241. Jonathan Allen Wright - An Interview On CCM
Episode Notes
A link to Jonathan Allen Wright CCM Docs
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Transcript
Well, good morning and welcome back to the 4-Freedom Podcast. What a great day it is to be with you today here in podcast land. I like how Brett says that and we are excited to be with you. Unfortunately, Brett can't be here with us.
Brett was able to, had a prior engagement at this interview and we want to just welcome you to the show.
Thank you for being a part of the 4-Freedom Podcast and all of what we do from our cigar company to the books that I've written.
And we just want to thank you from the bottom of our heart for taking time to listen and be a part of what we have going on. Some things coming up.
I'll be in Tennessee here this week as this, at the time of this recording, when it comes out, I will be in Tennessee at a conference there and spending time about an hour south of Nashville.
If you're in the area, please let me know, shoot me a message or a text and we can get together and I know it'll be a great time. I'm excited about what we've got going on with a lot of different things there.
But most importantly, just being able to spend time with brothers and sisters in Jesus and just be able to encourage them.
We just had a great week of revival here in our church, had a childhood friend of mine come in and he was able to speak for us and preach the word. And man, what a blessing. He preached through Hebrews chapter two. Um, and man, it was just an awesome, awesome time.
And so we're thankful for that. We're thankful for the local church and what God does for the local church through the local church. And, uh, really excited about the interview that we've got coming up today.
Jonathan Allen Wright. Uh, hopefully you've had a chance to go and listen to or watch a couple of his, uh, videos on CCM and the history, the untold history of CCM. And, uh, it was a blessing for me to watch it. I was shocked that he was available and willing to come and record with me.
And so we are grateful for what we've got today.
Um, this little interview bonus episode, we've got a couple of these bonus episodes that have been coming out and, uh, we'll get back to the house church manual in just next week. Uh, but we wanted to cover history of music and CCM sort of in depth.
We haven't done it this way in the past. We've talked about music in the past. Um, but we hope that it'll be a help to you. Um, hopefully these interviews and these bonus episodes will, um,
be, be an encouragement to you, but also an encouragement to others. You can share it with them. And, uh, we're thankful for that, um, today.
So without further ado, we're going to jump right into the episode today. This is an interview that was just me and, uh, Jonathan Allen Wright. And we talked through his journey of researching and talking through, uh, contemporary Christian music and the history of it and what that looked like.
So I hope it's a blessing to you. Hope you enjoy it today. Um, and then, uh, as always, if you enjoyed this, share it with someone, leave a like, rating, review, and, uh, we'll catch you on the next episode, but enjoy today's interview. For freedom, you set me free.
Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace, cigars and victory justified, released.
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released. For freedom, he set me free, not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace, cigars and victory justified, released. Let grace begin.
For freedom, you get me free. Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame. Now I'm puffing. Now here are your hosts, James Safrit and Brett Martin.
Welcome back to the 4-Freedom Podcast. We are excited about today. We've got our guest, a special guest today. Maybe special ed, maybe not. We don't know. We'll figure out the end of the episode. Jonathan Allen Wright, content creator, filmmaker, musician,
founder of Intry Media. He works throughout North Carolina and Virginia, creating documentaries and video essays,
exploring some of the most overlooked corners of culture and faith. Some people spend their time watching Netflix, working on their yard, developing normal hobbies. Apparently, Jonathan decided that it wasn't enough just to do those things.
And he said, you know, I'm going to dig into some of the strangest corners of Christian culture and turn them into documentaries. Honestly, we're glad he did. We've enjoyed it. He, he's an independent Christian musician, produces his own music.
Apparently this guy doesn't have enough to do. So he just keeps doing more things. And so Jonathan, welcome to the 4-Freedom Podcast. We're excited to have you here.
I want to jump off by asking the question. At what point did you realize the world needed something or someone willing to spend countless hours researching weird stuff that the rest of us didn't even really know existed or even maybe even cared about at the time? What a, dude, what an incredible intro.
Half of that, I was like, who is this guy? Color me intrigued. You know, when's the guest coming on? He sounds crazy.
Dude, I truthfully, it's just always, I think, been a part of my personality that I just, I go down these weird rabbit holes.
And my, my poor wife, Kristen has to deal with it relentlessly where I'm like, I saw this article about this weird thing and I could tell she does not care. Right. But she patiently listens to me talk about them.
And, and so I have been making YouTube videos for forever, like since YouTube came out, but
with different channels and different, you know, whatever, like as a kid and teenager, but I had really not done anything on YouTube for, for a minute. And one day I was just, I had this idea of, man, what if I listened to Caleb for seven days straight and like documented it?
And it was, uh, I talked with a friend of mine who's a comedian and he was like, you got to make that video, dude. That's the weirdest idea I've ever heard.
Why would you not do it? And, uh, so I did and it went, it went to like 20,000 views, which was nuts for a first video attempt.
And I thought, well, maybe I should do another really, you know, it just snowballs. And the longer I kind of spent making videos like that, you get kind of reminded of really random things in the back of your head.
And suddenly you're, you're thinking, why have I one week made a video about Forrest Frank and then the next week made a video about the power team. And the next week made me about Keith Creek. Like, I don't know what is happening.
And so I don't know what happened to my brain that makes it do that. It just, it just happens.
Yeah. I've loved everything you put out. One of the things that, um, I think that has, I've really enjoyed about it and appreciated the most is the quality that you put behind it. You can tell there's a lot of work, a lot of,
um, you know, that was the guy that sent me the video in our church. Um, he said, I, he said, I'm just, I know the guy's doing in his house, but like, it, it seems like this is like quality in a studio level production. I'll do you one better.
I'm in a shed in my yard right now. Yeah.
It's, it's not even in my house. Like I don't have good AC or heat out here. It's, it is a, I'll even turn it cause we're on video, but it's like, here's the whole room right there. My wife kicked you out is what you're saying. Yeah.
You know, she was like, I can't handle this all the time. You got to have your own space. Yeah. Um, I I've, I've loved watching through your videos. The one that, um, uh, the guy that was, um,
uh, it may have been one of your most, most viewed videos that you put out.
Um, but it was like the welcome to America singer. Oh yeah. Rich Mullins. Yeah. Uh, the here in America. Yeah. Here in America. Yeah.
Dude, that one, that video was phenomenal. I thought that was one of the best ones you put out. Um, and then to top it all off with you, the end singing was phenomenal, man. I, I, I, that's one of my favorite things to do.
I, I like taking an art cause I am a musician. I love making music.
And so I have, I had started doing that maybe last year where I would go through someone's catalog and it was kind of a different format, go through someone's catalog, rank the albums and then pick a favorite song and cover it at the end.
And then I started thinking, well, I'd rather do us like their story. Yeah. I find that more interesting anyway.
Why don't I just do their story and then try to do a cover at the end in some capacity? So that was what I did with the Rich Mullins one. And I plan to do a few more of those hopefully coming up here pretty soon, but it's yeah.
His, his whole life story is so fascinating. So, uh, confronting is, is how I felt just reading how he viewed, uh, worship, how he viewed money, the abuse of money, how do we handle it?
And, and that was one of the big things that as I had been studying for, it kind of led me to, to think maybe I should do it like a CCM series was he, he would say something in an interview and I'd be like, yeah, wait a second. Why is it like this?
So it's, it's all, like I said, interconnected in some weird way.
Well, we, we want to get to, we're, we're in a series right now on the podcast with, uh, talking through worship. What is worship? The history of worship. Uh, we're going through the house church manual and Jack houses worship out there and crazy.
Uh, he said some good things. Like some of the things we took away that were good was like, things should be professional. Things should be practiced. They, uh, well done. Like that's good things. Like we shouldn't get up. Yeah.
Things we agree with, but then the overarching preferences that he laid on top of that was just like, yeah. So then I've started watching your series as well.
Um, and so we did sort of a, you're doing a 10 part series. We took those 10 with like Bob Coughlin and some of these other worship guys and put together a one hour episode of like the, wow.
Walking through it. It was a lot. Um, and so I reached out to you and said, Hey, what would you come on and share your story, where you're at, what you're going on? So, um, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? What led you to become interested in Christian music?
And some of the guys that I've even been talking to prior to you coming on, they're like, dude, what, what was his history? Like what, what made him get started doing this?
Like, um, so if it helps, that's also what the, the worship artists that have reached out are like, they're like, who are you? Where did you come from? Like, what is this? Yeah.
Um, no, I mean, I, so I was raised like in a Christian home. My dad was a pastor and, uh, you know, I have two brothers. They're both musicians.
And so we, we were all homeschooled and we were just, uh, maybe that's part of it is that I was homeschooled. Right. But I was, um,
big key is a, is a big key. And, um, so we were just always kind of making music together, but the way I grew up was not, um,
I knew some homeschool friends that they grew up very like, uh, legalistic and you cannot listen to this. You can listen to this, that kind of lifestyle. That was never what I experienced.
My parents were guarded obviously with what we listened to, but at the same time, like one minute I'd be listening to Stephen Curtis Chapman. The next minute, my dad was like, you should listen to Boston. And we would listen to a Boston album or the beach boys or whatever.
And, uh, so we kind of all developed our own music tastes and stuff, but it was always
centralized back to, to go into the church and play music together.
And eventually my, my older brother kind of phased out of wanting to play guitar. So I picked it up and I played bass and piano at that point. So I just kind of started picking up instruments, however they would happen and, uh,
started playing in the youth group, uh, and, and just kind of developing that love for Christian music. But I never was, I never was huge into the worship genre. I just didn't, I didn't gravitate towards it.
I was listening to, you know, switch foot and Reliant K and MXPX and OC super tones.
And like, it's just not the pocket I landed in. And, uh, just kind of at times felt like I missed the train on popularized worship.
And so, uh, eventually I wound up, you know, at the church that I'm currently serving at
and was on worship team. And that's where I've been on that for 15 years.
And you just start to kind of think about the songs you're singing. You're thinking, how do I feel? Where do I land?
What do I, what do I know about them? Um, and while that is happening, sorry, this is a little scattered, but while that's happening, I'm also kind of writing my own music and getting connected with other independent Christian artists.
And then that kind of stacks and suddenly you start meeting people within the quote unquote industry of, of Christian music.
And you, it's such a tiny world. We were kind of talking about this before we even started recording such a tiny world. within the Christian creative space that suddenly you really start to hear the, the great things and the bad things that you have questions around.
And so I, I started to become really fascinated with, man, like some of these writers are involved, but they don't agree with where the song winds up and they're, they're conflicted about it.
And, and then at the same time, churches feel conflicted because they want to support people, but they don't want to support this system or they don't, or they do people are fighting. So it just was always something that lingered in the back of my head.
I just maybe didn't have the, the outlet to sit down and talk about it for five hours on a documentary.
So, um, that was kind of how I started getting involved. But as I started doing more YouTube stuff, maybe two years ago, there was a following that built.
And, um, I, I started getting connected with people that were watching the videos that I just was, you know, kind of surprised. Like I, I did that Caleb video. And then three weeks later, I'm on a zoom call with Caleb, like headquarters.
And they're just like, what do you think we need to change?
And I'm, you know, I'm sitting there thinking, I don't know. I just got here, dude. Yeah.
I just spent seven days guys. You got to give me longer, just three weeks to decompress from that. Yeah.
And I mean, it's, they, they were super kind and it was this moment where I'm asking them, what, what, what did I say that makes you think this question towards me, but also what do you think I got right and wrong?
Or like, what context am I missing? And so you start having more of those conversations and you start thinking about it more and it snowballs and keeps building. And again, next thing you know, you're doing a series and it's, it's just this whole crazy thing.
So I've never was on a popular worship band. I never was a popular Christian musician. It's just a small world that I kind of got to know a little bit.
I'll tell you a fun Caleb story. I've got a pastor friend of mine here in Taylorsville, North Carolina. And for years, whenever someone will tell like a sad story or some like emotional story, when they get done, one of the family members without fail go. Okay. Because that's what they do.
When they tell a story, they pop in and it's like back to music now positive. And they hit you with a jingle. And then it's a Toby Mac song.
So a storm came through like a month ago and he had two trees on the side of his driveway. Both of them like collapsed on each other in the middle of his driveway.
So he's out there with a chainsaw and he's having to cut it up. And the family came in for dinner and he's sitting there talking about how he had to tear up all these trees and how he's been working all day.
And he said, as soon as he got done, like he's pouring his heart out to his boys. And as soon as he got done, all three boys in unison go, Caleb.
And he said, I got so mad at them because I'm over here working and slaving and they're over here making fun of me. And he said, but I do it all the time. It was great. That's that I actually do love that.
And I'm going to. So this is what's funny. It's next next week.
I'm going to be in Nashville and I'm going to be with a bunch of Caleb people and I'm going to tell them that story. So, all right.
So you made this this 10 part series, which has been getting a lot of attention. A lot of people talking about it. I've had multiple people send it to me. I've sent it to everybody that I've got.
Crazy. My buddy, John in Tennessee. I'll be in Tennessee next week as well. No way. Yeah. I'll be in the week next week. I'll be in Tennessee. The 22nd, 3rd and 4th. I'll be an hour south of Nashville. Oh, weird.
Let's get together, man. If we can do it. We'll see what we can do. Yeah.
We'll talk about that for sure. So what particular moment in the episode, the series that you did that made you think leading up to it. Someone needs to do a talk on this. Like someone needs to discuss this, this history, where it came from, where it's going,
the mega machine that came out of it. Like, where was it that you're like, I've got to do something like this? Yeah. So maybe, I guess,
two or three months before the series started, I was thinking, maybe I'll do a 45-minute or an hour-long video essay on the record labels.
Right. And what kind of prompted that was I had a conversation with a friend of mine who's a worship artist. And he had signed with Capitol Records or Capitol Christian, CMG, whatever you call it. And eventually, he just sold his catalog to them because he was hurting for money.
He needed it. So he sold every song he's ever written. And it was a lot of, I mean, he made almost nearly a million dollars. And it was really fascinating because I could tell that it kind of broke his heart in a weird way. And he felt conflicted.
I didn't dig into it much, right? But it did get my wheels spinning of like, how do we feel about who owns the music?
And how do we feel about who owns these labels? So I look at Capitol, CMG, and I'm thinking, well, I know they're owned by Capitol Records, right?
And Capitol Records signed the Beatles, the Beach Boys, all this stuff. So it's not a Christian company. And then I look and I'm like, wait a second. Capitol's owned by Universal, which is one of the three major ones.
And as I'm looking at that, I start thinking, well, wait, who owns Provident Records? And they're owned by Sony. And I'm like, what? When did this happen? So it snowballed into that idea of making an hour-long kind of piece about the labels and who owns it.
And as I tried to trace that history backwards, you know, suddenly I'm thinking, oh, well, I'm in the 90s. Yeah, Provident is made in the 90s. Wait, Provident was seven labels originally that were all independent.
Where did they come from? Oh, they came from the 80s and 70s Jesus movement. Well, this person shows up. I've got to talk about them because they showed up in the 60s.
And then you suddenly are like, why am I in the 1500s talking about Martin Luther? So it really – the labels question really is what started it.
And the CCLI question, right, like the church licensing was really what prompted me to think, oh, this has got to be a much longer piece than I thought it was going to be.
So I thought maybe it'll be five episodes. So I started writing that, turned it to ten, and thankfully stopped at ten. I was probably the most eye-opening for me as a pastor, you know, since I've been a minister for 15 years. Like, it's an underwritten rule.
Like, you just get it and you do it. Yeah. Like, mine's coming up here in a couple of months. I've got to pay it. And we'll have to put something else out there. But, you know, it's so integrated into the pro presenter side of it.
You know, I can just type in a song and it automatically pulls it from CCLI. And I don't have to type anything. Like, the convenience of it is so easy. It's a great tool, right? Like, that's even where I've landed in talking about it with people. It's like, well,
I don't, you know, CCLI starts out of such a good intention of we need to keep churches safe from what's happening to them. You know, there's like that lawsuit that happened in the 80s to the Chicago Archdiocese. So it was a good motivation. Motivation, but you,
I think it's more so a story of how quickly Christians kind of let the outside take hold of it, right?
Because, you know, at some point somebody sat down and signed a piece of paper and said, yeah, I'm fine with selling this to CSAC or to Blackstone, which is, I mean, a notoriously rough private equity company.
And it now owns CCLI, right? So it is, at some point someone sat down and signed that paper and you wonder at what point a person's, I don't know if it's integrity, but at what point their integrity is for sale and that they can sleep at night.
I don't know. It's probably a different answer for everybody in many ways. Well, and I think you said it multiple times, the outside world saw this ecosystem of money.
Yeah, they're doing what they do. Yeah, they're not driven by ethics. They're not driven by integrity. They're not driven by anything other than a bottom line deal.
And songbooks are the prime example. Before music became streaming and all that, it was some company said, and I've got like four songbooks right there behind me on my shelf right there that I have, different ones. They said, you know what?
If I can create one for the Baptist hymnal and I can create one for the Church of God hymnal, now all of a sudden this massive industry of music that I may make one sale,
but it's going to be such a big sale that it's going to be able to carry the company. And now as new churches start and new versions come out and new songs come out, we can put out a new volume every five years. And they're just looking at money.
They don't care about the actual what's in it. They just say, well, let's make sure Amazing Grace, Victory and Jesus is in it and people will buy it. The hits.
Yeah, the hits of Christianity. It is well. And so you throw these in there and they're just looking at the bottom line number and don't care about anything else in that sense.
And this is sort of what happens in this world as well. Now that we're forward from just hymn books, it's okay. Well, we're not buying hymn books. How are we going to shift the method to something else to still make that?
I had even, I'd even come pretty close to talking about the hymnals and songbook thing. And that might be my one kind of, not necessarily regret, right?
Regret's a strong word. But I really considered bringing in the hymnals to kind of parallel. But I couldn't contextually.
I thought I was going to end up derailing the initial history part because I really wanted people to get invested in, wow, look at this growth. Look at this change and for it to feel almost like a gut punch when you realize, oh, no, everybody's selling.
Because it is. That's how I felt investigating it, right? Like, and looking at it.
And it, to me, I kind of wish that I had, I guess I talked about it for a moment with Iris Anke and, like, talk about him selling the hymn books. But he tended to give a lot of his money back out.
But it's hard to know for sure. But anyway, I do find the history of hymn books super, super fascinating.
Because you look and there's copyright numbers up in the top corners on a lot of the old ones. So you're like, oh, I know that. I've seen it. Yeah. All right.
So, hey, as we walk through this and we sort of look at the research that you did, and while you're putting this series together, my mind went to, you know, there are times I'll be researching something for the podcast. And I have that moment where it's like, man, I didn't realize this.
You know, one of those that I was researching, like, J. Frank Norris, he shot the man in his office. Like, the crazy story of this, how he got covered up and how the judge dismissed him. Whoa. Like, what?
What? And so what was sort of the aha moment for you that you genuinely were surprised about when you were looking into the CCM music world? Man. I mean, the CCLI, again, was big. When I read and saw the ownership of CCLI, it both made me angry. It made me super bummed out.
Like, I mean, just, and it also made me truthfully think, maybe I'm looking at this wrong,
right? Like, surely CCLI is not owned by Blackstone and by CSAC. That I've got to be looking at that wrong. So I'm just, I'm just at that point reading everything I can. And I end up texting a friend who is in Nashville and within kind of the administrative industry of music.
And I'm like, is it owned by Blackstone? He's like, yeah. So at that point, you know, that hurt my brain, hurt my feelings. I was like, this is horrible. That part I found to be really fascinating. I also found the story of Lonnie Frisbee to be really sad.
And at the same time, kind of covered, not covered up, but they just don't talk about it within the Calvary circles. Because it's not a fun thing to talk about. I mean, one of the main guys that you had within this movement and started it, snowballed it,
walked away from it, went into living a homosexual lifestyle and died of AIDS. Right. Like, I mean, it's a super sad story. Not only that, but like kind of died alone with no one really doing much ahead of that.
But his whole story is very fascinating. And it's not really what we kind of see in that, that Jesus revolution movie.
Yeah. And I had so many guys that lifted up that Jesus revolution movie.
And I, I'm in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, guys, you, you don't, you're, you're lifting it up because you've seen the movie, but don't realize what actually happened here.
Uh, it was so disappointing in my soul when I had guys that I was listening to that, that I respected that they're preaching home messages on the Jesus revolution and Lonnie and how we need another revival at that. Yeah. I would agree.
We need another revival like that, or we need to reach our young people, but don't lift up that guy. Like, yeah, it's, it's, we lifting up.
Well, and, and to me, that was more of like a, it was just a, a residual of kind of young, young people starting our massive movement and, and it not being a much of a balance of the older
generation. Also helping them say like, Hey, we need to, we need to pump the brakes, you know?
Cause I mean, there was a lot of other that kind of came through the Jesus movement, uh, where kind of the hippies would start one thing and then it would get out of hand and grow and change. And it was nothing like what they started with, you know, out of, uh, custom Mesa.
And I mean, even the Lonnie's story, when he leaves the Calvary thing, he, he leaves kind of like they should, they showed a lot of the movie that was accurate.
They just kind of cut it off before the story was done, but he left because he was kind of leaning into this very, uh, gifts, heavy, prophetic, uh, charismatic leaning of theology.
And Chuck Smith is not leaning all the way that, that way. And so when Lonnie leaves, he actually is one of the integral people of starting the Vineyard Church movement.
And people didn't talk about that connection, but he starts Vineyard Church movement or is involved in it.
Didn't start it, but it's involved. And eventually he gets kind of kicked out of the Vineyard Church movement because he's going so extreme past that.
And all the while that that's going on, there's rumor of, wait, is Lonnie involved in this scene and going back to his old lifestyle?
And no one was quite sure. So they would, they, they didn't push him. They kicked him out. There was not a confrontation of, Hey, Lonnie, are you okay? Yeah.
It was, Oh, this is maybe bad PR. We got to get him out. And so that, that to me is truly devastating. Cause you're like, I wish that.
And maybe the individually it happened. And it's just not out there, but you, you would hope that someone had sat down with Lonnie and tried to talk to him in a, in a reasoning way of saying, here's what the Bible says.
Here's what scripture says about the lifestyle that we're hearing about. We are wanting to hold you accountable. We believe in what you're doing, but this is going too far. So that to me was also really sad and, um, kind of not so much shocking, but just, uh,
confronting, you know, to think about that and Andre Crouch getting pulled over. Yeah.
Maybe your next series or a next video you can do. I just wrote it down. Uh, Jesus revolution to Paul Harvey style. The rest of the story, the rest of the story. Yeah. Yeah.
Uh, so as you went through this series and you, um, have gotten calls, like you said, uh, from people all across different regions and different world, different people, um, artists have been willing to talk to you.
Like, that's the part that I was, I loved was, man, you're sitting down with three, six, three, you're sitting down with these guys are, are big time in the world and have been big time.
And you shared with another guy that recently reached out to you. That's massive in the Christian world. Um, and they've been willing to reach out to you, talk with you, text with you, sit down and just be able to interview you over the things they've went through. Uh, was there someone,
um, or something that something had told you that you wasn't expecting to hear or that you just didn't expect this person to reach out to you? Um, what was, what was that like as far as reaching out other people reaching out to you? Yeah, I, um,
man, I mean, the one that I think about that I was really happy to see was, was Mark Hall from Casting Crowns. And we talked a second before the podcast started about it. He followed me one day on Instagram and I like sat up in bed. I just, I saw it.
I'm like, wait a second. This is crazy. Cause I, I've, I've,
I've watched their, their documentary and how they, as a, as a group and him have chosen to stay loyal and, and localized in their churches and serve there.
You know, they don't go and play shows on Sundays. They are always back home on Sunday to be serving at church, to be with their families. They're very strict about it.
And I just had a lot of respect for him. And so when he followed me, I, I messaged him first and said, Hey,
I, I'm not usually the one to, to reach out and say this, but I'm very glad to see that you followed me and that you're to connect with you.
So we start chatting a little bit and, uh, he ends up giving me his, his phone number and we start texting back and forth some.
Um, and, uh, at one point we're talking about maybe getting coffee and all this stuff. And I'm thinking, what is going on? This is so strange.
And, uh, he asked me, he's like, are you in, uh, are you in Franklin or in Nashville? I was like, no, I am not. I am. I'm in North Carolina. And he said, ah, that's why you're so normal.
And, uh, cause he's not in, he's not there either. And, uh, it's just that, that meant, huh? They're in Florida, right? He's in, he's in Georgia, Georgia.
He's in Georgia. I think that a few of the members have, they're, they're not all there, but he, um, that meant a lot. And, and I had, um, Israel Houghton followed me like during the series and that kind of was crazy to see.
Um, and I've had a lot of writers that have written a lot of songs,
you know, send me a DM and say, Hey, thank you for talking about the writer's rooms. These are things that we experienced through that. And I felt relieved to get those messages because I have not been in the writer's room.
Everything that was around that was through study of kind of the Nashville system and kind of secondhand knowledge from, from others that had been around it some. And so to have writers of,
from, from Hillsong writers, from Bethel writers, I mean that, or had been involved there to reach out and say, Hey, you nailed it. And we've been struggling with it. It meant quite a bit.
So I, yeah, I had artists that followed me and it was exciting, but I was, I felt way more, um,
I guess, I don't know if the word is fulfilled, but. It was nice closure to get a lot of writers saying really helpful things that made me feel like I wasn't crazy.
Yeah. When I was maybe halfway through and I've got a local guy here, uh, in our area that he was in the country music world. Um, got saved, abandoned all that now leads worship and has started Christian, um,
band and, uh, doing, doing well. And I mentioned, I said, Hey man, do you like, have you ever heard of this writer? I'd never heard it before. I had no idea what I was talking about. He's probably like, yeah,
he, he, this way they said, yeah, he said, I know all about it. He said, I don't get in them. I don't sit in them and I don't let anybody else sit in anything. I do. He said, everything I have is my stuff.
And I said, well, I said, how do you do like your recording and you send it off? And like, you're, you're, he said, well, I'm self-published.
He said, I have my own, my own stuff. He said, and I pay a guy to mix my albums for me. Yep. He said, I pay him as a employee. Almost.
He said, I send him my tracks and I say, how long is it going to take? I cut him a check as a, an employee, a contract labor to mix my music and then send it back to me. So I own everything.
He said, no recording artist owns anything. He said, um, it's easy to go the other way.
He said, the way I do, it's the hard way. He said, the easy way is to say, Hey, uh, you recorded studio. Yeah. Hey, I need this done. Um, all right. We'll take care of it. Here's your stuff.
Uh, but we own it until you pay it back or we own it forever. Um, and so he said, I'd do it the other way because I don't want to get burned like that.
Uh, I mean, it's, it's a tough, it's a tough road, but it's also the road that I think allows you more kind of creative freedom.
Um, because once other people start, I mean, John from tree 63 talked about it, right? Like once you have the label involved heavily and they're giving you the money, right?
Like they're doing exactly what they've promised to do. And their end goal is how do we make what we consider to be the best, most profitable product, good business running, right? That that's what you have to do.
But when you attach it to, to Christian art, it gets weird or art in general, because the artist is like this, this feels like a, a part of, of me. It's a piece of where I'm at spiritually at a piece of my, my heart that I have written down.
And suddenly a guy with a checkbook's like that, that won't do it.
That won't do it. That won't do it. So yeah, it's, uh,
it, it is in many ways, I think the easier route to get seen, but there are a lot of sacrifices at that.
So. Absolutely. So, so what is the response that you've gotten? So it's been out now, the last episode came out, I think three or four weeks ago, but maybe a month or almost, um, what's the response that you've gotten from, uh, just the Christian world in general, um, feedback wise.
Oh man. It has been, it's been more positive than I thought it might be. I was a little nervous, truthfully. Um, especially kind of heading into the, the last, I guess, or episodes seven, eight and nine or, or what I kept telling my wife were the bummer episodes.
Like they just, they were not fun talking about the mega churches and development of worship sounds and the manipulative or the manipulative processes that can take place through that going into Michael Tate's controversies, Brian Houston's controversy.
I just felt so bummed out. And at the same time felt very nervous to get my information as non sensationalized and out there as possible because people feel so strongly towards these people and these organizations. And, and it's such a polarizing topic. So I was, I was concerned, um, and pleasantly surprised that people were very kind and entertaining
conversations in the comments in a way that was kind, even if they disagreed.
I, that may have been the cynic in me thinking, oh, people are going to be way more angry, but, uh, yeah, again, super kind messages from people.
People kind of found one of my emails and they, um, have sent me probably four to 500 emails of, of how the series has helped them some with criticisms, but it's never been angry. Occasionally that one angry comment where I'm thinking you didn't really watch this video.
You know, you're talking about something we've already talked about. Um, but yeah, I, I am pleasantly surprised with how it was received by both artists, by writers and by just people within the church. I, yeah, I feel like God just allowed it to hit this vein of, uh,
grace where people just were willing to listen in a, in a way that I underestimated. So, yeah, uh, I know that we asked it that way.
I'm going to ask sort of a follow-up to that because, um, you, you said when you did the Caleb interview, uh, within a couple of days, Caleb reached out to you and was like, Hey, how can we, how can we make this better? Which is a good thing, right?
They're, they're, they're seeing feedback. They're, they're wanting to change what they're doing. Don't know if they changed anything after they talked to you.
Probably not. Um, but still positive and encouraging Caleb, uh,
um, has anyone from the CCLI Christian music industry, the big recording artists has anyone from that area reached out to you? And if so, how has their response been?
Has anyone reached out to me? I had through a mutual friend through a, a, a friend who texted me, he said, I'm sitting down right now with one of compassion, compassion internationals, head marketing, uh, people.
And he, he was like, she has said that she will come on your channel and tell the truth about what's happening with compassion international and said that they have been bombed by my video. I, I wasn't expecting that, you know, I, I, things that happened around that.
I was also shocked by because I had filmed that video three weeks prior and scheduled it for release.
And the day before the day after I dropped that video, Roy's report drops this massive compassion international mercy me article.
And I'm thinking, Oh, people are going to be searching this and now they're going to be finding my video. And I took a pretty middle lane approach of people do get helped, but we need some transparency. Yeah. So I, I wasn't expecting it to be as interconnected to whole thing.
Um, but the, the marketing person had told my friend, Hey, I'll sit down and talk with, with Jonathan for an interview and tell the truth. And I almost, I almost did it.
And then I thought about it and not in a mean way, but I just kind of, I said, Hey, I'm going to send a voice message back. If you want to play it for her just so she can hear.
And essentially I just said, you can, you can tell the truth anytime you want. You, you have the platform like you, you can do it.
It doesn't have to, you have more of a platform than I do on my YouTube channel. That's not to be mean towards them, but you have five times as many email subscribers than I have subscribers across everything. You know, you could do it. And so I turned that down
not like out of spite, but just cause I was like, I'm not a, I'm not a reporter.
I I'm a YouTuber and I feel like I know my lane. So that was the closest I maybe got to someone truly reaching out. Um, I have had a couple of conversations with, with independent promoters that, uh,
you know, we talked about that world of independent promoters go into radio stations and getting artists involved there. And I had really good ones reach out, um, that they do it in an honest, good way.
And they were saying, Hey, thank you for talking about this because it makes our job harder trying to do it the honest way.
When we've got 10 random people doing the weirdest methods, because now we can't, we have to figure out how to go around that. So they reached out and, um, I, yeah, other than that, but I didn't, it's been really quiet. Okay.
Maybe too, well, too quiet. Sort of my response when you said that was, um, I wonder if any of these CMG,
Sony universal, if they've reached out and said, Hey, can we set the record straight? Or, you know,
actually drawing up a lawsuit against you, Jonathan, and, uh, you're going to see your day in court, baby. Let's do this. Um, I'm like, I use the word allegedly a lot. I use the word allegedly.
So that, that, that could be why I did, I did have a, uh, uh, I had done that radio interview in California.
And before I started that interview, the guy who hosts it before we were recording, he, he said, Hey, I'm just letting you know that every artist and every promoter that's come in this radio station has brought you up and asked if we've talked about
your videos and that kind of freaked me out. It's a little scary. I love it. Um, all right. Last question.
I know you've got some things to get done as well. Um, we'll, we'll break it into two questions, uh, after everything you've researched and after everything you've talked about, where do you hope this goes or what do you hope this produces, um, in the response of the CCM world? I, um, um,
I, I had this conversation a little bit last week with another YouTuber friend who's a Christian and he kind of asked me, he said, what do you, you know, what do you hope for it? My hope is just that people care, right? Like that.
I don't know what that necessarily looks like, right? Like I don't have this fix all answer.
Kind of like I said, in the end of the series, I'm like, I, this, this, this is a big thing that it's going to take a lot of effort to figure out.
I just want people to, to be intentional and care about it and to, to go in with as much knowledge as possible to make the wisest decisions that they can make.
And I, I do think that there is the ability for us to, to show grace towards the people that we disagree with on bands or song choices, right? Like, I mean, for example,
the song, goodness of God, right? It's written by, by Bethel in a writer's room, lots of writers on it. Great song though.
They're in that song. There is nothing theologically happening that would cause me concern to, to say, we should not be able to sing this,
but to some, they may hear it and it, and it caused a problem with they're like, I've got too much baggage from what I know of Bethel to be able to sing this.
And, and I kind of talked about it at the end, you know, the idea of the meat being offered to idols in the Corinthians conversation.
I don't know if it's perfect for this, but it's to me, one of the closer kind of ways to approach it, to say, Hey, if, if you feel convicted to not sing this, then, then don't, if it affects you are worshiping, like don't sing it.
If you can sing this and you have looked at the lyrics and say, Hey, there is nothing unbiblical that I'm saying in this and you can look past it, then I can't come at you and say that you're doing something inherently evil.
Right. I may question how the money's being handled, but are you truly worshiping the Lord, like in your heart as you're singing? And I, uh, I talked about,
this is I guess connected, but it's, it's a little bit still what I'm processing. I love the book of Jonah and Jonah is not a great prophet yet. He is still the Lord's prophet in this weird world.
And he is resistant to everything that God is telling him to do. And he's angry about it, goes to Nineveh, delivers a lackluster, lame sermon of just, I guess y'all are going to burn and die.
If you don't turn away, like it is no effort. And then he climbs the mountain to watch and see what happens because he thinks he also did is not going to see it happen. Right. And God still, still uses these very lame words from Jonah to turn an entire city, right? Towards him.
And it confronts Jonah enough that he writes his own book about how dumb he was. Yeah.
And so I think there's also the ability to see a parallel of we're dealing with very imperfect people.
And there is a grace that we can have for them of, Hey, maybe they're not getting it all right, but like the Lord can still use these things to change people's hearts and minds and turn them towards him.
I don't know. It's again, not a perfect answer, but I think that I just wanted people to care about that conversation and to care about it in a way that they're informed. And, and, uh, if that's through the series, I feel extremely blessed, but I, I always have said, go, go do your own research too.
Cause I am not a great researcher. I tried my very best, but go out and read, educate yourself too.
So that's, that's kind of my hope. It's a long answer. There you go. That's phenomenal. And you help with lead worship at your church. Um, you're in this world. Um, what would be sort of last thoughts, um,
admonishing those worship leaders that are in churches? Uh, where do they go from here with Christian worship and Christian music in the local church? Um, I know dictate you should do these songs and these things.
Uh, but there are some general principles that we can apply of how we should lead worship and, um, it's a vital part of it. Um, so, so what are, what would be some of your last thoughts there? And then any closing thoughts before we, we get done?
Um, I guess my first thought is, is as worship leaders be, be attentive of what you're singing and don't just sing it because you know, it's popular because I, I think it's very easy for
worship leaders to see a song that's going over well everywhere else and be like, Oh my goodness, we should do that too because our congregation will also receive it. Well, I, I think that should not be the main decision-making process, right?
The, the main decision-making process should be, is this song biblical? And do we feel like it is something that is going to help our church worship the Lord.
And that requires looking individually at the songs and saying, does this song fit what the Bible says about God?
Does this song fit what the Bible says about who we are in response to God?
And is there a, a, a question mark in there? And I also would say, I encourage worship leaders to, to try writing an original song. Uh, it's people make it out to be this, this mystery.
And while it is, I do think that there's an element of it that's much more approachable than people want it to be, but it does feel exposing to, to write something and then bring it before a congregation.
And to that, I'd say, you don't have to tell them you wrote it. If you really don't just write the song and, and put it up there and do it a couple of times, people grow familiar.
They don't have to be like, Oh, I heard that on the radio. I'm really glad we're doing this.
Just make some efforts in that way. And as long as what you're doing is, is pointed towards glorifying God that ultimately is, is the main, the main focus of it, right? Is not, you don't have to have a radio hit for your song to be validated as a worship song.
It, it, it can be just there locally and glorifying God with your congregation. So those would be kind of my, my thoughts. I love it, man.
Thanks so much for, for giving those thoughts and helping us out. Uh, if you haven't checked out the video series and anything that Jonathan's done, go check that out. We'll link his channel on the show. And, uh, we're thankful that, uh, people were standing in the gap and doing these things and, uh,
uh, exposing truth, um, to people that maybe they wouldn't know one way or another. Um, so thank you, Jonathan, for coming on.
And thank you for having me. I'm glad we were able to connect because it was, it was funny because we have met in person and in person like three years ago. Yeah.
And then we were like, Oh my goodness, we already know each other. So it's awesome.
So we'll hang out. We'll do it. Maybe Nashville next week. Um, we'll see you. Yeah. So that sounds good. All right. Amazing. Thank you until next time to God be the glory. Great things he has done. Found my new name. Found that good grace. Found that healing.
And the tears fell down my face when I found my beginning that has no ending. Found that second chance. Found my best friend. Found my forgiveness. Found my happiness.
I've been singing ever since. I found my freedom in you.
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