The WOOH Guy

Having been raised in a Southern Baptist Church during the 1970’s and 80’s, I tend to experience a bit of distress whenever someone gets too loud or “irreverent” in church.  It wasn’t too many years ago, when even clapping was frowned upon to show appreciation for a song, or as a response to a lively point in the sermon.  No sir, not even a spine tingling rendition of How Great Thou Art would invoke applause.  When the choir lady belted out the last high note, there were nods, smiles and maybe a few subtle “amen’s” from the deacons, but absolutely NO cheering or clapping.  No wonder I fell asleep so often.   For many years this practice confused me.  You see, I was allowed to clap, WOOHhoo, fist pump and jump up and down at my high school football game or at the Van Halen concert, but the next morning at church I was not to show God that same kind of enthusiasm.  We could WOOH for our Quarterback or for David Lee Roth, but not for God?  It didn’t make sense to me.  I will address the Van Halen years in some other blog, but for now it just makes a good illustration. 

I have made no secret about the fact that I watch a lot of bad television.  At the top of my list is the Dr. Phil show.  For that matter, I’ll watch almost anything filmed before a live studio audience, (except for Jerry Springer, which is too bad even for me).  At the end of every show, the audience claps and WOOH’s, WOOH’s and claps all the way through the goodbye’s of the host and all those closing credits.  Everyone knows about the “APPLAUSE” sign that comes on to tell the audience when to clap, but these audiences were taking it to a crazy new level.  They would carry on a LOT longer than they would have naturally.  So I asked myself what makes them continue on, when you can see in their faces that they want to stop?  One day when watching attentively as Dr. Phil walked across the stage to retrieve his bride, Robin, before exiting the studio, I noticed that every time the audience applause would start to fade, someone in the background, off camera, would begin to WOOH, which would result in the audience spontaneously following into more WOOH’s and bigger applause.  This happened time and time again.  Not just on the Dr. Phil show, but many others as well.  The Price is Right, Dr. OZ, they all had this mysterious WOOH guy that would keep the audience inspired to keep going.  This sort of makes sense, because no one wants to watch a show where the audience quits clapping and starts putting on their coats to leave.  No, we want to see these people excited, positive, and enjoying themselves.  Then we will surely tune-in again tomorrow to find out how Lindsey Lohan’s stepbrother is coping with the failure of his second tell-all book. 

I began to think about what life would be like if we each had our own WOOH guy.  Wouldn’t that be fantastic?  When we’re suffering on the fifth day of that sinus infection and want to give up, he pops out and starts cheering and clapping to help us want to keep going?  When trying on the 13^th pair of jeans that still won’t fit, she would WOOH and clap us right out there to try on just one more.  When our marriage starts to stale, our jobs get unbearable, kids make us nuts or our finances simply won’t cooperate, our WOOH guy lifts us up with some well placed “WOOHOO’s” or a “You can do this!” just to keep us going for one more day. 

It turns out we do have a WOOH guy.  Just like in the T.V. shows, he stays out of the limelight, but when you know him, you are aware of his presence.  I know this sounds a bit crazy, but when we lean on the Lord for our strength, he is there to lift us up and remind us that we CAN make it a little longer.  When Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” Phil. 4:13, he was reminding us that Jesus is our WOOH guy.  He didn’t walk among us, give his life for us and provide us with eternal salvation just so we could live our lives defeated and tired.  He wants to be there for us, to encourage us, to help us keep going until we will be with him always.  He told us, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me…. I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 14:1;16:33)  To me, this is the same as saying, WOOHOOOO (fist pump) WOOHf WOOHf WOOHf, You Go Girl, We Will…We Will..Rock You!!!  You get the picture.  I’m thinking about telling the world about this revelation.  I mean if Ashton Kutcher can wear a ball cap that says, “Jesus is my Homeboy”, then I can where a T-shirt that says, “Jesus is my WOOH guy!” 

I’m not recommending that you stand up in the middle of a church service and start cheering and clapping, because that would get you an automatic glare from the nearest church lady.  But I do think that we can show our WOOH guy how much we love him by having the same amount of pride and enthusiasm in our relationship with him, as we do in our love for our football team or for Van Halen, or .38 Special, or Toby Mac.  Again, you get the picture.  So the next time you are watching a show that was filmed before a live studio audience, listen for the WOOH guy and remember, that no one can cheer you on better than the one true WOOH guy.  He is the way, the truth and life or as I like to think of him, the WOOH, the truth and the life!