We all want to be Mavericks.
The other evening I spent the evening in the company of 300 or so men who want to make history. A church leaders half day conference. After the main talk there was a time for people to pray or speak out things that were on their hearts.
One of the guys said something along the lines of how we shouldn’t tame the wild spirit. He went on to talk about Mavericks, how we needed them, how he considered himself something of a maverick and how some of the maverick things he’d done had been positive for the church. Somebody else said how they weren’t a maverick, they liked structure and could organise things and make things happen and that they’d like to work with the mavericks.
Just to be clear, here’s a definition of Maverick.
a lone dissenter, as an intellectual, an artist, or apolitician, who takes an independent stand from his or her associates:
or
a person pursuing rebellious, even potentially disruptive, policies or ideas
or
unorthodox, unconventional, nonconformist
and lastly
an unbranded calf, cow, or steer,especially an unbranded calf that is separated from its mother.
I’ve often been called a Maverick, mainly by the church, because I guess in some ways I don’t conform and I guess to some I’ve pursued disruptive ideas – disruptive that is to the diary or our church. So long as I’m not being labelled an unbranded cow, I don’t mind being a Maverick. It’s quite a romantic notion really.
The thing is there is a cost, and what worried me when these guys were saying there thing, was that they didn’t see the cost, or if they did it was through some soft focus lens.
I never used to think of myself as a Maverick. I’m committed to my church and I love what we stand for. A few years ago I started using music a lot more to tell my story. I started playing pubs and clubs rather than saving my songs for Friday and Sunday nights in church. It was something we didn’t do and so, slowly I became a Maverick. After being caught up in 9-11 I used my music to speak about injustice, reconciliation and global issues and being outspoken seemed to fuel my maverick status.
The thing is, that label leads to so much more. People stop trusting you, they misread your motives, shake their heads as they remember a time before you ‘lost it’ and wonder if you’ll ever ‘get back’ what you lost. I’ve heard all sorts of untrue stories about me and had rebukes posted on my website from people who won’t talk to me face to face. In fact, many of this rising generation of Mavericks are the same people who have ignored me for being the very same.
Go figure.
So do I ignore them? I don’t think so. And actually, if being a Maverick leads to unaccountability, an isolated independence and disregard for the church and it’s vision then I’m no maverick and i hope they never will be either.
