Greater things are yet to come….
by Matt Parr
I honestly cannot tell you how long I have been attending Rhythm. Over the years it has become a weekly ritual for me. There have been weeks where I’ve occasionally missed or had other plans, but no matter what, every Thursday, Rhythm was where I am. I don’t go for the band, although the worship at Rhythm is the most contemporary, up-beat, outgoing, and positive I’ve ever seen. I don’t go for the social aspect, although when I first started going there were anywhere from 100 to 200 people, all my age group, and all from the Roanoke valley. And as a single twenty year old at the time, that was nice. I don’t go for Craig Tackett, although I really really like Craig Tackett. Yeah, sometimes his personality may be hit or miss with some people. But his speaking style is like nothing I’ve ever seen within a Christian sermon. No matter what your personal opinion may be of Craig as a person, I can tell you one thing. He always delivers. Be it due to his studying of the Word, or the ability he has to allow the Holy Spirit to move and speak through him. Craig has a passion, a desire, and a joy like no other to spread the Word of God, the love of God, and the wisdom that comes with following God to the young adult nation of the Roanoke valley. And he doesn’t stop there. His sermons range from uplifting soul food to deep and heavy plates of meaty, interpretive goodness. But still, I don’t go to Rhythm for Craig.
Maybe, when I first started attending Rhythm, I had less than holy reasons for coming back each week, maybe there was a cute girl, maybe I liked feeling a part of something. But it didn’t take long for God to really grab me by the collar. And He did. I can comfortably say that I was raised as a Christian, in a Baptist home here in Roanoke. I grew up in Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church and in Lynn Haven Baptist Church. I had a pretty clean and healthy childhood. I played a bunch of sports and I got involved in music. But all the while, I believe I tended to separate myself from most of the other kids, because of my morals and my values. I think it made me feel like I was right and they were wrong, and I didn’t want to get involved in certain things that would make me unclean in the eyes of God. At the age of eleven I pledged to abstain from sex until marriage because there was a seventh grade girl that I liked that was doing the same thing. I went to “See You at the Pole” and later that year got baptized. I was young and naïve. I thought that that was the one thing I had to keep clean in order to be clean. I never did drugs or drank alcohol, and throughout all the girls I dated, I never went “too far”. I always saw myself as a good little Christian boy that didn’t want God to be mad at him. At the age or seventeen I started dating a girl that I continued to be with for three years. She was the first person to make me feel important and attractive, the first girl to make me feel cool and accepted. She became everything to me. I turned away from trying to be a Christian and I gave her everything. And after dating her for little over two and a half years, I gave myself to her. The relationship didn’t last much long after that.
Sorry if I rambled for a bit, but I told you all of that in order to tell you this. Ever since then, I have not felt… clean. I lost a sense of self value and pride. I felt like I gave that girl the one thing I wanted to hold onto for God. I gave away the one gift I was saving for Him. And that tore me apart. The Christian that I thought I was my entire life had been corrupted and become a hypocrite. My faith fell to pieces. And it had been for three years.
Maybe I started going to Rhythm for less than holy reasons, but I stayed at Rhythm because I found God again. I may have been raised in a Christian home. And I may have thought that I knew who Christ was my whole life, but I was wrong. If it weren’t for Rhythm, I would still be grasping at strings, trying to figure out this whole Christianity thing. I know that He is my redeemer and that God has been guiding me and protecting me my entire life. And because of that I have made it to this point as a Christian and attained the knowledge and wisdom that Rhythm has helped supply to me through the words of Craig Tackett. From childhood the adolescence, I was a baby Christ believer. I believed but knew nothing. I had faith, but I didn’t truly know what I had faith in. Over the past few years that I have spent my Thursday nights at Rhythm, and my own time actively seeking Christ through His Word, I have come to know Christ. I have faith that is stronger than any man. I have a deep seeded knowledge of the Holy Spirit and the inner workings of God. I have been granted wisdom and understanding. I have grown up. And thanks to the resurrection and redemption, and thanks to Rhythm, God’s got me in His arms once again and He will never let go. I will never let go.
That being said, as followers and believers of Jesus Christ, we all fall and we all stumble. It will be hard. Faith is hard. But through the redeeming powers of Christ and the forgiveness we have through Him we may now and always run back into his arms. I am not perfect and I never will be. God knows that. But my heart is on Him. Is yours?
Rhythm will not be meeting over the length of the summer, but if my testimony moved anyone, or if any of you desire to know God closer or better than you already do, or if you don’t know Christ and are curious and just want more information, I strongly urge you to come to Rhythm in August.
Rhythm will be back and I personally hope to see you there.
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