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He Knows Your Name
Dennis Hulbert
Machaira Ministries
“The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” John10:3
Sooner or later every band goes through the painstaking task of naming their group. Any one who has played in a band knows this can be an overwhelming task. I’ve seen groups break up before they get started because of their differences in naming the group. The music outreach ministry, in which God has called me to, somehow took care of that task over 12 years ago. We ended up with one of those names that no one can pronounce, let along spell.
One would assume, because it is unusual that it would be rarely used. On occasion however, we have had to inform a few that it is a registered trademark and that there continued use may cause an inconvenience sooner or later. We wanted to avoid folks showing up at a concert expecting to see old men who play guitars well and be confronted with the punk beat of enthusiastic young believers yelling over the guitars which will require you to wait for the breaks to hear the message.
Anyway, we are labeled, Machaira (makh-ahee-rah), in the Greek it means SWORD. The band has claimed, from the Bible, Hebrews 4:12 “The word of God is living and active and sharper than any dual edged sword”. Yes, the name is a struggle for many, but it’s been around long enough now that it’s a household word, well in my house anyway. I remember once someone telling me that their non-believing neighbor gave her a Machaira CD they had picked it up at a street fair we where playing at. They thought they where buying a CD of “The Macarena”, you know the catchy little pop tune “Do the Macarena”. It wasn’t what they thought they where buying so figured their “Christian” neighbors would appreciate it more than they did. We can only pray that they listened to it before they quickly gave it to their Christian neighbors.
Ministering with Machaira, which endeavors to stay true to evangelism, we find ourselves in many challenging places. Also, as a group of Christian Musicians playing outside of the church, we normally don’t find packed houses, but there was one event that seemed to even push this dilemma to its limits.
It was in Gridley, California. Gridley is a small farming community that thinks “American Graffiti” is a present day documentary. We had thought we made the big time for as we drove up, we found our name was on the marquee of the old 1930’s style movie theater which we were to minister at. I am confident the last movie that was shown at this place was “Rocky II” when it was a new release. As always, we followed our usual formula, setting up and praying as a group for Jesus to be big and us to small. We prayed for changed hearts and lives to be touched. We prayed for God to be glorified. We prayed to be humble.
As we entered the stage, we couldn’t really see past the front row for the theater was presently being used for a theatrical group and we had taken advantage of their lighting system, which I’m sure where left over from some glory days past. There was also a cardboard set of a street scene, which also enhanced to the uniqueness of the event. From the energy of the lights, setting of the backdrops, and I’m sure the Holy Spirit had something to do with it, we played and ministered as if there where no tomorrow. I do remember as the night went on that the house seamed empty, but again that didn’t seem to matter. As we drew to a close we gave our usual altar call, however I don’t remember anyone coming forward. The house lights came up and we saw six or seven young teenagers on the front row. Yes, six or seven teenagers. That was the total number that had come to see Machaira in Gridley that evening. I remember tearing down and a couple of the members talking with the small group of youths. We finished our tasks, closed in a prayer and praised God for allowing us to minister in Gridley.
Several years later I was getting ready to introduce a band at an outreach festival we help put on every year and one of the guitar players in my group came up to me stating, “you need to come and meet someone.” I said “I was really busy and getting ready to introduce the next group.” However, there seemed to be urgency in his voice and I could see he wasn’t going to allow me to wait. As we approached the person I was to meet, I could see a nice young couple, one being a mother holding a very young baby in her arms. We exchanged names and shook hands. The mother stated she had no idea that Machaira was going to be at this event or that she even knew that we where still a band. She then made the statement that explained the urgency to my being there. She stated she had gotten saved at a Machaira concert several years ago in Gridley. She then introduced her baby. Meet Machaira Moore. I could feel the tears of joy welt up and being speechless I quickly ran to get the other members of Machaira with the same urgency that my guitar player had when he went for me.
It’s not about numbers but being faithful in what we are called to do for God for He will call His sheep by name.
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