Jeremy L. Berg

I’ve always considered myself a pretty good sheep who has stayed close to the Shepherd. I have never wandered off too far. Then God made me a pastor and I’ve spent the past 20 years chasing sheep: trying to keep them from wandering off a cliff, drinking from poisoned wells, or getting themselves tangled in a thorny thicket.

More recently, however, I’ve started to identify more with the wanderers. No, I’m not wandering into drugs, booze or brothels. I’m not wandering away from my faith. But I’m a wandering soul nonetheless. Wandering and wondering how to be faithful as an unconventional pastor wearing many hats as I wander about the streets of my hometown.

Most pastors are firmly anchored in the day to day business of running a church, overseeing staff, and leading Sunday services and programs. Their hours are spent tending their sheep, running meetings, preparing sermons in their study. Many pastors are pulled in too many directions and spread too thin to have the time for much wandering about.

The church I pastor, on the other hand, was founded on the conviction that in a day when many wandering souls probably won’t wander into a church service on Sunday, we best be wandering beyond the church walls if we want to bump into some of them. So I’ve been out wandering these days, and as far as I can tell, the church doesn’t hold it against me.

I’ve been wandering from campus to campus as an adjunct professor in hopes of feeding hungry hearts and thirsty young adult souls in classrooms around the Twin Cities. This is the demographic least likely to wander into church services.

In a couple weeks, I’ll wander into my high school and share my testimony at the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) gathering.

Each Friday I wander the hillsides and wooded trails with a young man participating in my “Jesus Walks” discipleship ministry.

Recently, my wandering has taken on the feel of a cinematic, old western cowboy movie. I’m setting out with my red guitar on my back and pocket full of songs, performing wherever I can find an audience and maybe a little cash to boot.

I’ve spent the past several weeks indulging this new passion: creating a music cavern in the basement with my son Peter, collecting and listening to old vinyl records late into the night, and, most importantly, practicing my butt off learning to perform 75+ new songs across every genre.

Peter and I transformed the basement storage room into this musical Mecca in just two days and with only a $500 budget a couple weeks ago. We laid down vinyl wood flooring, put up wall paneling, printed and framed wall art, and bought a cheap couch at Good Will along with the essential Lava Lamp. It’s now a room that inspires creativity and it’s been fun playing, dancing, jamming and listening to music with the kids in there.

I joked that my “midlife crisis” hit around my 38th birthday when I decided to go back to school to earn my doctorate degree. Now at 45, perhaps I’m at it again trying to satisfy a midlife ache or chase a long time dream before it’s too late. If my first midlife crisis activated and exercised my left-brain in an academic pursuit, this time it’s my right-brain taking the lead and summoning the creative artist screaming to break free in me.

I wooed my wife, Keri, in an echo-y stairwell playing guitar for her 20 years ago, and we’ve often talked of me someday developing a routine and playing coffee-shops or pubs someday. Has “someday” snuck up on us already?

But is this just a hobby to be indulged on the side, or am I wandering even deeper into the unpredictable hills and valleys of my vocation as I embrace the call to be a kind of modern day wanderin’ preacher and guitar picking minstrel? Time will tell, but I’m approaching it as the latter.

I recently picked up Willie Nelson’s autobiography It’s a Long Story, and he mentions being drawn to wanderin’ lifestyle of the “troubadour” of old. What is a troubadour? Originally, a troubadour was a male poet and singer who traveled around southern France and northern Italy between the 11th and 13th centuries performing for the nobility. Over time, a troubadour has developed into what another source calls:

A rootless wanderer who writes and sings his own songs independent of other musicians or musical groupings. The troubadour is a hopeless romantic who longs for things he cannot have and longs for them in song. The troubadour is always a bit mischievous, not content with establishment politics and quick to disturb the status quo.

You can see why Willie Nelson, a kind of antiestablishment musician himself who resisted the polished, cookie-cutter Nashville Sound of the 60s, was drawn to this description. Willie’s break-through album embodies this wanderin’ type and tells the story of a “Red Headed Stranger” roaming the country on his horse “in the days of the preacher.”

While my dad enjoys old western movies about singing cowboys roaming from town to town, my imagination has been captivated by wandering prophets and apostles who turn the world upside down with the good news of the gospel. Harlan Howard, a songwriter who wrote hit songs for the likes of Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash and Ray Charles and others, has famously summed up country music as “three chords and the truth.” Add a few more chords and some gospel truth, and you have my unfolding ministry as a hometown troubadour.

In the time of this tired preacher, questioning if my sermons have made much of a difference, I wonder if I might more effectively communicate spiritual truths by strumming Ole Red and singing soul-liberating songs. Looking at the pathetic state of Christianity in America these days, so many Christians misled and malformed by popular political currents, I fear our preaching has largely failed to get the job done.

Time to call in the artists and storytellers and musical prophets to get Jesus’ message across to the masses leaving the church—especially disillusioned young people. I’ve been enjoying the prophetic voice of Jon Guerra and his songs that call Christians to embrace the politics of the Kingdom over the divisive politics of our world.

He is a modern-day troubadour, stirring up a little bit of good trouble in Jesus’ name. Again we read of troubadours of old that:

“Though love was often the main theme, social and political questions also found their way into the troubadour’s stanzas. Troubadours routinely satirized political and religious opponents, preached crusades, sang funeral laments, and supported princes and nobles involved in struggles. Troubadour poetry dealt with war, politics, personal satire, and other subjects.”

While some might be called to play the role of this edgy subversive type of troubadour, I have a more innocent and gentle kind of troubadour in mind for myself. My primary audiences so far are elderly folks in senior living facilities. I don’t come in to these settings wearing a black cowboy hat and looking to stir up trouble. I come as a peddler of gospel peace and hope and hope my songs are received like a cool glass of living water for thirsty souls. I come as a spiritual medicine man, not with a suitcase full of potions, but soothing melodies, words of hope and liberating lyrics. I aim to leave people smiling, reminiscing, wiping a nostalgic tear from their eye as they hear the song they danced to at their wedding 50 years ago.

Like sings and poets, preachers work with the raw material of words. But sermons lack a melody that can sneak past our intellect and get down into the heart to heal. I came across a piece called “Modern Day Troubadours” that describes the powerful potential artists and musicians have for transformation and healing:

“Today words, sound and music are being used as powerful tools for transformation and healing by a group of dedicated individuals who could be called Modern Day Troubadours! Gifted speakers and spiritual music storytellers are using sacred sounds, mystical words and uplifting music to help raise consciousness, shift perceptions and create closer connections with humanity and the Divine. Following the age-old tradition of the French troubadours who were singer-poets of medieval Europe, Modern Day Troubadours are once again using artistic devises to activate inner wisdom, profound healing and universal truths” (Susie-Nelson Smith, April 2004).

At 45 years of age, I want to keep pulling this thread and see where it leads. More and more, I see that I am a creative artist with musical gifts and storytelling abilities that need to become a more central part of my pastoral vocation. Music is also a life-giving hobby that brings me joy and helps calm my overly active mind. It’s good for my soul.

So, where does this leave me? In recent days, I’ve created a webpage and poster dubbing myself the “Hometown Troubadour.” I’m calling around, doors are opening and I’m booking gigs. And, as I’ve already said, I’m learning a TON of new material.

I cut my teeth playing at a friendly pool party recently.

I’m playing at Eden Prairie Senior Living on September 30.

I’m playing at a funeral on October 11.

I’m playing a fundraiser luncheon at the Gillespie Center on October 23.

I’m playing at Lake Minnetonka Shores on October 27.

I’m wandering a bit more than the average pastor. Wandering beyond the pasture. Wandering here and there into the lonely orbit of other wandering souls. Wandering and wondering how God might use my musical gifts and spiritual passion to bring a little faith, hope, love and joy to aching hearts out there.

Click here for a list of the artists I cover. Let me now open my case up and ask you to consider leaving a donation inside to help me reach the next town. I depend on charitable donations to raise a salary and do what I do as a wandering preacher and hometown troubadour. Donate here.