Road To Detox: Addendum

About six years ago, I had the privilege of recording with Rita Springer.

Right away, such a statement conveys a lot of assumptions, expectations, and carries some kind of weight. It can also be misleading and true at the same time.

Have I ever met Rita Springer? No. Well, the closest I came was when David Ruis was driving her somewhere after a worship concert at Winnipeg Centre Vineyard, and he rolled down the passenger window to have a brief roadside chat with me, and Rita was in the passenger seat.

Rita had David as the producer of one of her albums, recorded in Winnipeg, but I wasn’t there for that. However, I was one of four djembe players invited (long after Rita had left town) to play additional percussion on a 90-second segment of one of her songs.

So, while it’s technically true that I am on a Rita Springer album, it’s also very misleading to just say so without giving the whole story.

After reading some of the comments from the original Road To Detox post, I realize that it could be interpreted that I was let go from a church for questioning the dynamics of the conference I wrote about. In reality, it was probably just the last in a growing line of indicators that we were moving in different directions. The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, as it were.

We were already becoming post-charismatic (but not post-Spirit), at a time where some leaders were suggesting that we hadn’t fully “repented” of our evangelical background, or hadn’t properly “renounced” attending Bible college and seminary.

We were passionate about “community” at a time when people were flocking to “anointed” superstars and/or hoping to become the next generation of superstars (the “Joshua & Caleb Generation” or whatever).

And there was also a church merger being explored at the time, and the question of which staff would continue and which would be “let go” was part of the conversation as well. So there were actually a number of contributing factors behind the scenes.

In hindsight, it really was only a matter of time before we would part ways. The events leading up to it were pretty discouraging, but again in hindsight, I think God had a hand in it and the detox journey is one we’re glad to have gone through.