Never Compromise The Message!
Author: Johnny DragonI am very sad to announce that my appearance at The Charis Festival in NM has just been canceled. I desperately wanted to appear with Jay Bakker, but the creator of the Festival had questionable motives and was not modeling the behaviors, ethics, values or morals that I wish to have my name or reputation to be in any association. Who would have thunk it? The following post is a letter sent to the Event Creator written by my Agent/Business Manager/Wife. I hope this gives a good explaination for why we are no longer a part of the event. Thank you to all of you that have supported me in this and I look forward to seeing all of you at future events.
Terri,
While I wish you luck with your show, and appreciate the email to J.D., I feel it important that you know that we were already planning on canceling J.D.’s appearance at the Charis Festival via email this afternoon. Had I known that you were already considering canceling all speakers and singers, I would have sent this sooner in hopes of making that easier on you. I am CC’ing this email to others involved so that they may also be aware of the goings-on and not left in the dark or confused as to J.D.s’ involvement in the festival.
I am going to tell you this not to hurt your feelings or add to the negativity that you have been experiencing lately, but because I think it is important that you know why were planning on doing it. J.D. (just as yourself) has been a huge supporter of Jay and his ministry for years – he identifies with Jay’s struggles and triumphs and finds strength in his sermons. I myself would have never understood just what Grace means had it not been for Jay lighting that fire in J.D. and him in turn lighting it in me. When J.D. had a chance to speak with Jay, he was incredibly grateful and excited, and we both jumped at it. As you know, we recently started getting J.D.s speaking ministry off the ground – a chance to speak along side of one of his hero’s for his first official gig was too good to pass up.
Over the last month, it has become clear that you are struggling with some demons in your life that I am very familiar with, and you have been very vocal about going through them. That’s good, Terri – I commend you for doing so. Many of us were unable to vocalize the pain that divorce placed us in; many of us were unable to speak about our struggles with faith or church or The Church.. many of us were silent when we worried that our drinking may be getting out of hand. You were not – and that takes guts. I get it.
However; when you are promoting a festival of Grace (that which affords Joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, loveliness) and were really wanting to convey what that means, you absolutely must consider, at all times, who your audience is. People that already know Grace don’t have to go to a festival to learn about it or celebrate it – they are busy living it and giving it to others as God intended. It’s the people that are lost, disgraced, torn, broken and wounded that a festival of Grace should be for. It is people who are searching that will find the message that such a festival should be conveying – and if they are searching and they find the words that have been spoken/written by the creator of the event, they will walk away more lost than when they started out.
You should know some things about J.D. and myself. We live our lives now very different than how we used to and neither of us are strangers to struggling. We both have tried and failed many times to live our lives according to our own plans – we are painfully aware of how much it hurts to land hard on your ass when you climb high up on a pedestal to place anything but God there – whether it is drugs, alcohol, sex, food, gambling, or speaking at a festival with your hero. Unfortunately, I think we both were so blinded by the thrill of meeting and speaking with Jay that we didn’t see this festival turning into everything we live our lives to avoid.
J.D. goes to work everyday and feeds mens asses to them on a plate for even eluding to some of the attitudes that have been displayed in relation to the festival. There is just no way in good conscience that he could have spoken at a festival promoted by someone that blatantly uses alcoholism as an excuse to behave disgracefully. It just wouldn’t have made sense. At this point, supporting you by speaking at your festival would be against every belief we have – we might as well be buying you your next fix or holding a bottle to your lips.
When we decided to travel to New Mexico at our own expense, it was because we saw an opportunity to share J.D. message with an audience that was there to hear it – we have become concerned over the last month that that audience may have been chased away and replaced by an audience simply waiting to see what might happen next in a circus.
I battle depression & anxiety on a daily basis, and I too used to pour alcohol on them in an attempt to quell their power over me – it didn’t matter that I knew it was a stupid thing to do. I too used to lash out at people that tried to throw their messages at me – whether I actually asked them for their message or not. I too used to set myself up to get beat up and ridiculed; doing so provides hours of material useful as another reason to drink more and cry harder and scream louder. I spent a lot of years forcing everyone in my life to call me names and treat my badly simply for a reason to feel persecuted. It was the only way I could justify how meaningless my life had become. So, your struggles don’t look foreign or lonely to me at all – they looks very familiar and transparent because I spent years stuck there, and then years focusing on getting and staying away from there.
Please make no mistake; I am not judging you or hurling insults at you. I sincerely hope that you find peace and a way out of the negativity that you have placed yourself in, and start taking a long hard look at the things you are robbing yourself and others of when you give in to it.
Many people have offered you help and a way out of the hole you have placed yourself in – you cannot smack their hand away over and over and expect them to come in after you. Consider, if you will, that the people that have been labeled by you as self serving and manipulative have been simply standing on your sidelines, feeling the need to protect and defend a set of values and beliefs that are important in their own lives, and not out to ruin you or your show or your personal walk through life.
Respectfully,
Sherri St.George Darley
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