Michael's Spiritual Journey {Part 1}

A week or so after Michael's memorial service, I got a call from a musician friend of his. I think this guy might have been a member of the swing band Michael played with for many years. Anyway, he wanted to tell me how much he enjoyed the service but that he'd heard from other people who were there (he didn't name names) that they didn't appreciate the "Christian message" aspect to it. In fact, he said they had said that they would have preferred it if the service had just ended after the tribute video. Needless to say, I was taken aback.

Now the guy who called me is a Christian, so he didn't have a problem with it, but he thought it would be great if I'd write a letter or something to these other people and explain how Michael came to be a Christian because they had not known that side of him. I don't know who I thought was being more ridiculous - the people who had complained initially, or the guy I was listening to.

I told him I didn't think that anything from me was going to change their hearts. After all, Pastor Ray's message was low key, and it was just part of the whole. He spoke a bit about Michael's spiritual journey, what Christ has to offer all of us, and the choice we all have to make in regards to the gospel - accept it or reject it. You know, some people come to a service like that looking for spiritual direction in the wake of their loss. Hearing the gospel message might be a turning point for them, and as Christians we are called to share the gospel with the world.

Anyway, I have heard these sorts of complaints from other people about Christian memorial services before. They are heartless and in the worst taste. Really, who goes to any kind of funeral/memorial service and then complains about the way it's done? It's not a movie or a show to be critiqued. Come on people! What happened to if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all? People bend over backwards to be politically correct about all kinds of things, but Christian bashing is okay apparently. Whatever...

Anyway , since then I have been wanting to write here about Michael's spiritual journey - the journey that led him to the Cross. Michael had been raised in a Catholic home. His mother saw to it that he was baptized and received his first communion, but when he was still rather young she told him (and his brothers and sisters) that he didn't have to go to church anymore. So, he didn't. If my parents had told me that when I was a kid, I would have made the same choice. I thank the Lord that wasn't an option for me. By the time we met, he was agnostic at best, and he had some philosophies that he loosely adhered to that were based in Eastern religions. He liked to refer to himself as "spiritual".

When I first met Michael back in 1992 or 1993, it was because of our involvement at church. I've written here before that I was a volunteer singer on the worship team, and he was a hired musician in the praise band. That's how we got to know each other. When we first started spending large amounts of time talking, I remember him saying to me that perhaps I was the one who would lead him into a relationship with Christ. At the time, I didn't really know what to make of that. Was he serious? Was that what he wanted me to do? If so, how was I supposed to do that?

To be continued...