This month during ministry with Cru, we got to do a special kind of evangelism. On valentine’s day, we went to San Francisco University and did valentine’s song-o-grams for students that talk about how God loves us. We sang songs like How He Loves, Reckless Love, and a couple other songs in Spanish. These songs were accompanied with love letters from God, and we got to tell students about the radical love of God.
This was one of my favorite universities to evangelize on because it was a very artsy school. Almost everyone we talked to was either an art or music major, and there was so much beauty and creativity on that campus.
However, while we were there one of the guys who was a student there told me “Don’t even try to talk to an artist about religion. They won’t listen” and this kind of hurt my soul. On one hand, I totally understood where he was coming from. After 3 years as a music major in college, it is hard to talk about. Generally artists want to be free to express and they don’t want to be hindered by religious rules because they just want to live life on their own terms. But on the other hand, often artists have the most pain, and as artists, they constantly have to dig to those depths and that leaves them in dark, lonely, and broken places. I always feel like artists are the ones who need the gospel the most, despite the pushback we may get trying to share it.
Later on while we were singing these songs on campus, we had this really amazing moment with some musicians. A group of about 5 people were walking by and heard us singing and playing (honestly, I think they were in awe of Sarah’s killer accordion skills coupled with my ukulele) and came over and wanted to jam with us. Of course I was game to jam with them, so one of the girls came over with her Ukulele and asked if I knew the song Creep, and of course I said yes. So she sang, I sang some harmonies and played my uke and Sarah accompanied on her accordion as well.
I’ve heard the song countless times before, but this time I was really aware of the words. It’s a fun song and it’s fun to sing along to, but this song speaks so much false identity over us. It’s about someone who feels so utterly dejected that they have taken on calling themselves a creep and owning that identity. It’s a sad song, but I became very aware of the real struggle many people have with this, and the reason the song is so popular is because a lot of people feel this way. Don’t get me wrong, jamming was so fun, but through that, God was really telling me to speak some true identity over them.
So after we were done jamming, we asked if we could share a song with them, and of course they said yes, and we sang a song called “Tu Poeta” and it talks about how we are God’s poem and how He loves us so much and constantly speaks so much truth and light into our lives. They loved hearing the song and we got to share with them that that is how God sees us and how He loves us. We are not creeps, but we are unique and special and loved no matter what.
In that moment, the song we were singing was not necessarily raising people up, but God still used that moment. He used the brokenness sung in Creep to usher in a way to share His love for us. Even though some people would consider that song “garbage”, God is sovereign and good, and He can make beauty out of the garbage.
Now that I am learning more about spiritual warfare, I am starting to see just how much warfare there is in art. As I sit on this bus driving to Peru, I just finished watching Lady Gaga’s documentary five foot two and I saw some of that in her story. In the past, when she struggled with depression and anxiety and having a bad relationship with her past producer, the enemy was throwing all sorts of lies at her. He said she didn’t feel good enough of talented enough and felt like she needed to get control of her life and couldn’t, and in the journey of writing and recording Joanne, she felt free to be herself and found her identity once she took off those masks and was surrounded with a loving, supportive community.
Now, Lady Gaga is certainly not the poster child of living a Godly life, and she admits that, but in so many of the songs on her album, I could hear glimmers of hope and pieces of God. The title song of the album is about her aunt who passed away when she was 19, and there was so much hope and promise of the Lord in that song. She may not be fully healed from her scars or fully walking in the Lord, but she has come a long way, and even if she doesn’t realize it, the Lord is speaking over her and helping her along her path, because He is a loving God and He wants the best for us.
Man! If God can do that through her, He can do that through anyone!
When I went to college, I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life. Like, at all. I was a music business major because I wanted to have a major that allowed me to have a normal job, but also pursue music if that was the path I was being led to walk down. But then, my second year of college, I felt so called to work in the music industry, to move to Nashville and work for a publishing company or a record label, but not for the reason you would think. After having a few classes learning about the music industry and how twisted and raw it is, and being told that I had to be harsh and tough to survive, I just wanted to prove them wrong. There is so much spiritual warfare that happens in the music industry that I quickly became determined not to succumb to that culture. I whole-heartedly disagreed with the premise that you have to be cut-throat and nasty to make it in the industry because that is what makes it so twisted and destructive. I feel called into this industry because I want to be a light in the midst of all of that darkness. I want to be able to combat the warfare with the truth and the word of God. I want to help artists through those struggles and show them that there is a greater purpose and a light in the middle of all of the emotional turmoil that comes with putting your heart on display for a living.
I have never been so sure of anything in my life, and I was really scared that when I came on this race that God would call me into something radically different, but so far, God is revealing to me lessons and gifts that are encouraging me on this path. As I come face to face with spiritual warfare, I am learning how to stand on God’s promises in the midst of that. As we lead worship and are stewarding others using music, God is showing me how to use art and music to glorify Him as well. I know that after this trip, I will have faith strong enough to endure the battleground of the music industry and to bring light into it. The enemy has such a grip on the music world right now, and it only takes seeing the amount of artists who abuse drugs and alcohol and die at such young ages from the spiritual battles in their minds to know that for a fact. So instead of turning a blind eye to the destruction happening in that realm, I want to dive in and give people light and life, and show them that there is an answer to those things they struggle with, and that’s Jesus.
