[ WM ] Well , how about the song , “ Lean on The Lord ”? There is such great encouragement in those lyrics . Please tell us about that song .
[ Ryan ] “ Lean on The Lord ” was a song that I released on my album back in June last year , and that was written with Mitch Wong and Lindy Cofer from The Circuit Riders . We wrote that in my garage two years ago , and Mitch Wong is a profound writer . He has a lot of credits under his belt now . He ’ s been writing with Hillsong and Matt Redman and a bunch of other people . And Lindy , she ’ s amazing with The Circuit Riders and just has such a heart for worship and for revival . I like to get together with people writing songs , it ’ s more of just vision casting . What is God doing in the church right now ? Just dreaming , trying to hear from the Lord and just bringing our hearts together .
It was funny because the thing Lindy came with was , “ We got done talking to a bunch of pastors , a lot of pastors sent in this Q & A form filling out the answer to what songs do you feel like the church needs to be singing ?” And they
Lean on The Lord
got back that a lot of these churches wanted to sing about the end times . I ’ m not a very fearbased person . I don ’ t like to base my things off of , “ The end of the world is coming ,” or , “ We ’ re living in the end times guys , get ready .” I don ’ t really live that way .
I like to be aware but not live in a place of panic or just fear . So , it was kind of taking this idea and trying to be like , “ Well , how can we confess really what it is we ’ re feeling right now ?” In a way that ’ s a little bit more simple . I think it ’ s really cool . It just starts off with a little confession . I remember when I was just a kid , didn ’ t worry about a thing , the world was simple then . There ’ s a lot of worries , a lot of fears out there , so kind of giving people this thing of , “ This is what we do , this is what we do as believers in times when it ’ s hard ”.
[ WM ] Coming out of the Jesus Movement and specifically Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa , during 1970 , ’ 71 , and ‘ 72 in those days , I can tell you that those times were largely based on end times theology . And the problem with all that is a lot of people , including myself , copped out . “ Well , I don ’ t need to go to school because the Lord ’ s coming back ,” or , “ I don ’ t need to get a job because He ’ s coming back ,” or , “ I need to marry this girl because the Lord ’ s coming back and I better do it quick .” I mean , there was just a lot of train wrecks that happened because of that thinking .
[ Ryan ] Here in Orange County we were doing a lot of home churches a couple years ago in Orange County and we were rolling with a bunch of OG , a lot of homies that were old school Jesus movement people like Phil Aguilar , a lot of people who rode with Lonnie . We had just a ton of people that were around in that era and it was such an honor and blessing …