Pat is currently on the massive King of Hearts Tour with Brandon Lake and Franni Cash. Pat and I were able to catch up during his recent brief two-week rest period. His recent album release, I’ ve Got a Fire, is a marvelous offering of new songs for the church. As always, Pat is articulate and informed.
[ Pat Barrett ] Gosh, it’ s good to see you.
[ Alex MacDougall ] It’ s good to see you too. I think the last time I saw you was at that worship videotaping in Spring Hill almost two years ago.
[ Pat ] Yeah. I’ m just starting to see some of those things come out now. it’ s so funny to do something that long ago and then start to finally see some of those videos.
[ WM ] I know. I thought,“ What did they ever do with that stuff?”( laughs) Pat, it’ s been exactly two years since we last had an interview together. I remember that we discussed your then new project, Shelter. We were both very cognizant of the impact of COVID upon the church. And my fear is that the further that we get away from the pandemic, many will forget their reliance upon the Lord, just like the children of Israel did in forgetting their God. Larry Norman wrote about this dynamic magnificently in his song, The Tune. And when you throw a big rock into a pond, there’ s an initial plunk and splash with big ripples, but then the further that you get away from that initial impact, the ripples get smaller, and smaller. Any thoughts on this?
[ Pat ] Oh, yeah, it’ s funny. I mean, there’ s so many cultural moments that you feel societally the awareness in a big way. Most certainly, the pandemic is one of them. Elections weirdly
Larry Norman- The Tune
seem to be one of them also. You have these little things that it’ s almost like once a year, once every couple years. And there’ s the ones that you think,“ This one’ s for the history books”. Those moments. But I think the Israel reference is really powerful because I’ ve found this true. If I get away from the big picture, societal things in my own life, when you don’ t have something that reminds you of your need and independence, something having to do with health or something, having to do some financial need or some losing someone you love or something that just brings you to your knees in a certain way. And those seem to always be the tricky times for people to remember what’ s actually true.
Even when you’ re not in crisis, you’ re still dependent. And that was one of the things that God told Israel when they walked into the Promised Land. That was kind of the warning. They had to struggle up to this point. And there is still struggle ahead. But be careful that when you inhabit this land and you live in houses. You did not build and drink wine from vineyards you
November 2025 Subscribe for Free... 7