Rich opened one tour for Amy Grant. Rich's traditional attire typically included a white t-shirt, ripped blue jeans, and no shoes. Upon entering the waiting room where food had been laid out for the artists on the tour, the lady who would later become Rich's manager, thinking that Rich was a roadie, told Rich the food was only for the artists. Rich left the room, thinking she meant the food was only for the artists in Amy Grant's band. The woman who told him this did not realize the mistake she made until Rich got on stage and began singing.
Mitch McVicker, one of Rich's closest friends, recalls another episode. During the last few years of his life, Rich lived on a Navajo reservation teaching music to children. Mitch tells that Rich would be in Ireland on a photo shoot one day and the next day be singing in front of Navajo children for free.
Through these stories, I see that Rich was a very humble man who thought nothing of his worldly success. His focus was on God and where God was leading him.
One incredibly major temptation for postmodern churches is arrogance.
We may tend to think that we have a better handle on what's happening in the world and how best to reach out to that world than our "modernist" counterparts. We tend to forget that these "moderns" are Christians too. And who are we to discount their experience of God?
To often, when writers speak of postmoderns and moderns, there is the inevitable separation of the two groups into us versus them categories. "They" are typically older, more set in their ways, fearful of change, and hardly able to understand why, for instance, people would want to paint in church. On the other hand, "we" are typically younger (or of a younger mindset), less sure of anything at all, appreciative of change, and love the choices we have in the ways in which we choose to worship.
But our differences by no means outweigh our similarities.
We ought all be followers of Christ first and foremost. The label Christian (as much as that term has been through the mud of time) ought to come before the label "postmodern" or "modern." We forget this, easily.
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