we were doing, whether it was campus ministry or worship, it was all just exporting what we feel the Lord was calling us to. It’ s the same thing now, we just want to export fruit. We’ ve got that rolling, and we’ ve got plans to plant other Jesus Culture churches. It’ s always been our heart, and we just want to see the body of Christ equipped, ignited, to go see the harvest of cities transformed.
[ WM ] This new album is debuting even as we speak.
[ Banning ] Yeah, it ' s called Church Volume 1, and the second part of it comes out in a week or two. We record now at the church, but there were so many songs. I think there were eighteen songs or something, they were all really good. I thought we should keep all of them!( laughs) So we decided then to just release Church Volume 1 and Church Volume 2 pretty close together.
[ WM ] This is an expression of your church life, just like it always has been?
[ Banning ] Yeah, absolutely. We’ ve got some guest worship leaders that are kind of part of our family who come in from other churches as well, but we recorded at our church, with our church musicians. For me, I just want to pursue God and invite people on the journey with us. I want to invite you into the process of us going after God. It’ s less about giving you a product and more about inviting you into a pursuit. And that’ s always been our heart, we just want to welcome you in. The very first album we ever did was us saying, hey, we’ re encountering God, and maybe if we put a CD out it will invite you to do the same. That was always what it was about, so we’ re not‘ getting back to our roots’ because I don’ t think we ever left that, but we’ re definitely stripping away the band concept.
This is about a community of people who are hungry for God, who want to see the name of
Jesus lifted high, who are passionate about His presence, who would love for you to come pursue God with us. We’ re capturing these moments with a hope and a desire that people will say yes to pursuing Jesus as well, so that together we can go after God. That’ s why we’ re doing what we’ re doing, and why we’ re calling it Church.
[ WM ] I think this is giving people an insight into the pastoral aspect of Jesus Culture, not just between you and the band, but between you and the people who are listening to this music.
[ Banning ] There is something to that, I agree. For one, it puts some mission behind it. The goal is not just for people to sing our songs, that’ s not even the third goal! We have a bigger goal in what we’ re going after with our mission and the mandate that God’ s given us. It’ s keeping worship leaders connected to something bigger than themselves. And this
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