Books

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Don Locke is an illustrator and graphic artist for NBC’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno and has worked as a freelance writer and illustrator for more than thirty years. He lives in Southern California with his wife, Susan. The Summer the Wind Whispered My Name, prequel to The Reluctant Journey of David Connors, is Don’s second novel.

Product Details:

List Price: $12.99
Paperback: 355 pages
Publisher: NavPress Publishing Group (August 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1600061532
ISBN-13: 978-1600061530

AND NOW…THE FIRST CHAPTER:

Preface

Until recently my early childhood memories weren’t readily available for recollection. Call it a defective hard drive. They remained a mystery and a void—a midwestern landscape of never-ending pitch-blackness where I brushed up against people and objects but could never assign them faces or names, much less attach feelings to our brief encounters.

But through a miraculous act of divine grace, I found my way back home to discover the child I’d forgotten, the boy I’d abandoned supposedly for the good of us both. There he sat beneath an oak tree patiently awaiting my return, as if I’d simply taken a day-long fishing trip. This reunion of spirits has transformed me into someone both wiser and more innocent, leaving me to feel both old and young.

And with this new gift of recollection, my memories turn to that boy and to the summer of 1960, when the winds of change blew across our rooftops and through the screen doors, turning the simple, manageable world of my suburban neighborhood into something unfamiliar, something uncomfortable. Those same winds blew my father and me apart.

One

Route 666

With a gentle shake of my shoulders, a kiss on my cheek, and the words It’s time whispered by my mom, I woke at five thirty in the morning to prepare for my newspaper route. Careful not to wake my older brother, Bobby, snoozing across the room, I slipped out of bed and stumbled my way into the hallway and toward the bathroom, led only by the dim glow of the nightlight and a familiarity with the route.

There on the bathroom floor, as usual, my mother had laid my clothes out in the shape of my body, my underwear layered on top. You’re probably wondering why she did this. It could have been that she severely underestimated my intelligence and displayed my clothes in this fashion in case there was any doubt on my part as to which articles of clothing went where on my body. She didn’t want to face the public humiliation brought on by her son walking out of the house wearing his Fruit of the Loom undies over his head. Or maybe her work was simply the result of a sense of humor that I missed completely. Either way, I never asked.

Mine was a full-service mom whose selfless measures of accommodation put the men of Texaco to shame. The fact that she would inconvenience herself by waking me when an alarm clock would suffice, or lay out my clothes when I was capable of doing so myself, might sound a bit odd to you, but believe me, it was only the tip of the indulgent iceberg. This was a woman who would cut the crust off my PB&J sandwich at my request, set my toothbrush out every night with a wad of Colgate laying atop the bristles, and who would often put me to sleep at night with a song, a prayer, and a back scratch. In the wintertime, when the wind chill off Lake Erie made the hundred-yard trek down to the corner to catch the school bus feel like Admiral Perry’s excursion, Mom would actually lay my clothes out on top of the floor heater before I woke up so that my body would be adequately preheated before stepping outside to face the Ohio cold. From my perspective my room was self-cleaning; toys, sports equipment, and clothes discarded onto the floor all found their way back to the toy box, closet, or dresser. I never encountered a dish that I had to clean or trash I had to empty or a piece of clothing I had to wash or iron or fold or put away.

I finished dressing, entered the kitchen, and there on the maroon Formica table, in predictable fashion, sat my glass of milk and chocolate long john patiently waiting for me to consume them. My mother, a chocoholic long before the word was coined, had a sweet tooth that she’d handed down to her children. She believed that a heavy dusting of white processed sugar on oatmeal, cream of wheat, or grapefruit was crucial energy fuel for starting one’s day. Only earlier that year I’d been shocked to learn from my third grade teacher, Mrs. Mercer, that chocolate was not, in fact, a member of any of the four major food groups.

Wearing a milk mustache and buzzing from my sugar rush, I walked outside to where the stack of Tribunes—dropped off in my driveway earlier by the news truck—were waiting for me to fold them.

More often than I ever cared to hear it, my dad would point out, “It’s the early bird that catches the worm.” But for me it was really those early morning summer hours themselves that provided the reward. Sitting there on our cement front step beneath a forty-watt porch light, rolling a stack of Tribunes, I was keenly aware that bodies were still strewn out across beds in every house in the neighborhood, lying lost in their dreamland slumber while I was already experiencing the day. There would be time enough for the sounds of wooden screen doors slamming shut, the hissing of sprinklers on Bermuda lawns, and the songs of robins competing with those of Elvis emanating from transistor radios everywhere. But for now there was a stillness about my neighborhood that seemed to actually slow time down, where even the old willow in our front yard stood like one more giant dozing on his feet, his long arms hanging lifeless at his sides, and where the occasional shooting star streaking across the black sky was a confiding moment belonging only to the morning and me.

From the porch step I could detect the subtle, pale peach glow rise behind the Finnegan’s house across the street. I stretched a rubber band open across the top of my knuckles, spread my fingers apart, and slid it down over the length of the rolled paper to hold it in place. Seventy-six times I’d repeat this act almost unconsciously. There was something about the crisp, cool morning air that seemed to contain a magical element that when breathed in set me to daydreaming. So that’s just what I did . . . I sent my homemade bottle rocket blasting above the trees and watched as the red and white bobber at the end of my fishing pole suddenly got sucked down below the surface of the water at Crystal Lake, and with my Little League team’s game on the line, I could hear the crack of my bat as I smacked a liner over the third baseman’s head to drive in the go-ahead run. Granted, most kids would daydream bigger—their rockets sailed to the moon or Mars, and their fish, blue marlins at least, were hooked off Bermuda in their yachts, and their hits were certainly grand slams in the bottom of the ninth to win the World Series for the Reds—but my dad always suggested that a dream should have its feet planted firmly enough in reality to actually have a chance to come true one day, or there wasn’t much point in conjuring up the dream in the first place. Dreaming too big would only lead to a lifetime scattered with the remnants of disappointments and heartbreak.

And I believed him. Why not? I was young and his shadow fell across me with weight and substance and truth. He was my hero. But in some ways, I suppose, he was too much like my other heroes: Frank Robinson, Ricky Nelson, Maverick. I looked up to them because of their accomplishments or their image, not because of who they really were. I didn’t really know who they were outside of that. Such was the case with my dad. He was a great athlete in his younger years, had a drawer full of medals for track and field, swimming, baseball, basketball, and a bunch from the army to prove it.

It was my dad who had managed to pull the strings that allowed me to have a paper route in the first place. I remember reading the pride in his eyes earlier in the spring when he first told me I got the job. His voice rose and fell within a wider range than usual as he explained how I would now be serving a valuable purpose in society by being directly responsible for informing people of local, national, and even international events. My dad made it sound important—an act of responsibility, being this cog in the wheel of life, the great mandala. And it made me feel important, better defining my place in the universe. In a firm handshake with my dad, I promised I wouldn’t let him down.

Finishing up folding and banding the last paper, I knew I was running a little late because Spencer, the bullmastiff next door, had already begun to bark in anticipation of my arrival. Checking the Bulova wristwatch that my dad had given me as a gift the morning of my first route confirmed it. I proceeded to cram forty newspapers into my greasy white canvas pouch and loop the straps over my bike handles. Riding my self-painted, fluorescent green Country Road–brand bike handed down from my brother, I would deliver these papers mostly to my immediate neighborhood and swing back around to pick up the final thirty-six.

I picked the olive green army hat up off the step. Though most boys my age wore baseball caps, I was seldom seen without the hat my dad wore in World War II. Slapping it down onto my head, I hopped onto my bike, turned on the headlight, and was off down my driveway, turning left on the sidewalk that ran along the front of our corner property on Willowcreek Road.

I rode around to where our street dead-ended, curving into Briarbrook. Our eccentric young neighbors, the Springfields, lived next door in a house they’d painted black. Mr. and Mrs. Springfield chose to raise a devil dog named Spencer rather than experiencing the joy of parenthood. Approaching the corner of their white picket fence on my bike, I could see the strong, determined, shadowy figure of that demon dashing back and forth along the picket fence, snarling and barking at me loudly enough to wake the whole neighborhood. As was my custom, I didn’t dare slow down while I heaved the rolled-up newspaper over his enormous head into their yard. Spencer sprinted over to the paper and pounced on it, immediately tearing it to shreds—a daily reenactment. The couple insisted that I do this every day, as they were attempting to teach Spencer to fetch the morning paper, bring it around to the back of the house where he was supposed to enter by way of the doggy door, and gently place the newspaper in one piece on the kitchen table so it would be there to peruse when they woke for breakfast.

Theirs was one of only two houses in the neighborhood that were fenced in, a practice uncommon in the suburbs because it implied a lack of hospitality. Even a small hedge along a property line could be interpreted as stand-offish. The Springfields’ choice of house color wasn’t helpful in dispelling this notion. And yet it was a good thing that they chose to enclose their property because we were all quite certain that if Spencer ever escaped his yard, he would systematically devour every neighborhood kid, one by one. The strange thing was that the picket fence couldn’t have been more than three feet high, low enough for even a miniature poodle to clear—so why hadn’t Spencer taken the leap? Could it be that he was just biding his time, waiting for the right moment to jump that hurdle? So I was thankful for the Springfields’ ineptitude when it came to dog training because it allowed me to buffer Spencer’s appetite, knowing that whenever he did decide to make his move, I would most likely be the first course on the menu.

The neighborhood houses on my route were primarily ranch style, third-little-pig variety, and always on my left. On my left so that I could grab a paper out of my bag and heave it across my body, allowing for more mustard on my throw and more accuracy than if I had to sling it backhand off to my right side. This technique also helped build up strength in my pitching arm. I always aimed directly toward the middle of the driveway instead of anywhere near the porch, which could, as I’d learned, be treacherous territory. An irate Mrs. Messerschmitt from Sleepy Hollow Road once dropped by my house, screaming, “You’ve murdered my children! You’ve murdered my children!” Apparently I’d made an errant toss that tore the blooming heads right off her precious pansies and injured a few hapless marigolds. From that day on I shot for the middle of the driveway, making sure no neighbors’ flowers ever suffered a similar fate at my hands.

I passed my friend Mouse Miller’s house, crossed the street, and headed down the other side of Briarbrook, past Allison Hoffman’s house—our resident divorcée. All my friends still had their two original parents and family intact, which made Mrs. Hoffman’s status a bit of an oddity. Maybe it was the polio scare that people my parents’ age had had to live through that appeared to make them wary of any abnormality in another human being. It wasn’t just being exposed to the drug addicts or the murderers that concerned them, but contact with any fringe members of society: the divorcées and the widowers, the fifty-year-old bachelors, people with weird hairdos or who wore clothing not found in the Sears catalogue. People with facial hair were especially to be avoided.

You didn’t want to be a nonconformist in 1960. Though nearly a decade had passed, effects of the McCarthy hearings had left some Americans with lingering suspicions that their neighbor might be a Red or something worse. So everyone did their best to just fit in. There was an unspoken fear that whatever social dysfunction people possessed was contagious by mere association with them. I had a feeling my mom believed this to be the case with Allison Hoffman—that all my mother had to do was engage in a five-minute conversation with any divorced woman, and a week or so later, my dad would come home from work and out of the blue announce, “Honey, I want a divorce.”

Likely in her late twenties, Mrs. Hoffman was attractive enough to be a movie star or at least a fashion model—she was that pretty. She taught at a junior high school across town, but for extra cash would tutor kids in her spare time. Despite her discriminating attitude toward Mrs. Hoffman, my mother was forced to hire her as a tutor for my sixteen-year-old brother for two sessions a week, seeing as Bobby could never quite grasp the concept of dangling participles and such. Still, whenever she mentioned Mrs. Hoffman’s name, my mom always found a way to justify setting her Christian beliefs aside, calling her that woman, as in, “just stay away from that woman.” Mom must have skipped over the part in the Bible where Jesus healed the lepers. Anyway, Mrs. Hoffman seemed nice enough to me when I’d see her gardening in her yard or when I’d have to collect newspaper money from her; a wave and smile were guaranteed.

I delivered papers down Briarbrook, passed my friend Sheena’s house on the cul-de-sac, and went back down to Willowcreek, where I rolled past the Jensens’ vacant house. The For Sale sign had been stuck in the lawn out front since the beginning of spring. I’d seen few people even stop by to look at the charming, white frame house I remember as having great curb appeal. Every kid on the block was rooting for a family with at least a dozen kids to move in to provide some fresh blood.

A half a block later, I turned the corner and was about to toss the paper down Mr. Melzer’s drive when I spotted the old man lying under his porch light, sprawled out on the veranda, his blue overall-covered legs awkwardly dangling down the front steps of his farm house. I immediately stood up on my bike, slammed on the brakes, fish-tailed a streak of rubber on the sidewalk, dumped the bike, and rushed up to his motionless body. “Mr. Melzer! Mr. Melzer!” Certain he was dead, I kept shouting at him like he was only asleep or deaf. “Mr. Melzer!” I was afraid to touch him to see if he was alive.

The only dead body I had touched up till then was my great-uncle Frank’s at his wake, and it was not a particularly pleasant experience. I was five years old when my mom led me up to the big shiny casket where I peered over the top to see the man lying inside. Standing on my tiptoes, I stared at Frank’s clay-colored face, which I believed looked too grumpy, too dull. While alive and kicking, my uncle was an animated man with ruddy cheeks who spoke and reacted with passion and humor, but the expression he wore while lying in that box was one that I’d never seen on his face before. I was quite sure that if he’d been able to gaze in the mirror at his dead self with that stupid, frozen pouting mouth looking back at him, he would have been humiliated and embarrassed as all get out. And so, while no one watched, I started poking and prodding at his surprisingly pliable mouth, trying to reshape his smile into something more natural, more familiar, like the expression he’d worn recalling the time he drove up to frigid Green Bay in a blizzard to watch his beloved Browns topple Bart Starr and the Green Bay Packers. Or the one he’d displayed while telling us what a thrill it was to meet Betty Grable at a USO function during the war, or the grin that always appeared on his face right after he’d take a swig of a cold beer on a hot summer day. It was a look of satisfaction that I was after, and was pretty sure I could pull it off. Those hours of turning shapeless Play-Doh into little doggies and snowmen had prepared me for this moment.

After a mere twenty seconds of my molding handiwork, I had successfully managed to remove my uncle’s grim, lifeless expression. Unfortunately I had replaced it with a hideous-looking full-on smile, his teeth beaming like the Joker from the Batman comics. Before I could step back for a more objective look, my Aunt Doris let out a little shriek behind me; an older gentleman gasped, which brought my brother over, and he let out a howl of laughter, all followed by a flurry of activity that included some heated discussion among relatives, the casket’s being closed, and my mother’s hauling me out of the room by my earlobe.

But you probably don’t really care much about my Uncle Frank. You’re wondering about Mr. Melzer and if he’s a character who has kicked the bucket before you even got to know him or know if you like him. You will like him. I did. “Mr. Melzer!” I gave him a good poke in the arm. Nothing . . . then another one.

The fact is I was surprised when Mr. Melzer began to move. First his head turned . . . then his arm wiggled . . . then he rose, propping himself up onto an elbow, attempting to regain his bearings.

“Mr. Melzer?”

“What?” He looked around, glassy-eyed, still groggy. “Davy?”

I suddenly felt dizzy and nearly fell down beside him on the porch. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“I must have dozed off. Guess the farmer in me still wants to wake with the dawn, but the old man, well, he knows better.” He looked my way. “You’re white as a sheet—you okay, boy?”

Actually I was feeling pretty nauseated. “Yeah, I’m okay. I just thought . . .”

“What? You thought what?”

“Well, when I saw you lying there . . . I just thought . . .”

“That I was dead?” I nodded. “Well, no, no, I can see where that might be upsetting for you. Come to think of it, it’s a little upsetting to me. Not that I’m not prepared to meet my maker, mind you. Or to see Margaret again.” He leaned heavily on his right arm, got himself upright, and adjusted his suspenders. “The fact is . . . I do miss the old gal. The way she’d know to take my hand when it needed holdin’. Or how she could make a room feel comfortable just by her sitting in it, breathing the same air. Heck, I even miss her lousy coffee. And I hope, after these two years apart, she might have forgotten what a pain in the rear I could be, and she might have the occasion to miss me a bit, too.”

Until that moment, I hadn’t considered the possibility of the dead missing the living. Sometimes when he wasn’t even trying to, Mr. Melzer made me think. And it always surprised me how often he would just say anything that came into his head. He never edited himself like most adults. He was like a kid in that respect, but more interesting.

“You believe in heaven?” I asked Mr. Melzer.

“Rather counting on it. How ’bout you?”

“My mom says that when we go to heaven we’ll be greeted by angels with golden wings.”

“Really? Angels, huh?”

“And she says that they’ll sing a beautiful song written especially for us.”

“Really? Your mother’s an interesting woman, Davy. But I could go for that—I could. Long as they’re not sitting around on clouds playing harps. Don’t care for harp music one bit. Pretty sure it was the Marx Brothers that soured me on that instrument.”

“How so?”

“Well, those Marx Brothers, in every movie they made they’d be running around, being zany as the dickens, and then Harpo—the one who never spoke a lick, the one with the fuzzy blond hair—always honking his horn and chasing some skinny, pretty gal around. Anyway, in the middle of all their high jinks, Harpo would come across some giant harp just conveniently lying around somewhere, and he’d feel obliged to stop all the antics to play some sappy tune that just about put you to sleep. I could never recover. Turned me sour on the harp, he did. I’m more of a horn man, myself. Give me a saxophone or trumpet and I’m happy. And I’m not particularly opposed to a fiddle either. But harps—I say round ’em up and burn ’em all. Melt ’em down and turn them into something practical . . . something that can’t make a sound . . . that’s what I say.”

See, I told you he’d pretty much say anything. I don’t think that Mr. Melzer had many people to listen to him. And just having a bunch of thoughts roaming around in his head wasn’t enough. I think Mr. Melzer chattered a lot so that he wouldn’t lose himself, so he could remember who he was.

“Yeah, well, anyway, I figure I’ll go home when it’s my time,” he continued. “Just hope it can wait for the harvest, seeing as there’s no one else to bring in the corn when it’s time.”

As far back as I could remember, Mr. Melzer used to drag this little red wagon around the neighborhood on August evenings, stacked to the limit with ears of corn. And he’d go door to door and hand out corn to everybody like he was some kind of an agricultural Santa.

“Do you know I used to have fields of corn as far as the eye can see . . . way beyond the rooftops over there?”

I did know this, but I never tired of the enthusiasm with which he told it, so I didn’t stop him. About ten years before, Mr. Melzer had sold off all but a few acres of his farmland to a contractor, resulting in what became my neighborhood.

“I still get a thrill when I shuck that first ear of corn of the harvest, and see that ripe golden row of kernels smiling back at me. Hot, sweet corn, lightly salted with butter dripping down all over it . . . mmm. Nothing better. Don’t nearly have the teeth for it anymore. You eat yours across or up and down?”

“Across.”

“Me too. Only way to eat corn. Tastes better across. When I see somebody munching on an ear like this”—the old man rolled the imaginary ear of corn in front of his imaginary teeth chomping down—“I just want to slap him upside the head.”

I was starting to run very late, and he noticed me fidgeting.

“Oh, yeah, here I am blabbering away, and you got a job to do.”

“I’ll get your paper.” I ran back to my bike lying on the sidewalk.

“So I see nobody’s bought the Jensen place yet,” he yelled out to me.

I grabbed a newspaper that had spilled out of my bag onto the sidewalk, and rushed back to Mr. Melzer. “Not yet. Whoever does, hope they have kids.” I handed the old man the newspaper.

“Listen, I’m sorry I scared you,” he said.

“It’s okay.” I looked over at a pile of unopened newspapers on the porch by the door. “Mind if I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“How come you never read the paper?”

“Oh, don’t know. At some point I guess you grow tired of bad news. Besides, these days all the news I need is right here in the neighborhood.”

“So why do you still order the paper?”

The old man smiled. “Well, the way I see it, if I didn’t order the paper, I’d miss out on these splendid little chats with you, now wouldn’t I?”

I told you you’d like him. I grinned. “I’m glad you’re not dead, Mr. Melzer.”

“Likewise,” he said, shooting a wink my way. When I turned around to walk back to my bike, I heard the rolled up newspaper hit the top of the pile.

Set This Place on Fire

“From the beginning of Third Day we realized that we needed to have someone to speak into our lives as individuals and as a band. Through the years we have had many people, pastors, and friends travel with us. But of all those people, Nigel James has been the most important. He has allowed us and reminded us to be men of God first, and as a result, our music and ministry have reflected that. Nigel has kept us accountable to each other, to the church, and, of course, to our Lord. He has helped us to grow in our faith and has reminded us to stay focused on our calling and on what Third Day is really all about.” ~ Mac Powell, November 2006

Whenever people find out that I travel with Third Day as their road pastor, they always ask me the same two questions. The second question is, “Do you need someone to carry your bags?” I laugh politely and mention that I’m strong enough to carry my own bags. However, the first question needs a more serious answer. Everyone always asks me, “How did you get the job of Third Day’s road pastor?” Depending on how much time I have and how interested the person looks, I’ve got two possible replies. My short reply is that it is a “God thing”; and the longer reply, which explains the set of circumstances in which I’ve ended up working with the band, adds up to basically the same answer—it’s a God thing.

If you think about the situation, it does seem to stretch the bounds of credibility that a man from Cardiff, Wales, in the UK would find himself in the privileged and responsible position of being spiritual adviser and friend to one of the most successful and influential bands in the history of Christian music. Equally unlikely is that their production manager would up root from his home in Australia to join the band’s crew, or that their merchandise manager is a missionary from Brazil. Yet that’s the way God often works: “For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9 nlt). So let me explain how God orchestrated my relationship with Brad, David, Mac, Mark, and Tai.

It all started in the summer of 1995. My best friend, Gary Smith, and I had just left the employment of a national Christian youth organization in the UK to begin ministry together in a charity called Big Ideas (nothing to do with Veggie Tales!). For some years before this, we had been running a Christian music festival and had begun a friendship with the main guys in a Christian record company. Ian Hamilton, Dave Withers, and Dave Bruce, major players in the UK scene, started a new company called Alliance and needed some help developing live concerts and touring. They promised to send some opportunities our way when Gary and I set out together.

Our plan for the summer of 1995 was to leave our employment in June, spend July and early August on an evangelistic trip around youth camp sites, have a couple of weeks holiday late in August, and then officially begin ministry together in the first week of September.

Then two things happened that shaped my destiny: first, Gary got ill with a kidney stone and had to return home early from the evangelistic trip. In fact, he ended up in the hospital. Second, Alliance Music called us to ask if we could look after an American band that was coming over to the UK and Europe for a week. Basically they needed a minibus driver to take a band called Newsboys around the UK, Holland, and Germany. I have to admit I’d never heard of them but had it on good authority that they were good and were gaining a great reputation. Already Gary and I had decided that he would do more of the management, events, and organizing and that I would do more speaking and evangelism. Had Gary been well, he would have driven Newsboys around, but because we couldn’t turn down such a great opportunity, I found myself escorting them around when I thought I’d be having a few quiet days before starting a new ministry.

A week on the road with Newsboys was a blast and my first introduction to the nuts and bolts of the Christian music world. I’d been a fan of contemporary Christian music since I was a student in the late ’70s and early ’80s, but now I was experiencing it from the inside. Peter Furler and the rest of the guys of Newsboys really welcomed me, and we shared many plates of “pie and chips” during that week. Newsboys’ management, Wes and Steve Campbell, became very good friends of mine, and Gary recovered enough to run a showcase concert for Alliance with Newsboys as top of the bill.

Over the next few years, Alliance Music flew Gary and me to the Gospel Music Association conference in Nashville, Tennessee, to find bands and performers who would relish the opportunity of playing in the UK. Each time we went to Nashville, we would stay with either Wes Campbell or Duncan Phillips, and we got to know Newsboys better and better. Peter Furler would often suggest that they bring me over to the US to work as the road manager, and I kept replying that I was a pastoral/speaker-type person, not a management dude! I must admit that my appetite for life on the road in the US was whetted on one occasion when I flew up from Nashville to Chicago to see Newsboys perform at a Luis Palau youth rally and then traveled back to Nashville on their tour bus. I slept on the couch in the front lounge of the bus and gazed wide eyed out of the window at the nighttime Chicago skyline and the early morning scene on the outskirts of Nashville.

Then, incredibly, in the summer of 1998, Steve Campbell called and asked me, on Peter Furler’s behalf, if I’d consider coming on the Step Up to the Microphone tour to do some speaking on behalf of Teen Mania and to act as a tour pastor. After a phone conversation with Ron Luce of Teen Mania, a visit to their headquarters in Texas, and a trip to Romania to see one of their mission teams in action, the plan was confirmed.

So in September 1998, I headed out for the first of two one-month-long stays on the road with Newsboys. At the age of nearly thirty-eight, when most sane people in Christian music were deciding to come off the road, I was embarking on a journey that now eight years later I still have not finished!

Life on the road with Newsboys was perhaps the most intense experience I have ever had. I learned so much about myself, about being away from my family, about life on the road, about Christian music, about relying on the Lord, and I saw so much of America—places like Memphis, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New Orleans, which I had often seen on TV but never in real life.

I’m immensely grateful to the guys at Alliance, to Gary Smith, and to Newsboys (especially Steve Campbell, who along with his wife, Simone, looked after me so well) for the opportunities that came my way at this time. But how does all this connect with Third Day? I hear you ask. Good question! The support act for Newsboys on the first part of the Step Up to the Microphone tour was none other than—you’ve guessed it—Third Day!

The first mention of Third Day in my journal, dated Saturday, October 3, 1998, reads: “At another Paramount theme park. Third Day talked me into going on the Top Gun ride with

them—a frightening experience.” I have to confess that my fear came not from being with the guys of Third Day but from a deep aversion to theme-park rides.

I spoke on the weekend shows of the tour and would be waiting in the wings of the stage while Third Day performed their set. I hadn’t listened to their music before the tour but found that songs like “My Hope Is You,” “Consuming Fire,” and “Peace” really helped me worship the Lord and receive His strength before I went on to speak.

I met John Poitevent at this time, who became a great friend. On my first night of speaking, John was walking offstage with a guitar (he doubled as a guitar tech), and just before I was going on stage, he prayed an awesome prayer for me. I was amazed and remember thinking, “Wow! These Third Day guys must be incredible; even their guitar tech is a mighty man of God.” He was actually Third Day’s full-time road pastor, and it was he who encouraged me to get to know the band and to spend some time with them on our days off.

My friendship with Third Day came to fruition in October 1998. Newsboys were big into motorbikes and were going to spend some time biking in California and Nevada, so Third

Day invited me onto their bus. We bonded on a golf course in Pasadena and in a Thai restaurant in Hollywood! Our friendship nearly came to a premature end a few days later when I tried to impress the crowd at a concert with my newly learned American slang, courtesy of Third Day. Great embarrassment for me and for them!

As far as my journal entries go, I joined in a Sunday devotional with Third Day for the first time the day after the Top Gun ride and led my first Bible study with the guys on Tuesday, October 13, 1998, at the invitation of John Poitevent: “Leading a Bible study with Third Day today—supposedly. Didn’t think Newsboys bus would arrive at the venue in time. Got here with twenty minutes to spare, washed and ate, only to find all the guys in Third Day still asleep.”

The first study I ever shared with Tai, Mac, Mark, David, and Brad was on this verse: “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power” (1 Corinthians 4:20 niv). As if to enforce that theme, the daily reading in my own quiet time from a book my wife, Gill, had given me was from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4:7 niv).

I was homesick, missing my wife and family, aware of the grace she showed in allowing me to travel to the USA, yet I was also conscious that God was beginning to open up a new chapter

of my life and that His power would be all that I needed.

I spent another two months in the spring of 1999 on the Step Up to the Microphone tour, although Third Day wasn’t in those shows. I also traveled with Newsboys on their Love

Liberty Disco tour, which took place inside a giant blow-up air dome in parking lots or state fairgrounds during the spring of 2000. I kept in contact with Third Day and even found time to

pop into the studio in Nashville when the band was mixing the Time album. I can vividly remember listening to the finishing touches to “Your Love, Oh Lord” and then going out for a good ol’ barbecue meal together. The guys first invited me to join them for a few days out on tour towards the end of 2000. By then, John Poitevent had gone back to Atlanta to work with his church, and Third Day was touring the Time album. From then on, I joined them regularly on each of their tours.

The contemporary Christian music scene often receives criticism for being a business or for merely mimicking the mainstream music scene or for attempting to create a parallel and “safe” Christian culture away from the real world. And to a certain extent, all of these observations carry some truth. Yet my experience also tells me that Christian music does transform lives, does communicate with people, does help seekers find faith, and does build up the body of believers. It’s for these reasons that I do what I do with Third Day.

I often reflect on what I have done to deserve the privilege of pastoring Third Day. In reality, it’s down to the grace of God because there are thousands of faithful, inspirational, even famous pastors in the US who in human terms should be doing what I do. However, as I reflect, I do believe that part of the reason has been my willingness, ever since God called me to serve Him, to be faithful in the small things. I am reminded of the words of the master in the parable of the talents: “The master was full of praise. ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’” (Matthew 25:21 nlt).

From my late teens, when I knew God’s call in my life was to share Jesus with others, I have always been excited about the opportunity to preach and teach the Word of God, whether to five hundred people or to five people. In fact, the denomination in which I grew up sent me around London to preach in many of its dwindling churches. Sometimes I would take other young people with me, and we would outnumber the small congregation we were visiting. Once I preached in a church that had space for eight hundred people, but only a handful were present. Rather than get resentful or despairing, I was always thrilled to give a message I believed the Lord had given me. Over the years I have attempted to keep that same desire to prove faithful in the small things, and I believed that opportunities such as those with Third Day would not have come my way if I hadn’t treated “smaller” responsibilities faithfully. Sometimes people ask me how to become a road pastor, or they tell me that they want to be a famous preacher or a successful singer or worship leader. My advice to them is to start serving the Lord right where they are and learn from being faithful in the small opportunities that will come their way.

Through the song “Consuming Fire” God gave me much of the vision and direction for a project called Ignite, which over the last six years or so has grown to dominate the ministry I help direct in the UK. Very rarely is there a Third Day concert without the song being sung. Here Mac opens up about “Consuming Fire”:

I honestly don’t remember exactly how this song started out—I just remember it always being one of our songs. I have always felt this is a great representation of what Third Day is. It’s a rock song, yet the lyrics are worship. It’s a 6/8 song, so there is a “sing-along” feeling to it as well.

I got the idea from the verse in Hebrews. I didn’t totally know what it meant when I was writing the song. I took it to mean that God purifies us in the same sense that extreme heat purifies precious metal. But we have to allow God to do that daily so it’s not just a one-time shot. The song has lasted the test of time because there is an intensity in the song musically and lyrically asking God to change us and to help us. It starts from a place of brokenness and desperation. We need God to be our Purifier, our Redeemer.

“Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be destroyed, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe. For our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:28–29 nlt). ~ Mac Powell, November 2006