Destined for Greatness

A little over ten years ago I was serving as the Minister of Youth at St. Luke in Columbus. During the summer the group traveled to Six Flags over Georgia for a Christian music festival. While we were there we heard a new group from Australia perform at one of the late night stages. The youth really liked the group and their music, so we talked about inviting them to our church to do a concert that fall.

After we set the date and negotiated a contract, I called one of our church members whose family owned a local radio network to ask him if he would help me promote the concert in the area. He had never heard of the group and asked me if I could bring him one of their tapes. I took him the one cassette I had purchased at Six Flags and he passed it on to his program manager.

The concert date was getting closer and I hadn’t heard anything from either the church member or from the program manager. Some of our youth had not made the trip to Atlanta and I wanted them to hear who we had coming so they could tell their friends to join us for the concert.

When I went back to the radio station to retrieve my cassette tape, the program manager was a little embarrassed that he couldn’t find it at first. When he learned it was my only copy, he went back to his office and looked again. In a few minutes he returned with the tape in hand. “I threw it in my ‘junk’ box,” he explained.

I was more than a little disappointed that he thought it was “junk.” The concert was just a few weeks away and now it looked like we were not going to get much help from them to let the community know who was coming.

The band was “The Newsboys.” Over the last ten years they have sold over 8 million units, garnered six Gold albums and 28 #1 radio hits. They have been nominated for four Grammy awards and won five Dove Awards. Their website reports: “Just last year they captured the headlining slot on the world’s biggest tour, the Winter Jam Tour, playing to more than half a million people.”

Peter, James and John had spent over a year with Jesus before they went up “the mount of transfiguration” to pray with Jesus. Even after they saw his “glory,” they still didn't know how to respond.

Let’s pray that the Spirit will help us recognize and testify to God’s glory whenever and wherever it appears.