Free Christian Cantatas, Anthems, & Ballet Music by Thomas Byron Parks

Back in 1980, I was drawing the cover for my “A Mass For All Christians” (Now “Every Tribe & Tongue”) which showed different kinds of churches. When I got to the storefront church with “Jesus Saves” in the window, I thought about a recent trip to Niagara Falls and the image of the tourists in their yellow rain suits moving around the base of the falls. I was struck with the similarity between them and the people from the storefront churches picking through the wreckage of life to see who they could save.

I realize that most people find salvation through their faith and their experience in mainline churches. I was just thinking of those who slip through the net. I didn’t get that onto the cover, but did show the storefront church's door open. Twenty-eight years later, I am putting this in writing. And here it is…
Our souls pass through different stages in their journey to redemption…or perdition…touched or missed by churches along the way.

As children we splash about in little creeks and mountain streams and the church we see is a Sunday school fly fisherman. Oh Oh! I think he got a hook in me!

We go in our teen best to riverboat churches that feel good, but skip the serious stuff about God and what we’re doing here.

Married, we sail close hauled among the great churches that pass like fine schooners on the Great Lakes. I’m touched by their music, but still demand my right of way because I am, after all, on the starboard tack and God is with me.

We age, and begin to feel the pull of the rapids, and hear the distant thunder of the falls.  We pray, but we can’t stop now…Down! Down! Down the rapids we go….and over the falls!

There, among the wreckage and the rocks, are the yellow-clad ones from the storefront churches, rescuing the few they can while the rest of us are swept away.

Exhausted, we pass through the whirlpools and swift currents of the lower gorge, down the river and at last, into the sea.

The sharks circle. We wait.

The sharks circle. We wait.

There is nothing else we can do. Well, we do pray.

Finally, God himself comes in a full rigged ship. With a flutter of sails, it heaves to and puts out a boat. We are lifted aboard, and cared for.

We cannot go back of course, so we are allowed to join the crew. Landsmen at first, we pit our muscles against the capstan...but we’ll earn our place as foretopmen! Isn’t that a kind of Angel?

Who was the cox'n of that boat? Was it Jesus, or someone else?  He looked familiar.