like God was having me write songs for the
season that I was about to go through.
There’s another song on the record called
“The Cross Forever Speaks” that is about
persecution, from the perspective of someone
who is dealing with the weight of the sense
of feeling alienated and alone. As Paul says
in 2 Corinthians 4, “We are pressed, but not
crushed. Persecuted, not abandoned. Struck
down, but not destroyed.” It describes the
ability to have the faith to respond to the
challenges that we face.
In this day and age, especially for Christians,
we ask ourselves how we should respond
to the challenges that we face. That’s really
my heart behind the record. Even my new
single right now, “You’re Love Defends Me”,
wasn’t written from a place of confidence or
emotional certainty as much as it was a place
of meekness, feeling the weight of life, and
declaring the faithfulness of God in the midst
of that.
[WM] You are one of the forefront evangelists
inside the framework of the Catholic Church
these days. Oftentimes it’s easy to pigeonhole
artists and think of them as belonging to one
sect of Christianity or another, and then to
vilify those that don’t fit into our theological
paradigms. Darlene Zschech recently caught
some flak from certain segments of the Christian
Obadiah Chisholm, who was an insurance Charlotte Elliott wrote “Just As I Am” after being
salesman. He wanted to be an evangelist, up half the night one night having an existential
and he tried it when he was 36, but he had crisis about her faith. Her spiritual mentor told
terrible health and he ended up retiring from her that she could write poetry as a way to help
ministry after one year. He wrote 1200 poems her process her emotions, including her doubts.
while holding down a desk job as an insurance So, while going through a season of crippling
agent. In the midst of that mundane existence doubt where she was questioning everything,
he was writing these poems to Jesus, and one she wrote this simple poem to help remember
of them was “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” what Jesus had done for her at the cross.
Judson VanDeVenter, who wrote “I Surrender What’s so cool about this record, for me, is
All,” struggled for a time between going into that so many of the hymns that these songs
full-time evangelism or going into art. It was are inspired by are hymns that were born out of
when he surrendered his future to Christ that suffering. In my own life, so much of this record
he wrote the hymn. was written just before and then recorded
audience when she sang for the Pope.
What kinds of things would you like to say to
people about how we are all worshiping Jesus,
and the unifying things that bind us together no
matter what segment of Christianity we come
from?
[Matt] I think a couple of things need to
happen. It’s a good time to reflect on this,
since we are at the 500 year anniversary of the
Reformation. We can look at the net positives
and the net negatives of the events that happen
in our life. The Reformation is an event that
happened in the life of the church, and there
during a time of suffering. In some ways, I feel
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