Mark Bishop
Singing News Article
Jan. 2006
There are some things that are
very important to me.
I must admit that I don't spend a
lot of time worrying about global warming. I don't think often
about saving the whales although I have nothing against that.
Many people devote their lives to these causes. They are
important to them and perhaps they should be important to
everybody.
It's funny what becomes important
to people. Everyone is different and that which is important to
one is not necessarily important to another. We all have a
priority list that is arranged according to our own biases.
What's important to me? Lots of
things I guess. Being a Christian believer like the predominant
readership of this magazine, you and I probably have some things
in common, as far as priorities. Our faith is important. We
believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Our witness is important.
We don't want to reflect badly on our faith. A lot of us probably
have similar views on a lot of things like politics and pop
culture. It's a little easier to be comfortable, even with
strangers, when we have so much in common. Three or four nights a
week, I will find myself in a brand new environment with new
people and still I can be comfortable because we already have so
much common ground.
From time to time, we find
ourselves in a neutral environment. A mall... an airport... a
doctors office. Not hostile places, but somewhere where
completely different people can meet. Sometimes that can be
scary. But mostly we just go our own way.
I think that supper is important.
Not the food, but the event itself where my family sits down
together. It gives me a chance to ask my girls about their day in
school and ballgames and recitals and homework. This is their
opportunity to tell me that they have become interested in saving
the whales or the rain forests. We will also talk about many very
unimportant things. We will do this for years. It will be
important.
I can't really remember what me
and my brothers and mom and dad talked about around the supper
table when I was growing up. I just remember that we did and I'm
grateful for it now. Dad played in the yard with us. Mom made us
birthday cakes. We have years worth of uneventful, boring
memories that I wouldn't trade anything for.
It's funny what becomes important
to people. Because of my traveling, I'm not able to be there for
supper every night. Many times, it's only a couple of nights a
week that we eat at home anyway, with all the ballgames, practices
and meetings. But it's important to me that my children have the
memory of our family spending time together at mealtime.
I also think that sharing the good
news of Jesus through music is important. So important that I
will kiss my family good-bye every few days and take to the
highways. I feel blessed to be able to share the good news of
Jesus with congregations all across the country. Even up north
where they can't understand me when I talk. That's ok... you
sound funny to me too. When the emcee introduces me from
Kentucky, I can see the wheels start turning. They're either
thinking Beverly Hillbillies, Dukes of Hazard or Hatfield's and
McCoy's.
What's important to me is that you
see and hear Jesus in what I do. We can laugh and be
entertained... there's nothing wrong with that at all. God
applies the medicine to our hearts in different doses and
ingredients.
And that's very, very important.
To all of us.
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