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Did You Know?
Some of the interview pictures can be clicked on for audio soundbytes.
Links...
Did You Know?
Some of the interview pictures can be clicked on for audio soundbytes.
INO Records Press Conference:
with (l to r) Chris Rice, Darlene Zschech, and Derek Webb
We recently got to take part in an In Not Of (INO) Records press conference in Nashville as labelmates Chris Rice, Darlene Zschech, and Derek Webb were there to chat and take questions...
What audience have you not reached yet that you'd like to reach?
Chris: Wow. I've got four year olds at all my concerts. And I've got grandmas too - so I've got a big wide span. I'd actually like to focus more and draw more of a younger ... I've worked with students - college and high school - for years, and years, and years, and my artistry has taken me to a place where I get the four year olds and the fifty year olds and I kind of want to make sure I'm bringing this other group back in.
Derek, you wrote a CD about the church being set free. Tell me about the kind of impact that had on the church? What was the feedback from it?
Derek: Well, it seemed pretty well received. I spent
that next year playing. I wanted to find out what
people thought. I wanted to know the answer to that question. So,
I spent the better part of that next year playing in
living rooms, playing these house shows. I brought a
guitar to a room about this size and played to about
twenty people a night and had some Q & A, some
discussions - talked about the content of the record.
It was better received than I thought it would be. 
When you write a record about the church, if you're
faithful to what Scripture says about the church, then
you're gonna find yourself in hot water pretty quick.
Because you do have this beautiful language about
likening Christ's relationship to the church to a
husband and wife and how Christ gave Himself up for
her and she submits herself to Him. But you also have
language in Ezekiel about the church being the whore
and the harlot. The heart is the idol factory - constantly looking for anything to worship but
Jesus. That certainly resonated with my heart, so I'm
trying to write about that topic faithfully within the
whole counsel of Scripture - you find
yourself in really hot water. So, I was surprised that it
all went as well as it did. I'm surprised I got out
of that deal alive actually.
all: laughing
It's like medicine that needs to be taken. We need to hear it.
Derek: We do. Not until the day we're dead, will we outgrow our need to hear the Gospel. Everyday, we need to be reminded that our hearts are still - our flesh simply doesn't reform. If the Christian life is about nothing else, it's about realizing your further and deeper need for Jesus. That's what it's about. It's not a game of morality. It's not a way by which we can create some new law by which we can please God. It's about learning our further dependence on Jesus and His righteousness. And so the more I can learn about my own sin, the better I can - Charles Spurgeon said this, 'If your sin is small, your Savior also is going to be small. But if your sin is great, then your Savior must be great.' And the more I learn about the greatness of my sin - so to speak - the more I learn about the grace sufficiency of Jesus. So, I really think the Christian life has got to be more about repenting and learning more about our sin than it is about modifying our behavior. It's more valuable to look like someone who needs Jesus than someone who looks like Jesus, in my opinion.
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