s that?” And again I shout back, “That’s what I was talking about. It’s a pecan.”

After that exchange, you might well look at the person sitting next to you and say, “That pecan isn’t the only nut up there.”

This little pecan that you are imagining is what God’s call looked like when he gave it to us, and this big ball you’re also imagining is what God’s call can look like after forty years of being in our care. Look how much more impressive and better rounded out it is now with what we’ve added to it over the years.

This little one has kind of a strange shape to it. It was shaped like that when Jesus pressed it into my hand, and it has a little pointy end on it. But not this one! Yep, this (the ball) is my pecan, my call, and I’ll fight you (well, as much as moderates fight), I’ll fight you if you say it’s not my call. The little odd-shaped one here, the one that Jesus gave me, has a name. Its called “Follow me.” This larger one here that I’ve been working on, I call my “Paul Ball.” You might say that my call has become a Paul ball call, you know, “all things to all people.” That’s certainly not a bad idea, but neither is it our call.

My “Paul ball call” has sort of “happened” over the years. I added a thin strip now and then, mostly when I discovered something I was good at, or something that came easily to me, or something that brought some attention to my call--uh, I mean, my God. A strip here, a strip there--its kind of like a pound here and a pound there over the years--the pecan’s still there, even though its shape has changed a little. Over the years the pecan I carry has become less noticeable to those who don’t understand nuts.

Folks say that what I’ve shaped looks like more fun than the nut. They say it looks like a church baseball, or a church basketball, or a church tennis ball, or a church bowling ball; not a real baseball or basketball, but close enough. They snicker in love.

The problem is that when the people I’m trying to reach and minister to really want to play ball they won’t turn to me because they say what I have fashioned is only a church ball. And when they really need a Jesus nut they won’t turn to me because mine is no longer identifiable. There’s more. When I need the support and encouragement of others who hold the call Jesus gave us; the others who were given the nut called “follow me,” I must search for those whose paper-mâché has taken on the shape of mine. paper-mâché

I reiterate my suggestion of yesterday. We must reconsider holding a conference that is meaningful only to those whose Paul ball call has taken on a shape similar to ours. We have not been called by Paul. We have been called by the same one who called Paul. Our call is from Jesus. Jesus handed a pecan called “follow Me” to  Paul and Peter and Bach and David Crowder and Kurt Kaiser, and Chris Tomlin, and Mark Hayes and you and me. We all got one and they’re all the same, they all say “Follow Me.”

I should be able to have deep and meaningful fellowship with any and all musicians who carry one of these, but my paper-mâché keeps getting in the way. I’ve found that I can even meet with any all pastors who carry one of these little pecans. What we have in common is an encounter with Jesus and the call, “Follow me.”

When I start limiting myself to conversation and community only with those who have shaped something similar to what I’ve shaped over the years, I encounter far more division than unity. Our Paul ball calls will not look the same and can cause us to look askance at one another. But the “Follow me” call unites us and strengthens the work and spread of the Gospel.

Our tendency toward paper-mâché is not new, neither is it limited to musicians. The Apostle Paul had to meet with Peter and James and the “Pillars of the Church” in Jerusalem a couple of times so that they could remind each other of what a pecan really looks like.

When they did meet at the point of the call to the Gospel ministry, they encouraged each other and shared with each other and blessed each other, even though their gifts and their personalities were quite different.
 I know what Paul meant when he suggested that we should be all things to all people so that we might save some. But he did say “save” in his first letter to the church in Corinth (Corinthians 9:22). Paul takes some hits for that from a number of scholars. The call to “Follow me” understands that Jesus does the saving. Paul, our inspired brother, of course, knew that. But it’s easy to get our call, and our talents, skills, and tendencies, and God’ salvation all mixed up. When we do, we begin to think our hand-crafted ball is the original pecan and we may even begin to think that what we’ve fashioned over the years is salvation itself. 

The all-things-to-all-people paper-mâché wrappings that Paul had used to not look too much like a nut in another culture, changed the shape just a bit as it was viewed from a distance. We must not ever lose sight of the Gospel of Jesus. The Holy Spirit told Paul that it would be a good idea to touch base with Peter, James, and John, a rather impressive accountability group. The second of those meetings in Jerusalem, called by the Holy Spirit, like the meeting fourteen years earlier, was designed to make sure that Peter, James, John, Paul, Barnabas, and Titus still knew what a pecan looked like, even though they had been working with a mixture of Jew and Gentile fashioned paper-mâché. They met together, reaffirmed that they held a common call and then prayed with and for each other. There we have a Biblical model for what I’m suggesting. They didn’t preach to each other, one bunch in three points and a poem, the other bunch in Narrative. They laid down their differences and reaffirmed their common call. I think we need that for such a time as this.

Read again Galatians chapter two. It’s a fascinating scene. They ministered in and to differing cultures. They each had a Paul ball call that had developed over the years, fourteen years in this case (approximately the life-span of a hymnal); but they needed to test and remind and encourage each other. The Spirit told them so. They put aside their understandings of Jewish culture and of Greek culture, the differing languages through which they proclaimed, their perceived degrees of discipleship, they put all that aside to revisit the call, they come together to share a couple of days and to remind each other that it is Jesus who does the calling and the saving. Their call, like ours, was obedience to Christ.

With no more weight to it than simply thinking out loud let me suggest, again, that this same Spirit might be calling us to lay aside for a season, the differing musical languages and worship cultures that we have allowed to divide us; to invite everyone we know from the most polar opposite ends of the church music continuum we can think of and tell them to leave their music at home; come only with a Bible in hand and their call in their heart.

Let us be open to the Spirit’s calling us and them (whoever “them” may) be to meet and stare, not at each other for our differences, but stare at the pecan Jesus gave each of us and to pray for and with each other and to share with each other and to eat with each other and then to bless each other as we depart. A music conference can’t do that. A musicians' conference can. It’s not a matter of semantics. It’s a matter of using the word that describes the pecan rather than a word that describes the paper-Mache.

I’m reminded of Ken Medema’s magnificent little mini-musical Moses. Now that I hang out with preachers more than musicians, I guess I should be reminded of the Biblical narrative of Moses. But, its still Ken’s musical that comes to mind. You remember, “Throw it down Moses. But, but, but…Throw it down Moses” (God was talking about the staff Moses leaned on. The staff God gave him; the staff he had fashioned and imagined to be his own; the staff that he had come to believe was salvation itself…Throw it down Moses.” He did and Moses say if for the snake it had become.

“Pick it up, Moses” But, but, but…”Pick it up Moses.” And Moses does and the music opens up just as Moses’ eyes opened up and Moses’ staff became “the Rod of God.”

I think God may be calling us to throw down whatever it is we’re leaning on. You throw down your baton. You, throw down your microphone. You, through down your guitar. You, throw down your key to the organ console, and watch those thinks slither away. It’s a matter of throwing down, for a couple of days, the staffs we have come to lean on, seeing them for the snakes they may have become, then praying together, confessing to each other, reading scripture together, before we kneel down and pick them up again. Then picking up our snake of choice we see them anew, each one the rod of God in one hand and a pecan in the other.

How does one make sure that the pecan, the call, is the central focus and that the call has not lost its shape to paper-mâché, even wonderful, beautiful, musical paper-mâché?

The answer is prayer. Just thinking out loud, I believe the Baptist Church Music Conference should become for a year or two, the Baptist Church Musicians’ Prayer Retreat. The “PR” would be great. Who would come to such a meeting? Jesus, said just two or three would be enough. Surely he could do at least as much with a hand full of musicians as he did with a hand full of fish and bread.

I can see high church and low church, contemporary and traditional (even liturgical), plugged in and acoustic, robes and shorts, present in this place, free for a moment from the call they’ve crafted, bowing before the one who calls. I can hear the scripture, I can hear the crying, I can hear the shouting, I can hear the prayers. I can see a musicians’ gathering that no other music conference could touch or would need to touch.

I share what I’m about to share under the guidance of the Holy Spirit as much as my heart can discern it. Listen to hear even a whisper of the Spirit’s voice in what I’m about to share. I hope you know my heart enough to receive what I’m about to share in the spirit in which I share it.
I am one of the professors at Truett Seminary who teaches a course called Theological Capstone. It is, as its title suggests, a course that Master of Divinity students take in their last or next to last semester in seminary. When I teach it, the sub-title I give to the course is “The Soul of Ministry.” In that course, through reading and discussion, we work our way back through the courses they have taken in church history and theology and scripture over the last three or four years. We don’t discount that learning and preparation in any way. We work our way back through it to the call that brought them into the ministry and the seminary in the first place. That simple pecan handed to them those several years ago.

It is always a profound experience for the students to revisit that basic, unencumbered, unsophisticated call. Tears are shed. Hearts are refreshed. Students are turned away from the course because the room fills up. I guarantee it is not because of me. It is because of the spiritual impact of revisiting the simple but profound call, “Follow me.” Could it happen here, with us in this conference? Could we in a conference dedicated to prayer and Bible Study, work our way back through the tough things like the death of mentors, the closing of Schools of Music, the deconstruction of things that once energized us,? Could we then work our way back through the great things like our education, our ministries, our camaraderie, the golden days of Ridgecrest and Glorieta, through PraiSings and concerts? Could we work our way back through the highs and lows of our involvement in church music and meet together around God’s word, prayer, and our call in a nutshell?

Could we, through prayer and engaging the scripture, sort out our pecans and paper-mâché? What if this became the must attend musicians’ prayer and Bible study gathering of the summer, no matter what other music conference they may go to before or after? What would happen in our churches and our schools, our congregations’ worship, work and witness? Might our unsung prayer, in the spirit of Jesus’ prayer in John 17 bring us closer to the unity among his followers; that unity that was one of the last desires of his heart and earthly ministry?

My sisters and brothers, forgive me for where I may have stepped beyond the Spirit’s lead and words. But please embrace whatever part of these presentations that might have passed the test of the Spirit in you.

Just thinking out loud, I wonder what The Baptist Church Musicians’ Prayer Retreat might reveal and produce in our hearts?

I hold each of you in my heart, I thank God for each of you. I pray God’s deepest blessings on you.

And now, may the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and grant you peace, now and for ever. Amen.

© 2009 Terry York

Dr. Terry York is Associate Professor of Christian Ministry and Church Music at Baylor University's George W. Truett Theological Seminary in Waco, Texas. He was the recipient of the Baptist Church Music Conference W. Hines Sims Award, 2009