Rich Mullins, patron saint of ragamuffins.
On September 19, 1997 Richard Wayne Mullins was killed in a car crash. As a musician, songwriter, and a follower of Jesus he influenced the Christian music scene in Nashville and the lives of those believers who followed him. Paul said, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” And I don’t think Rich felt too comfortable with others following him because he knew he had feet of clay. He was always honest and upfront about his personal struggles with those who knew him. He referred to himself as a “ragamuffin” based on the writings of Brennan Mannin. Ragamuffins are people who realize they don’t have it all together and need a Savior.
I loved Rich Mullins from the moment I met him in 1991. Okay, he wasn’t there. But I met him through his music while I was on a summer project with Campus Crusade for Christ in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Sixty college students from around the U.S. — and two students from the Republic of Georgia, formerly the USSR — converged on a small church outside of town. The leadership of the project told us we all had to attend this church together, so we descended on these unsuspecting elderly believers rather like a swarm of locusts that summer, taking over everything in the church service on Sunday mornings. We led the worship, took up the offering, taught Sunday school, and preached the sermon. We also took turns doing a “special” song or skit before the sermon. Everyone in that project got up and did something that summer.
One Sunday, a young man who could actually sing (unlike the rest of us) got up on stage and sang a simple but hauntingly beautiful song. It was so well-written and the lyrics echoed the feelings of consecration that permeated that summer for all of us.
If I stand
Let me stand on the promise
That You will pull me through —
And if I fall,
Let it be on the grace
that first brought me to You—
Wow. Christian music was a new genre for me that summer since my hometown didn’t have a Christian music station. I was hearing a whole new world that I didn’t know existed.
When he finished singing, I went up to him and asked him, “Who sings that song? Who wrote that?” I wanted to know not just who performed it but whose gut it came out of.
“Rich Mullins,” he smiled.
“Who’s that?” I asked, and he handed me a cassette tape with a picture of a dark-haired guy with his dog on the cover.
Aw, that’s so cute! I thought. He has his dog. And it’s a Golden Retriever so he must be a nice guy. Jerks don’t own Golden Retrievers. I took the tape back to my cabin that afternoon and listened to it in one sitting.
I was floored by the quality of the writing and the musicianship. It was much better than most of the offerings I’d been exposed to that summer.
“Who is this guy?” I thought. “I want to marry him and have his children!” But then I realized he was older than I was and probably married like Steven Curtis Chapman with four children, living in Nashville (because that’s where songwriters go) in a big house next door to Amy Grant — and they were all outside playing with that dog! “Dadgummit! Nothing ever works out for me, I must be called to be single!” I was 19 years old. Sigh.
That started a “friendship” with Rich Mullins that lasts to this day. I still listen to him and listen to interviews with him and read the things he wrote. He is in Heaven now and I’m on the other side, along with many other fans who loved his music and still follow him. It was 27 years ago this past week that Rich crossed into glory but he still feels very close to me. I guess you could say I’m a disciple of the patron saint of ragamuffins.
His music was the backdrop of my life throughout college. He was there in the background singing while I went about my business of going to classes, church, Campus Crusade for Christ meetings, work, marching band, etc. He was just always there, along with a few other artists like Ashley Cleveland, Twila Paris, the Dentés, Margaret Becker, and Iona. But he influenced me more than anyone because of his writing.
Rich wrote articles for a Christian magazine and they were so funny, so raw, and so . . . well, true.
Funny, but true.
There was this one article he wrote called The Flight of the Philistine and it was so hilarious and so — true.
We walk by faith and not by sight – not because we are blind, but because faith gives us the courage to face our fears and puts those fears in a context that makes them less frightful. We walk by faith and not by sight because there are places to go that cannot be seen and the scope of our vision is too small for our strides. Faith is not a denial of facts – it is a broadening of focus. It does not deny the hardness of guitar strings, it plucks them into a sweetness of sound.
http://www.audiori.net/richmullins/articles/flightofthephil.html
He was a truth teller, through and through. Someone called Rich “the uneasy conscience of Christian music.” For me, he is a voice that is still speaking. Speaking the truth and pointing to the Savior that all honest ragamuffins still need.
What Susan Said 