Todd Agnew - Interview with Ardent Records' Todd Agnew

We met Todd recently in Nashville. We talked about his song 'My Jesus' along with some of the themes on his latest record - such as beauty and holiness...

MQ: What inspired you to write the song 'My Jesus' ...

Todd: That's actually the oldest song on the record. It's kind of surprising, but I wrote that about 8 years ago. I just kind of put it away and God brought it back out for this record. I grew up in church. I memorized the Bible verses so I could get my stars on the board when I was a kid. I was always in choir and stuff. But, the Lord just moved at a time in my life when I really felt like I needed to make my faith my own - I needed to get into the Bible and really find out what it says and not just what I've been told. And the more I dug into the person of Jesus, the more I figured out that He wasn't much like I thought He was when I was growing up. Growing up, I always thought that, you know, Jesus was real solemn - didn't smile, or laugh - always looked off into the sunset, spoke real quietly...etc. And I just realized that is probably not what He was like at all. He was probably this fascinating, explosive person - that He didn't look like I thought He was. He wasn't American. He didn't talk with a British accent like that guy in the movies, you know? He was very different and the more I looked at what He was like, the more I realized that I didn't see that in my church, or a lot of the things. You know, Jesus seemed to chase after the poor and the needy, and we seem to be chasing after the wealthy and the powerful. So, I was really struggling with that - frustrated with that. I ended up writing the song and I put it away for a long time. Over the years, God really grew a love for the church in my heart. So, I think I was ready to bring a message to a body that I believed in - that I believed God has chosen - and I was able to bring that message in love, rather than frustration, which is where it came out of originally.

MQ: What kind of reactions have you gotten from people?

Todd: Man, we've had all kinds! We've had positive and negative. But for the most part, people have left convicted and challenged. Our hope is not that they end up going, 'Ok, this is how I need to live my life. I need to do these three things.' We're not trying to tell you, 'Hey, this is what Christianity is.' I'm trying to tell you, 'Read your bible. Get to know Jesus and let that affect your life.' Don't listen to the next four-step plan. I don't know. I'm just trying to follow Him like you are. But, our hope is that people will leave - from encountering the song live or on the record - with a desire to pursue Christ for who He is and let Him affect them however He chooses to do.

MQ: One of the songs on your latest CD is titled 'Isaiah 6'. That really jumped out for me because of something I've been grappling with - and that's the concept of holiness. As a rule, it seems to be something that is almost a taboo subject these days. Everything seems to be about the externals, or those things that are easy. I read in the Bible, 'Be holy, for I am holy.' And then I look at my struggles and I look at the culture - it's dark and it's getting darker - and it seems like a very hard thing to do. So, when I heard that song and saw the scripture that it was based on, I wanted to ask you your thoughts on holiness.

Todd: Holiness is an awesome, tough subject. One of the things that brought my attention back to it was a little book by Henry Blackaby called 'Holiness'. Ahh man, it was one of those things where he didn't say anything that I couldn't understand. It was just the simple things, but you're like, "Man, you're dead on. That's just powerful stuff!" He pulled some stuff from later in Isaiah where it talks about God desiring to move on a pathway of holiness...

MQ: - the highway of holiness.

Todd: - the highway of holiness. He realized that holiness in our lives enables the Lord to move. It's kind of like taking a pipe that can be all stopped up with stuff, and the cleaning out of the pipe makes it a more effective pipe. That the design for us was for God's power to move through us to change the world. Genesis 12 - 'I want to bless you so you will be a blessing' - you know? 'I'm going to do something in you so that I will do something else. I guess a lot of times we as a modern church, and you see the same thing happen back then with Israel, is that they got focused on the first part - that He is going to bless us. And so they started concentrating on that and it's real easy for us to do that as well. Even many times I'm wanting to get stuff out of my life, but I'm wanting to do that as an accomplishment for me - 'This a part of my walk'. But man, I'm just learning that ... I don't know. My opinions on how you 'be a Christian' are changing. Even how you share Christ or how you give invitations at concerts. I'm just starting to realize that you can agree with me that Jesus died for your sins, and you can do all that, but that doesn't mean you fall in love with God. And that's what needs to happen to change your life. You don't need to sign your name on something or walk down an aisle - now those can be symbols, and very powerful ones - but what you need is to fall in love with God and I can't make you do that. Todd Agnew I can just show you why I have and let you have your own experience. And so, looking into that and saying, 'What is holiness? How do we "achieve" holiness?' I'm like, "Well, it's just getting stuff out of your life and letting the Lord clean that pipe - clean that mirror - so that you will be the reflection of His glory - His holiness - His purity. I was trying to "achieve" holiness until I realized that with the concept of purity, I can't accomplish purity. You have to be cleaned. You can't do it on your own. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't put our own effort into it or anything. For me, Isaiah 6 was digging in and saying, 'I want to experience a Holy God - and have a relationship with that Holy God. And then God, you do with me what you want to.' And what you find is that He wants to clean you out and He wants to clean you off. But He wants to turn you into a vessel through which He moves. The question is: 'Are we willing to stop putting stuff in there (laugh) - and that's my problem. I go, "God - I want you to clean me out" - and He does, and I was like, 'Awesome!' And then I just need this, and this, and these things...and now I'm ready! And you're like, 'You just put more blockages in there?!'

MQ: Yeah!

Todd: Like, I'm single, and dating and girls and all that kind of stuff is 'an important part' - 'a distracting part' - but it's part of your life. What you realize is that if you're designed to be a conduit for the Lord's power and you're just trying to go find a girl, then you're taking something and trying to put it in that conduit. As opposed to - if God designs it, He designed you to be a conduit, so He's going to bring something into your life that makes you a better conduit. He's going to make you a better pipe for the water to flow through. And that's what she is going to be in your life. Rather, if I go and find it, then I'm just trying to add stuff to it - and what do I know about making conduits? (laugh) Nothing! So, I don't know if I really got to the issue of holiness there, but...

MQ: I agree with you. I think it's something - that I've realized from my own experience - it's not so much of what I can do, it's just a matter of letting God do it - and not going back to do the stuff that we do to mess it up. We go back to the cross, to take those things off of there that are nailed on there, and play with them a little bit...you know what I mean? I think it's something that we need to desire - to be holy, and not just because He said 'Be holy for I am holy', but to understand why He said it...

Todd: Yeah! If you spend enough time with Him ... this is one of the things that happened to me. We were singing 'Open the Eyes of My Heart'. I'm a worship leader and one of the things I do in worship, I always ask people, 'Do you mean that? Do you have any idea what you're singing? Are you just singing things?' Because I just woke up one day and realized I was singing 'Did You Feel the Mountains Tremble' by Delirius - and had no idea what I was talking about! (Laugh) I just totally didn't understand the song at all. And so I was having an emotional experience with no concept of that at all. Since then, I've really started going, 'Hey. What does this mean? What is "Come thou fount of every blessing" mean? What is an ebenezer' - if I'm saying I'm going to raise that. You know? I've really been pushing myself on that. So, I've started doing that as a worship leader too. I'm saying, 'Do you mean this?' - and we're really digging into these songs. One day we're singing 'Open the Eyes of My Heart' and we get to the bridge where we sing 'You Are Holy, Holy, Holy' ... and I just stopped. Like, 'What does that mean - when you say God is Holy?' Everybody was saying, 'Well, it means that He's God' or 'It means that He's...' and they had all these little answers that pretty much could have been an answer to any question in Christianity - that's the 'sunday school' answer. Then one person that actually went to sunday school said, 'It means "set apart"' - but what does that mean? 'I don't know...'

all: laughing

Todd: But we dug into it till we found out that God's completely different from us - and we can worship Him because of that. And now that we understand that, let's consciously mean 'You're holy. You're different. You're 'other'. We don't even understand You but we get the privilege to know You. So, let's sing that!' So, we started doing that with all the little verses that we did. We sing, 'You are worthy' - and we had people start giving testimonies about how God was working. It was cool! We did, 'You are mighty' and people started going, "I was cured of this disease...' So, we celebrated those things and I was like, 'Why is God lovely?' because we sing, 'You are lovely, lovely, lovely'. And people answered, 'Because He's holy, He's pure. He's loving. He's kind. He's just. He's merciful.' And man, it was like God whispered in my ear, and just went, "Is that what you're attracted to in a woman?" And I went, '(choke, caugh) Holy cow!' I asked them the same thing, Todd Agnew and pretty much the whole concert - 1500 people - we all just stopped . It was dead quiet in a room of 1500 people - just all of us wrestling with this. And then at that moment, I realized God was doing something special in my life. A few days later as I was dealing with that and praying through that, I started praying, 'Lord, I want you to change what I'm attracted to. I have believed the world's lies about what is beautiful or attractive. I want to be attracted to what you're attracted to.' Man, it has been revolutionary for me. To have a girl walk up and get to know her and walk out and someone says, 'What is she like?' I'm like, 'She's so pure.' 'What color is her hair?' (Todd thinking) 'Well, it's kind of brown, I think' But to realize that He's really changed the desires of my heart because I had absolutely no ability to do that! My relationships with girls were terrible. And He has really started changing those things. That's really the long way around to what you were talking about with holiness and purity - that to not just say, 'Hey, I want to be holy' but say, 'God - I want You to make me attracted to holiness. I want You to make me desire that. I want you to take away the desires that I have for unholy things and I want You to place in me a desire for holy things. I want to yearn for my heart to beat like yours does. Man, I'm definitely not there, but it's a really interesting journey.

MQ: I was going to ask you, was that related to your change of your look about that time?

Todd: Well, I did. I cut the hair as an illustration for that Fall tour where we ended up talking a lot about this concept of beauty. Just kind of saying, 'Hey look - I'm not defined by what I look like' and try to get some freedom from that. Then we turn around at the end and dig into John a little bit where he talks about the woman that poured the oil on Jesus' feet and used her hair as a rag - basically - to dry His feet. Her beauty - her honor - she took it down and used it as a rag to serve the Lord. That's where beauty lies in our realm of priorities - it's merely another thing for us to lay down as a rag to serve the Lord. Then I ended up trimming the gotee and putting on shoes for this tour. I just kind of wanted to say, 'Look. I'm gonna take away all of the physical things that people think that are interesting to talk about.' I just got to a point where I was like, 'Man, I'm tired of talking and answering all those questions and nobody ever asking me about Jesus.' You know? (laugh) So, we're bucking the system a little bit.