Links...
"In Romans 7 Paul says that theres a civil war happening in his soul...that what he wants to do and what he does are not the same thing. Hes torn. Thats an idea we can all relate to. The person I was before I met Christ is night and day different from the person I will be when I see God face to face in heaven." - Shaun Groves
MQ: What role do you see Christian music playing in this post modern culture...where absolute truth is rarely taught, let alone believed?
Shaun: I can only answer for myself. I don't feel comfortable saying what Christian music in general can do. I don't believe that my music directly affects very many people who aren't believers. It indirectly does, which is why I do this. I'm more of a pastor than I am an evangelist when I'm on stage. I really see so much of my role as to entertain to the point that I earn trust and I earn the right to then say something challenging. 
So then the challenge is to go out and be the church - that your friends who don't have a relationship with Christ may begin not by coming to a concert or a church or to a Billy Graham crusade or reading a tract, or any of that...it's probably going to begin with you. I have lots of friends who don't believe what I believe. A friend of mine a couple of years ago bottomed out. He lost everything in his life due to an addiction. When he bottomed out, he did not go in a Christian bookstore, he did not go to a Christian website, or Christian radio, pick up a Christian book or listen to my CD. He called me and said, 'I need help.' And that's the role that Christian music can play is that it can turn Christians from having a 'bless me' mentality to 'make me a blessing' mentality. It can be a powerful tool to challenge Christians - to remind Christians of what they are created to be...and we're not just created to be just consumers of Christ and of His grace and His love. We are created not just to know God but to make God known and to share that love, share that grace and to be the church. That's the role I think Christian music can indirectly - just like a pastor indirectly affects the lost people in his community - I can indirectly affect them. Because if a college student comes to my show and realizes, 'Wow, I'm a really good singer in church but I'm not a very good servant' or 'I'm very good at being a Christian but I'm not really good at sharing Christ.' Maybe they'll leave the show and walk across the room in their dorm and talk to that guy who is sleeping with his girlfriend every night - that guy he's never really wanted to talk to - that he's got nothing in common with but maybe now he builds a bridge to that person, goes to lunch with that guy...they play X-Box together, you know? They talk about computers. They do whatever they do that they have in common and that just becomes a relationship. It becomes a bridge that Christ can walk across into a person's life. But I don't believe that people who don't believe what you and I believe - I don't believe that people who don't believe in God, are buying Christian music or listening to it. I think that's a lie. I just don't think that happens. I think once you're over eighteen that doesn't happen very much. It happens a lot at youth group ages, you know. It doesn't happen that much after that. I think that also the other side of it affecting postmodern culture is that you've got people like Switchfoot who are going out and they basically wrote a whole record about Ecclesiastes. If you listen to the record, it's Ecclesiastes. 
They basically put Scripture to music in a modern way without using any of the Biblical buzzwords. They still convey the idea that we were made for something more. And I think that we can cause people to question. I think people like that can cause people to question, 'Is there more to life than this' and 'Why am I here?' And I think that then though the same thing happens. They have a question. Where are they going for the answer? They're not going to a church. They're probably not going to pick up a Bible. They're going to their next door neighbor, a friend, a relative. They're gonna go to you. So, I sort of see that we work in tandem. There are artists out there in the mainstream that make people ask questions. There are artists like me in the Christian world that equip Christians to have the answers...and so we work together.
MQ: ...it comes back to us.
Shaun: It all does come back to us. There is no quick fix. There is no motion picture. There is no tract. There is no big cultural event that is going to be a quick fix. Jesus never had a quick fix. There is no big moment. It's people being the church.
Continue to page 4...