The Revolution Will Not Be Podcast

“Look out Mama, there’s a white boat coming up the river.
With a big red beacon, and a flag, and a man on the rail.”

I love that song, Powderfinger, by Neal Young. I used to have a music buddy named Steve who sang that song. Steve was a big burly fisherman who spent his summers working the docks in Alaska and traveling around the country in the winter, usually stopping in to see us and to grace us with his music contribution. One of the crazy things about Steve was, despite his dockworker vocation, his thick beard and big burly frame, he sang with a beautiful high voice and could pull off any Neal Young song. We always played Powderfinger when he was in town and it always awakened a thirst for Neal songs that lay dormant the rest of the year.

Today, though, that song takes on a different meaning for me. It speaks through thinly veiled metaphor of something confrontational coming into my life, into my spiritual life. When this whole thing blows wide open, I will have Reggie McNeal to blame; Reggie, Erwin Raphael McManus and maybe, somehow, even Steve.

I have been reading a lot lately and as winter is beginning to pack its bags and head north, making way for spring, I can feel a revolution growing in my heart. It is a revolution about my life in the Church. Warning: the books “Chasing Daylight” and “The Present Future” should not be read back to back unless you are ready to either start or join a revolution. If, however, you have this dormant feeling that there must be something more to this whole Jesus thing than cool music, multimedia and volunteering to park cars on Sunday, then they must be read. And they must be read now, because something is getting ready to happen and if you need something to happen in your life, then your time is coming.

Rick Warren is hailing in the second reformation, but I don’t know if even he is ready for what it is going to look like. It is going to destroy most people’s concept of church and reinstate Jesus’ concept of church. It is going to leave a lot of people behind, but sweep a lot of other people into its glorious wake. It’s not going to be a reformation, it’s going to be a revolution. And no church building will be able to hold it, nor will there be a seminary capable of controlling it.

In 1970, Gil Scott-Heron made an album containing the song, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”. Grasping the deeper meaning of poetry is not my strong suit, but to me, it was about refusing to allow culture to numb you to the realities of what needed to be done. This next revolution will inject life back into the numbness of American church culture. And in semi-tribute to Gil Scott-Heron, here is my remix.

The revolution will not be podcast.
The revolution will not be simulcast.
The revolution will not be streamed.

The revolution will not be downloaded, uploaded or ftp’d.
The revolution will not have a web site.
The revolution will not be on TBN.
The revolution will not be on CBS, CNN or Daystar.
The revolution will not be on Christian radio, on Christian records or in Christian bookstores.
The revolution will not have an association, a workshop or an awards show.

The revolution will not have a theme song.
The revolution will not have a facelift or a wig.
The revolution will not have an ATM in its lobby.
The revolution will not even have a lobby.
The revolution will not have a lobbyist.
The revolution will not have a Political Action Committee.
The revolution will not have an inactive committee or an inactive members list.

The revolution will not require a class, a curriculum or a certification.
The revolution will not take place in a church.
The revolution will blow the doors and windows off the church.
The revolution will take place in the streets.

The revolution will not be in a sermon.
The revolution will not have a preacher.
The revolution will be about Jesus.
The revolution will be about God.
The revolution will not ask for you to make time for it in your life.
The revolution will become your life.

The revolution will not be about content. It will be about contact.
The revolution will not be about belief. It will be about behavior.
The revolution will not be about your head. It will be about your hands and feet; about you becoming the hands and feet of Jesus for the revolution.

The revolution will not have a start date, an end date, an agenda or a plan.
The revolution was beginning before the beginning and will be the only thing spinning at the ending.
The revolution will not be about a church. The revolution is the Church.
The revolution is the heartbeat of a billion brothers and sisters giving their lives to turn this world into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Become the revolution.