Thank you, Carl Medearis

I was privileged to attend a conference this past week called Wiki2014. It’s sponsored by http://www.fivetwo.com/ a group of pretty wise and faithful and daring souls who read that old verse about the loaves and the fishes——five loaves + two fishes + a blessing from Jesus and suddenly five thousand hungry people are full——and came to understand it to mean that everything we need to help reconnect people to God is already right in front of us. Good thinking.

The speakers were all extraordinary, but the one whose story has stayed with me the most is that of Carl Medearis. His credentials as an expert in Middle Eastern/U.S relations and peacemaking between the Muslim and Christian worlds are pretty humbling: http://carlmedearis.com/meet-carl-medearis/ If you ever have a chance to hear him speak, go.

His was the only book I bought at the conference. I would not ordinarily buy a book called Speaking of Jesus ——my experience has been that mentioning Jesus in almost any public setting in L.A., where I live, is only slightly less risky than in say, Beirut, where Carl and his wife lived for 12 years. Medearis made me rethink that with a number of hilarious stories, one of which I’ll attempt to recap briefly here:

One time Medearis was invited to speak to a very large group of Arab Muslims somewhere in the Middle East. Just as he began to step up on the stage, the imam who had been assigned to shadow him tugged at his coat, “Mr. Carl, don’t talk about Christianity. Only talk about Jesus.” Carl Medearis nodded somewhat nervously and went on to speak about Jesus for 45 minutes. His presentation was met with great applause by the Muslim crowd. Then, just as he was preparing to step off the stage, the imam leaned in towards the podium.

“Mr. Carl.”

“Yes?”

“Keep going.”

“Keep going?” Medearis said, somewhat panic-stricken. I mean, he’d already been through every slide in his powerpoint.

“Yes, keep going. One more hour,” the imam said, and then sat back in his chair and waited for Medearis to continue.

This was just one of the many examples of how he came to know for certain that the world was hungry for Jesus. The Christian Church many could take or leave or worse, but Jesus, He was the real deal.

When I left the conference I drove a few hours for a reunion with two dear artist friends, Mary McCleary http://www.marymccleary.com/ and Kate Campbell http://www.katecampbell.com/ who drove down from Nashville to see us both. I have featured many of Kate’s songs on this blog over the years (I always get many more hits from her singing than I ever do from my writing). On Sunday as I headed home, I started thinking about Carl and Jesus and Kate, and I remembered a song she had written called “Looking for Jesus.”

This one’s for you, Carl Medearis. And for all of us who are attempting to follow your lead as you follow His.