Glenn & Wendi Kaiser of Rez : 2002-10-26
I was blessed to spend some time with Glenn and Wendi Kaiser on October 26, 2002. I've enjoyed their music and ministry since the first Resurrection Band record came out in the 70s. Now I'm enjoying the Glenn Kaiser Band projects and so I jumped at the opportunity to interview them when GKB played Greeley. It was worth the time just to hear Wendi laugh!I also enjoyed chatting with bassist Roy Montroy and drummer Ed Bialach. Ed and I both have 11-year-old sons and 8-year-old boy-girl twins, so discovering that made for a slightly surreal conversation.
Randy: I'm here with Glenn Kaiser, founding father of Resurrection Band, later known as Rez, and currently frontman of Glenn Kaiser Band. Glenn, welcome to Colorado and thanks for taking time to visit us.
Glenn: Pleasure to do it!
Randy: My brother attended Cornerstone this year for the first time, something we'd taked about since we were kids, and he mentioned to me that he respected you and Wendi as much or more than any other current active artists, authors, musicians out there. Have you found that Cornerstone has expanded the scope of your ministry and kind of increased public awareness of what you and Wendi and JPUSA are trying to accomplish in the world?
Glenn: Yeah, very much so. It can't help (but) happen because so many of our own bands from Jesus People play at the festival and my wife has seminars, I do seminars, a number of the other pastors and other leaders in JPUSA do seminars and of course we're really cheap, none of us cost the festival anything you know (laugh) but, yeah, you get 26,000 people show up for a week and people begin to be a little more aware of what we do in Chicago and the various ministries and outreaches of the fellowship.
Randy: I believe I read on the web that John Herrin, your old drummer...is he now full-time setting that up and managing the logistics of it?
Glenn: Yeah, he is. He took over the directorship about three years ago, but what a lot of people out there probably don't know is that Cornerstone Festival, initially was a vision that John brought to the rest of the pastoral team. There were no festivals in the midwest at the time. A couple of churches in the upper midwest did a couple of one-day or two-day festivals, but they were very ultra-conservative on the cultural side of things and a lot of the kids just did not relate to the bands; sometimes the teaching was non-existent or downright goofy. Because Rez Band played so many festivals in the US and overseas as well, I think we tried to learn and take the best and leave the worst out, and you know, try to do a festival that would really relate, so yeah, John from the very beginning was in the thick of it, and this coming year will be our 20th anniversary of Cornerstone festivals.
Randy: Glenn, your music often mentions your early days. I assume songs like Child of the Blues are autobiographical, at least to some extent. I don't recall hearing exactly how you first encountered Christ. Would you share a little bit of your testimony with us?
Glenn: The short form is, I didn't grow up in a Christian home. I did end up doing a lot of drugs and overdosing a few times and tried to commit suicide, and played in bands from the time I was 12. It was literally dope, sex and music. That was my life. The one little--well, there were two blips on the screen, but the major one was sweet gray-haired old Lutheran ladies dragged me off to a vacation Bible school one summer when I was six and they had me memorize John 3:16. Just before my 18th birthday was when I broke down and asked the Lord into my life. That's a long story, but what happened was, I knew God was trying to speak to me directly at that moment and I just literally said, "Who are you and what are you trying to say? I'm not gettin' it." And it was "For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son" and bang! John 3:16 flashed through my head. I broke down and started weeping and on the spot asked the Lord into my life and surrended to him. And then bumped into this crazy group of Jesus People. The community had just gotten off the ground within about a nine-month span and when I moved in I eventually met my lovely wife; we just celebrated our 30th anniversary. Pretty cool how God does things! Somebody else said what a long strange trip it's been (laugh)--there's some truth to that.
Randy: Speaking of personal songs, was Mommy Don't Love Daddy Anymore written out of your personal experience as a child?
Glenn: Yeah, it was. I'm a child of divorce. I was the third kid in the family--I'm the last one--my parents got a divorce when I was nine. It was a major, major rocker for me. A lot of bitterness, a lot of anger, a lot questioning, what is love? Does it mean anything? Does it exist? So when it came time to write songs that song popped out very easy.
Randy: You mentioned your 30th anniversary--going over to Wendi, do you keep learning more about dating, sex and relationships after three decades or is it all pretty clear by now? Or do I go back to Glenn for that one? (laughter all around)
Wendi: Yeah, I think the thing that is very current is the fact that because we have now a generation that has been taught largely in our educational system that you make your own rules, you find your own truth you find your own right and wrong--tolerance to the extent of almost a lack of good taste and common sense. There are problems that are presented to young people today that really weren't an issue when I was growing up and there's a lot of "how close can I get to the edge without falling off?" and that has been a huge issue today that I confront every time I answer a young person's email, every time I answer questions in a question and answer time during seminars, at my own church with young adults and teenagers, that is the question: "what is right and wrong?" and "where do I draw the line in my personal relationships?" Not just sexually, but emotionally, spiritually, all of that. And there's been a lack of parental guidance among Christian families of really talking to the young people. Sometimes you get so caught up in the turbulence of teens that you think your voice doesn't matter as a parent but parents are the most influential people in a teen's life.
Glenn: Can I also say, in direct answer to your question, Wendi does research all the time online, she's reading every new book, every new stat that pops up whether it's from the Christian press or mainstream and she gets so much email and does so much chatting and giving advice and people sitting down wanting to talk and pray. At Cornerstone festival she spends hours and hours over in the prayer tent talking and praying with folks. So much of what's going on is because there's a lack of knowledge, a lack of information. I gotta say, I think the church at large is doing a better job than when we were kids (wk: yeah) there are finally a few decent books out on the topic, but by and large at the local church level...
Wendi: Well, the media pressure is enormous on older teens and singles today; we did not have that media pressure that young people face today. It is incredible.
Glenn: What I was going to say is I don't think the local church is still doing as much as it needs to do to really minister and disciple and raise up its own kids, its own people. What does Scripture say?
Wendi: That is really a key; because often in teaching seminars, I teach a seminar that could be taught in a public school as well as in a Christian school. One of the things I teach on are what are the ways to know what are some clues to let you know if this is really someone you could spend your life with. And fourteen reasons why pre-marital sex is stupid. I don't use Scripture, but everything is based on Scriptural principles, and I find among Christian young people, they want to know "where does it say in the Bible, what does Scripture say?" And they want to look at that Scripture and that's very important, because particularly among Christian young people they want to know, okay so you say don't have sex before marriage, where does it say that in the Bible? What's sex? What's sex? President Clinton (said), "I didn't have sex with that woman-I did everything but;" so there's sort of that semantic gymnastics there among people and a lot of young Christians will tell me they've never had sex, but they've done so many different intimate sexual practices with their boyfriends or girlfriends that I look at them and say, "You have had sex!"
Glenn: I hear they're going to call me any time, so if you have specifics for more I probably better nail them.
Randy: Let's do a few more, then we'll keep Wendi around. Let's go back to '78 briefly. Awaiting Your Reply was an album we heard was coming out, a friend of mine and I were very excited, finally some good music supposedly on the way and I still remember that needle dropping on the old vinyl and that intro and then, oh boy, when Waves started pounding out we were high-fiving or whatever we did back then.
Glenn: No, no, I expected that people were going to think and say what they did. I sat on a hillside and told Wendi, when I was proposing marriage to her...
Wendi: 1972
Glenn: ...that we were going to do a band that ultimately people were going to think we were of the devil, or certainly in the flesh royally and immature and basically we are more married to our subculture than committed to following Jesus as Lord of our lives, and so yeah, God prepared me way early on. I fasted and prayed, I read every chapter, every Scripture in the Bible that had anything to do with music and I read all the anti-rock tracts that I could, and talked to very straight-laced, culturally, not just, but also theologically conservative pastors in the Milwaukee area that I could find and I asked them all the hard questions. And the truth of the matter is the more I studied and the more I prayed and the more I talked to people, the more I was convinced that it was the Holy Spirit directing me to do it.
The gospel transcends culture. The same stumbling block is repeated over and over in church history. There are always a sizeable number of even missionaries--evangelical missionaries--who preach culture alongside of Christ. We've never preached culture. In fact, one of the things I make plain in Cornerstone about every year, the last several years--five years or more--I saw it coming. Coming to Cornerstone Festival, like going to church on Sunday, does not mean you are walking Biblically, living, in practical terms, a holy life.
So from day one I knew there'd be people carping and griping and preaching against what we were doing.
Randy: We're glad you did it!
Wendi: We also know because I remember some very well-known Christian record company exec told us that rock and roll would never sell in the Christian market and that it would never be accepted.
Randy: Times change, don't they?
Wendi:
Randy: Glenn, you've done a pretty eclectic variety of solo projects since the Rez days: the worship stuff, the R&B one, the blues, should we expect a techno dance record, or light pop (Wendi laughs) down the road?
Glenn: Well, I kicked around...I even have the concept and a lot of the lyrics, the basic music in my head...I was looking at a really slammin', almost an NWA, but a worship kind of thing, very different and it would actually be all Scripture verbatim. I don't know if I'll ever do that or not; it was actually a worship album done in a way heavier than POD, way heavier--slammin'--kind of a thing and I don't know...who knows? But my core is blues. I keep going back to what I grew up singing and playing. For about three years before I was a Christian I didn't listen to any white music. The bands I was in, the music I was writing, singing, guitar-wise, harp-playing--everything was all blues-based.
Randy: Do you anticipate any future projects with Darrell Mansfield?
Glenn: We'll see. I hope so. Schedules and times, it's all in God's hand. It can be difficult sometimes linking up with people. I wouldd love to more with Larry Howard as well, and oh, there are a number of folks...so we'll see what happens.
Randy: Speaking of others, Dave Beegle--your special guest tonight--is a very accomplished guitarist. Would you share a little bit about how you got to know Dave and what you feel about him as a musician and fellow Christian?
Glenn: Well, I think David is one of the more genuine, kind Christians that I know. I spent time at his house--he and his wife were kind enough to take me in for several days when I was out here last spring. We got to know each other over the years from them playing at Cornerstone Festival--Fourth Estate. He and Aaron opened for us, doing an acoustic set here in the Fort Collins area a year or two ago.
I think he is a genius of a guitarist; I would say he is the top of the top of Christian players right now--guitar players--and of course he rates up against any mainstream guitarist out there you could name. It's been a blast--I'm going to haul him up tonight; we at least do one or two songs every night together on this tour cuz it's so much fun to have him up there. Hanging out at his house, I told him at one point, "if you want to do something together, a project, or if you need somebody to sing on some stuff, or what have you, I'd love to do it." As a matter of fact, I put a bug in his ear a couple of days ago that what I really wanted was a CD of his blues stuff. He said he was going to give me one before we're on our way over to Utah--or Idaho.
Randy: Do you have plans for any future GKB recordings, is this something you see kind of for the foreseeable future ongoing more tours?
Glenn: Yeah, I definitely do. I'll do solo stuff from time to time but we actually are demoing songs right now. We have a whole slew of songs for the next one. In fact, Roy has given me three--count-em--CDs full of demo songs and he's writing in a bluesier vein than he has before and I'm loving it of course, and I've written a bunch of stuff; we've demoed up some of it. I don't know when, Lord willing, maybe some time this next year; I don't think it would be before the festival, we'll see. We may not see another GKB until the autumn next year, but lots of songs on the burner.
Randy: Any chance of some old classics like the music Roy wrote Where Roses Grow or Lincoln's Train? Love to hear one of those old favorites tonight if there's a chance...
Glenn: Well, we haven't done those in a long time. The problem too is I've done, just in the blues vein, in the electric blues vein, plus with GKB we've done two projects and then I've got what, another five, six projects? And just that alone, not counting 16 Rez albums, you know...
Randy: Okay, I'll settle for My Backyard and the new Rooster Crow.
Glenn: Rooster Crow is on the list. It's a problem cuz you've only got so many minutes.
Randy: I'll stay for three hours if you'll play.
Wendi: (Laughs)
Glenn: Actually we're hauling for two--two, count'em--church services in the morning, and then an evening show tomorrow night and we're doing one on Monday night up in Cheyenne, so really I'm going to be lucky to get my laundry done and get some sleep.
Randy: I know you've got to get back upstairs, but what advice would you give your fans who have a desire to live a God-pleasing life after all the years you've been walking with Him? What's the best advice you could share with your fans?
Glenn: I think prayer has to be constant. When it says pray without ceasing, it's a command, not an option. It's a necessity for me and for anybody who wants to seriously please God in the practical sense. We are saved by grace--we can't work our way into God's love as Christians any more than we could work our way into salvation before we were saved, so it is grace--but grace has to be applied and walked in and lived out; so the Word, and then I would say prayer. Really being in the Scriptures is huge. I didn't quite get all the way through Ephesians 4 earlier this afternoon. I'm better off for reading as much of the chapter...I don't speed read. I take time, I'm really slow and careful about study. I probably read less Scripture these days and meditate more on it and study it more and weigh the words. I've got a couple of good programs with me on my laptop so I can look up the Greek and Hebrew words...so many good commentaries
So I think prayer, the Word, the basics. Fellowship, accountability...for me, confessing my faults, my sins. I'm on a pastoral team of eight and the other seven, and my wife, really our whole fellowship and half the world, because I talk about it most nights in concert. My sins are clear; I try to really confess and grow and be honest about those things--that's HUGE.
I would say accountability after prayer life--a real devotional and worship and prayer life and real Bible study for a person each day--after those two things, a real--not lording it over, "May I please belch, sir?"--but getting together once a week (or more if possible) with a couple of brothers in Christ who you can talk to and pray with and spill the beans and just ask each other embarrassing questions; that kind of relationship has been HUGE in my life.
I live 24-7 in an intentional community and I know the battles and struggles I have; I can't imagine what it's like when you only go to church 60 minutes a week; maybe once a month, if that, you have a serious sit-down conversation and prayer, brother with a brother, or sister with a sister, or couple to a married couple; so I think that kind of accountability is HUGE.
Randy: Thanks, Glenn. We appreciate you taking the time.
Glenn: You're welcome. Pleasure to do it!
Glenn heads upstairs for his soundcheck and we continue with Wendi.
Randy: Wendi, in regards to your seminars, the Ask Wendi column in Cornerstone Magazine and askwendi.com, what aspect of kids' response and questions has been the most surprising for you--something you didn't really expect when you started it out?
Wendi: I think when I first started out a few years ago I didn't realize how deeply young people were going to be affected by the cyber culture. I've realized it's another aspect you have to deal with, like in particular cyber towns and cyber businesses, and then there's cyber girlfriends, and cyber marriages and cyber sex and cyber kids, and cyber divorces. and where does a Christian person stand in that?
I've gotten quite a bit of questions, different problems that have come up with young people that have to do with just cyber life--online dating services, online chatting--and that's something that probably I wouldn't have foreseen five or six years ago.
Randy: You should have paid more attention to the lyrics of In The Year 2000!
Wendi: Yes, that might be true! You keep thinking that's somewhere else, but that's one of the thing I'm going to be working on a lot, is just setting up some boundaries, some guidelines for cyber relationships.
Randy: It's clear that you have a great burden for young people and their challenges in the area of relationships. How has the response of your people and being involved in this ministry affected your heart personally?
Wendi: I was the teenager from hell. If you could get messed up in any particular relational way, I did it. So I came into talking with young folks, from years of talking with young people after concerts with Resurrection Band and really there's nothing new under the sun. I think the thing that affects me the most is to realize that some problems aren't exactly solvable--you don't just have an instant prayer with someone--there aren't quick fixes to some of life's very difficult problems and there's the odd goodness of God; sometimes he allows tragedy and misery, either homegrown--you know, that we've brought on ourselves--or just being a part of this fallen world. The purpose behind it is just God's goodness in all aspects of our lives--the tragedy, the things that are horrific--there's something that we can learn. I believe in the misery factor--often a person isn't going to change until they are really miserable with where their life is. I always think of the prodigal son. He was in the pig pen trying to make a meal of corn husks before he finally said, "hey, wait a minute, there has to be a better way." I think that through the years, just realizing that a lot of personal holiness, a lot of personal wholeness is a matter of time, and it isn't just a quick answer to prayer.
Randy: We see you sitting here on the couch and it's pretty easy to visualize you as the mild doting grandma with your grandson, and then we think back to a quarter century of very ungrandma-like screaming lead vocals with Rez and it's quite a contrast (Wendi chuckles). I saw you at Disneyland about 1980-81 in one of those all-night New Year's festivals and I was front row, enjoying that a lot.
Do you miss those days? Do you anticipate doing more Rez concerts in the future with your own grandchildren down in the mosh pit or is it something you look back as a phase and you've moved ahead and go on?
Wendi: You know, there's this little motto I have--I've had since I've been a young person--it's called blessed are the flexible, for they shall be used, and I never in my wildest dreams, or even my wildest desires, would have thought that I would have spent a quarter century as a rock and roll mama. I mean, that just wasn't who I was. I was an academic student. I wasn't really an artist or a musician, and when I became a part of Resurrection Band, it was out of obedience, so I knew I wasn't this quintessential artist, so I thought, let's have fun. Let's be a performer, let's share the gospel and I enjoyed it, but I always knew that it was a persona. I didn't dress like that home, I didn't act like that at home, but I knew that it was important and I really looked at it as cross-cultural ministry. I embraced it, I enjoyed it, mostly, I brought my family along with me on the road, and my kids grew up on the road. With my grandson, I hope he's going to be old enough to really appreciate it--Resurrection Band is playing a full concert at Cornerstone Festival for our twenty-year anniversary (note: 20 years for Cornerstone, 30 years for Rez) and so hopefully he'll be right there watching his grammy and his grampy!
Randy: That's great! What were a couple of your favorite Rez songs from the good old days?
Wendi: Favorite songs that I did, or favorite songs that my husband did?
Randy: Let's do both.
Wendi: Well, Broken Promises is probably one of the most gut-wrenching songs from our very early days, and then I loved Afrikaans. We were very involved speaking out on racism wherever it showed its face. I loved Shadows--I really had lived that. I actually mostly wrote those lyrics and my brother John and I had kind of lived that and we understood it and we felt that it really spoke out. My own personal fave raves? Players and Lincoln's Train. Players is one the sweetest slide (guitar)--oh man, it does something for me and it reaches a part that really sees culture where we're looking for love; we have this kind of fantasy, sort of like a TV life and it's so difficult for us to become real with each other and I really loved that song so much...the old old Rez, before we did any vinyl record...I loved Quite Enough.
Randy: Was it ever recorded?
Wendi: It was recorded on Twenty Years. It is an early blues, and it is fabulous. Songs that I sang that I really loved? I loved Right on Time.
Randy: That's funny. I was just going to say that we listened to it on the way here.
Wendi: Right On Time is kind of my personal testimony and I love singing it, I love the lyrics, I love performing it.
Randy: Amazing is one I always enjoy (raucous laughter from Wendi).
Wendi: Well, the funnest song I ever sang was Awaiting Your Reply which was great fun. The most difficult song I ever sang is Autograph. That and Benny & Sue were my little nightmare songs, but we sang them for years.
Randy: If I had to pick just one it would be really heard, but I think Colours would probably be the one album I'd take to the proverbial desert island.
Wendi: You know, Colours had such an interesting lyric in it--whatever one could ask of faith, obedience will give. That was something that we so much were taught as young Christians and as young musician-aries was the fact that obedience was absolutely essential in your relationship and growing in faith.
Randy: Colours was one of those albums that made an impact from the artwork--that's one thing I miss about the old vinyl days...
Wendi: Isn't that the truth!
Randy: With CDs it's either miniature or you've got to fold it 18 times, but that fold-out on Colours, and the lyrics, the music, to me that was--not to put down the early ones, because there's awesome stuff on the early ones--but there's something about that album that to me stands out as one of the amazing albums.
Wendi: It was very, very good. Yeah, there were so many good songs and the thing that really surprises me is that you can go all the way from Awaiting Your Reply to Lament and you will find good songs, good lyrics, things that will challenge you, and also touch your heart and spirit.
I'll tell you a little secret about Lament. When I first met my husband in the sense (that) we were becoming more than just acquaintances in a Bible study, but at the beginning of our relationship as a serious couple before we were married, he had written a rock opera. He had always wanted to do a rock opera and we were doing a series of concerts in the Betten Harbor-St. Joseph's area in Michigan and he had left his backpack backstage while he was performing and then he went out to share with people and talk and then came back and his backpack had been stolen. All of his music for the rock opera was in the backpack and he was just, "I can't believe that!" and then he thought, well, if the Lord wants me to have it, He'll give it back. Years later, many years later, he came up with the idea for Lament as a rock opera. I always thought, okay Lord, there it is! It's returned.
I look at Resurrection Band, and I feel like we sort of went into uncharted territory and pioneered cross-cultural musical missions. I feel that there was a definite emphasis on living a Christian life, not being ashamed of the gospel, and not trying to see what you could get away with as a Christian, but really trying to find obedience and walk in that. I think now with Cornerstone Festival we want to give young groups an opportunity to share but we also want to challenge them.
Randy: A discipleship...
Wendi: Absolutely. Absolutely. To challenge them that, hey, if you're on a stage you have a certain public trust and the way you live your life onstage and offstage needs to be pure, needs to be honest, it needs to be moderate in the Biblical sense. I'm through being cool. I never wanted to be cool. I always wanted to be holy. If I could die and someone would say, "there lies a holy woman," what a wonderful eulogy! What a way to end your life! This woman loved God. She lived a life for Christ.
Randy: I know you're very busy with your responsibilities at JPUSA and of course your family, teaching, counseling, your website. Do you have any time for any hobbies?
Wendi: I have so many hobbies that I have to schedule them because I'm intensely interested in everything. I'm one of these people that I am never bored.
Randy: What are a few of your favorites?
Wendi: Well, I love gardening very very much. I've had that love of seeing things grow since I was a little girl. I would garden all by myself because no one else in my family did. So I love that. I love to fly kites. Kite flying is so relaxing and so fun.
Randy: Sounds like a good activity for a grandma and grandson.
Wendi: Oh, it can be, but I tell you what--some of the kites I fly are very adult. I love to sew. I am a gourmet cook.
Randy: Sounds like Glenn's a lucky man (Wendi roars with laughter).
Wendi: I love to read. I'm a readaholic. I love to read, I've hardly met a book I don't like.
Randy: Would you mind naming a couple of authors that you really enjoy? They can be Christian or otherwise, dead or alive. What are a couple of authors that you'd enjoy getting a new book from that you haven't read?
Wendi: I kind of look at reading as a serious business so I usually have three or four books that I'm reading at a time. One is your more theological work, one is your personal growth type of book, another book is--I'm always starved for good Christian fiction--and then I have what I call my light reading, and light reading can be anything from John Grisham to Clancy or something like that.
Randy: Have you read Grisham's mission one, The Testament?
Wendi: The Testament. In fact, that's the book I have with me right now and I was thinking, I wonder what's happening in this man's life. I feel that no one could explain conversion like that without having experienced it himself.
Randy: For a so-called secular book, I've never seen the gospel given more clearly than in that book.
Wendi: Incredible. That was one of the reasons why I ended up picking it up. My top favorite Christian fiction writers are a Frenchman that's no longer living, but he was an incredible saint, in fact, he won the Nobel Prize in literature, and that's Francois Mauriac and a lot of his works have now been translated into English and they are just among my very top favorites. And then I love Flannery O'Connor, which is our own U.S.-grown short story artist. I mean, she was the quintessential artist of the short story.
Randy: I acually have a degree in English from a Christian school, so we read Flannery O'Connor.
Wendi: You know Flannery! I love Graham Greene. I've read his earliest to his latest. They did a movie, An Affair to Remember. I'm not totally disappointed, but I'm a little disappointed in the movie. The book really got into the actual conversion, which was incredible. I like him. I like a lot of C. S. Lewis and I've read quite a bit of, when it comes to fantasy I like C. S. Lewis and George McDonald. They're just right up there. Charles Williams, things like that.
Randy: You've read The Lord of The Rings trilogy?
Wendi: Oh, at least ten times (long laugh). I've read it so much that it's not fair. I read so fast. I just finished reading a book called The Dark Side of Leadership, which is a very good personal growth book. I've read a book that we did in our pastoral retreat which was good, System-Sensitive Leadership, which was incredibly good. I've been fighting the war of five-point Calvinism over the last three years and reading everything I can on both sides of the story which is very interesting.
Randy: Have you read anything by James White? An apologist out of Phoenix. He's written books on justification and done a lot of Mormon stuff. He works a lot with outreaches to Mormons.
Wendi: No, but if...
Randy: I'll have to hook you up. I'll email you.
Wendi: Okay, there I am!
Randy: I'll send you one of his books in exchange for Ripley County Blues.
wk: Oh, I'll give you Ripley County.
Wendi: I'll tell you a book you need to read. Henry Nouwen's Compassion.
Randy: I haven't. I know who he is. Have you read the little Nouwen Then bio of him?
Wendi: Oh yes.
If you want to start out easy, you can do In The Name of Jesus which is fabulous. It's a small book. If you're an English lit major...
Randy: In the old days...about Colours, that era (Wendi laughs).
Wendi: Well, you need to read Compassion. It talks about being downwardly mobile for the sake of the gospel. That Jesus was downwardly mobile. The style of Jesus' ministry is to be downwardly mobile for the sake of the gospel. And it's in a fabulous book called Compassion. You won't find it in a lot of Protestant bookstores but it's great.
Randy: Well, I know you're busy and probably get swamped with email, but it sounds like I'm going to have to send you some of my book lists and you're going to have to send me some of yours, 'cuz I think we're bookworm nuts.
Wendi: You know, it's so funny, because one of our favorite things to do when we have free time is to go--my husband and I, because I taught him to love to read. He had never really read and he learned to love to read. He is a quintessential card player--it's scary. And we play backgammon and cribbage and I taught him to love to hunt and fish and all that, things I grew up doing--and going to used bookstores is one of the rare pleasures in life.
Randy: I had something similar--you would have enjoyed this--a friend of mine who used to be training to be a pastor--I don't know his personal story, why he made a life change, but he had hundreds and hundreds of books and his wife said, "It's time to clean out the basement." He invited me over and he picked out a lot of his favorites, but I think I paid him a hundred bucks and I walked out with 200 books including hardcover sets that were brand new and paperbacks. I had a van full of books for a hundred bucks.
Wendi: My husband and I would never make each other get rid of books. They're your friends! You don't get rid of a book!
Randy: There was an old Quaker saying that said , "Sell your bed and buy a book."
Wendi: That's right! You got it! (boistrous laugh)
Randy: Wendi, thank you so much for taking the time to share with us. I really enjoyed it. God bless you as you continue on with your ministry with the website and with Glenn and all you're doing. I really enjoyed getting together and sharing some time with you.
Wendi: Well, thank you and Lord bless you!