Listen Live
For me, it is asking, ““What is it that’s motivating me to walk out this door?” Because that’s different now than it was ten years ago, when I didn’t have a bunch of kids running around the house. And if we’re looking at cold hard cash, it’s fleeting and all over the map. It’s always been about interacting with people, hearing their stories, and hearing how God is using music in a way that I never could have imagined. We write a song, and it may not [perform well] at radio, but then at a show we’re playing, someone says, “God used this song to change my life.”
MD: Two weeks ago, a girl at a fair in Michigan told us, “I was going to take my life six months ago, and your song came on my Spotify.” It wasn’t even a radio single, it wasn’t commercially viable, and I think, “Well, if that’s not success…”
JJ: …and those are the stories I’m going to share with my wife on the phone that night. That’s what fuels us to keep going. So maybe it’s even just a gut check of, “Is that still what keeps us motivated to keep doing this?”
CCM: There’s a lyric from the song “Control,” that says, God, you don’t need me, but somehow you want me / Oh, how you love me / And somehow that frees me to take my hands off my life. We live in a culture of surface affection and I believe it has begun to diminish our understanding of who we actually are. Do you feel like there is this identity crisis, not only culturally, but inside the church?
MD: We’re all trying to feel valuable and loved. If you don’t [find] that in God, then you’re going to look elsewhere. Ironically, with social media, we never think of ourselves as a follower—everyone else is our follower, and we start obsessing about how many followers we can get to give us the value that Christ has already offered us, but we haven’t received. So you’re trying to create this value, and Christ is saying, “I want to give it to you.”
When we look at people as followers, we start looking at them as a commodity. People become usable goods to trade and sell. When we start using other people that way, we can’t help but escape the nagging feeling that that’s what they’re using us for. And so it’s this cycle. That’s why I wrote that song, because we see God that way, that as our usefulness rises and falls, so does our value.
CLICK “4” TO ADVANCE
These guys are the REAL deal. Love God, their families, and their fans. Always encouraging with their lyrics, and willing to talk about topics most sweep under the rug. I have been one of their fans since “The Light Meets The Dark” and they just keep getting better and better. Great article about God loving guys who walk out their faith through their music, and give glory to God in everything.