I Can Only Imagine Read online

  As we got serious about relocation, Kendall, our bass player, told us he would not be making the move with the band. He and his wife were settled and secure in Oklahoma. We understood, even though it was hard to hear. So, sans bass player, Jim, Mike, Robby, and I made the journey to the promised land of Middle Tennessee to see what God might do with our boots on the ground.

  As a young band of starving artists with no money, we needed lots of space for cheap. Today, East Nashville has become, for the most part, the land of trendy coffeehouses and hipster hangouts. But this was in the mid-1990s, when the sounds of sirens and police helicopters were a nightly event in the area. We found a five-thousand-square-foot, three-story dilapidated house in a very bad neighborhood on the east side for a price we could afford. We assigned rooms, moved in, and set up the studio.

  One night I came home and found Jim outside in the backyard with a .22 rifle pointed at the rear porch staircase.

  “What in the world is going on?” I asked.

  He said, “I figured out that the rat that’s been getting into the kitchen is coming in at night through a hole in the back door.”

  About that time, just as Jim had predicted, the rat showed up and headed for his dinner reservation in our house. Jim fired the .22, pumping several rounds into the back stairs. He did eventually get the rat, but I was certain the police would be swarming our door any second.

  Minutes went by. Then a half hour. We finally realized that random gunshots were so much a part of the nightly neighborhood sounds that no one even called the police.

  All About That Bass

  Soon it was time to hit the road. We had summer youth camps booked for two and a half months straight, and we had already been subbing in bass players for Kendall. Robby told us about a guy back in his hometown named Nathan Cochran. Nathan, who was dating Robby’s sister, played bass and guitar and was a really nice guy. We asked him to join us at a camp, and he agreed.

  It turned out to be a great week, and everyone loved Nathan. Jim was especially impressed after Nathan offered to jump in and help him work on the bus. (I think that counted just as much in Jim’s mind as being a great bass player.) So in the summer of 1996, six months after Robby joined the band, Nathan came on board.

  Little did we know that this lineup of MercyMe members would last almost twenty years.

  When God Shows Up

  The long-running five-step strategy in Music City to be signed by a major record label and “make it” in the music business is to play what is known as a “showcase.”

  1.Book a local venue with your band as the only performing act.

  2.Stack the audience with your own rabid fans, encouraging them to convince anyone within a five-mile radius that you are the most incredible artist on the planet.

  3.Invite every record label’s A&R (Artists & Repertoire) person to come hear you.

  4.Consider all offers, take the best one, and sign a major record deal.

  5.Become rich and famous.

  In reality, steps 4 and 5 rarely happen, but every young band or artist believes they will. And MercyMe was no exception.

  Step 1: After attempting to book a few venues, we finally realized that our church home would be our best bet. All of us went to First Baptist in Smyrna, a southeastern suburb of Nashville. When we weren’t on the road, we led worship for their youth group, so the church staff graciously agreed to let us play in the sanctuary.

  Step 2: Working with the student pastor, we told the youth group about the showcase and asked them to come and invite all their friends to pack out the place, scream, stomp, yell, applaud, and sing along at the top of their lungs. Well, those kids did not disappoint. Pack it out, they did. And get into the songs in a major way, they also did. They covered this step of the Showcase Plan in major-league style.

  Step 3: Brickell called in some favors and invited every Christian record label in town.

  At this point in our career, we had ten solid original songs from our debut album, standard pop/rock CCM tunes about God and faith. At the showcase, we performed every song to the very best of our ability, but there was only one problem: when we finished the set, the students, whom we had told to go absolutely bonkers, just kept cheering for more. They stomped and clapped and shouted, “Encore!”

  Why might this be a problem, you ask? Well, we didn’t have another song ready to go! We hadn’t considered that scenario. We had played literally every original song we had. But the kids just kept cheering for more.

  I peered through the curtains at the record execs, who were waiting to see what we were going to do. But they weren’t applauding. They weren’t even moving. They were just watching the stage, like hawks waiting for the field mice to get desperate and run out into the open.

  So we did the only thing we knew to do—we went back out and led worship, just as we did all the time with those very kids every Wednesday night.

  It was incredible. It was like the Swiss Alps moment, but in the hills of Tennessee.

  The final song we did was called “Behold the Lamb of God,” a powerful and anointed anthem. When we got to the final chorus, we stopped playing and let everyone’s voices take over. The crowd sounded like an army of angels, so we slowly backed off the mics. We quietly slipped offstage, and the crowd just kept going, Behold the lamb of God, Who takes away our sin . . . The kids in the audience were still singing with everything they had, pouring out their hearts to God.

  You know true worship is taking place when no one notices the band has left. Offstage we were all in tears, listening, realizing this was the most important moment of the night. Forget steps 1 through 5. Forget the record execs. Forget the contract. Forget our band goals. This was why we do what we do. (In Jesus’ name, amen.)

  As the crowd stopped singing and people slowly began to leave, some of the record label folks found us. One said, “Your set was great, guys, but the really powerful moment where you connected with the crowd was that last song you did. The problem, though, is the whole worship thing. That’s what Integrity Music does.” (Integrity was one of the only record labels at the time solely producing praise music.)

  “Sorry, but we just don’t think we can market what you do, so we can’t offer you anything.” Down to the last A&R person, that’s what they all told us.

  At that moment, I had flashbacks of my dad telling me I wasn’t good enough at football or would never be as good as he was at something. Rejection still sat at my front door waiting for an opportunity, way more than I would often admit. But this particular time, I was not just hurt. I was really angry.

  I thought, Market what we do? Are you kidding me? How did you miss out on what just happened? Can’t you see there’s something special to how people respond to these songs? To say the guys and I were frustrated was a serious understatement. Disillusionment was thick in the air that night.

  While our performance of our original songs was “great,” we didn’t have the right material for a deal, so the labels weren’t interested in signing us. No one wanted to take a risk on the revelation and divine connection they had witnessed.

  The whole idea of a Christian band leading worship and singing mostly “vertical songs” to God, versus songs about Him, was still a new concept. Just a few years later, the emergence of bands like Sonicflood and Delirious? along with the growing popularity of movements like Passion and Hillsong made worship music a widely accepted genre. In fact, for several years, the entire Christian music industry was almost solely producing worship songs.

  I guess we were just a bit ahead of the curve.

  Timing is everything, as they say. But God’s purposes will always prevail.

  A Clear Word and a Fresh Wind

  We understood that the events of that night were certainly a word from God. It put an end to my desire to be signed by a record label. I was officially done—not with Christian music or the band, of course, but I marked “record deal” off the band’s to-do list.

  The next day we started talking a
bout what to do next. We had a history of being nomadic, so leaving Nashville and moving again wasn’t a big deal for us.

  Around the same time, Mark Matlock, a popular author and speaker, had a major touring student conference based in Dallas, Texas, known as Planet Wisdom. He had called to ask us to start leading worship at their events, and we decided to accept his offer. It made sense for the band to be based in Texas and for me to go back home.

  I called and asked to meet with Brickell. Because of all the help he had given us, especially setting up the showcase and pulling favors, I owed him an explanation for why we were leaving town. We set up a meeting at the food court of the Cool Springs Galleria Mall.

  Brickell brought Mark Stuart, Audio Adrenaline’s lead singer, with him. After they heard me out, both guys were adamant that we did not need to leave. They feared we might lose momentum or even quit after leaving Music City. Especially back in that day, there was a definite attitude that the only way you were going to make it in Christian music was to be based in Nashville and signed to a major label.

  I assured them that MercyMe was going to continue, but trying to partner with the CCM industry was no longer our heart. We had given it our best shot. We knew without any doubt that God was calling us to focus on the worship music that we had now seen Him use time and time again. If the “market” wasn’t here for what we were called to play, then we would do it from somewhere else.

  Brickell and Mark understood. They gave us their blessings and, yet again, offered to keep helping us in any way they could. So we said our goodbyes.

  Allow me to offer you a word of encouragement, regardless of what you do for a living, what stage of life you’re in, or what your dreams and goals may be: During our time in Nashville, our sole focus was to be signed by a major Christian record label. At some point that year, 1996 to 1997, we had the attention of, and were in the running for a deal with, almost every major label. But each time, it would come down to us and another band for the one contract slot they had available. And every time, the offer was given to the other band. That scenario happened four or five times that year. But we did not quit. We heard from God and chose to obey His calling and direction.

  Today, by God’s grace, we are still at it: still making music, still making a living, still touring, still getting radio airplay, and still selling well. We all face really hard seasons when it seems as if the entire world is against us, when we think we just cannot win. But when we keep standing strong, following the Lord, and obeying His calling, He will see us through and keep us on His path. We’re living proof of that truth.

  God made it very clear to each of us that MercyMe’s mission in this new season was to help feed the growing hunger in the body of Christ for this fresh wave of worship music. As our song says, I know there’ll be days when this life brings me pain, but if that’s what it takes to praise You, Jesus, bring the rain.

  Eight

  BEAUTIFUL

  You’re beautiful,

  You are treasured,

  You are sacred,

  You are His,

  You’re beautiful.

  —MERCYME, “BEAUTIFUL,” FROM THE WORSHIP PROJECT (1999)*

  No matter what was going on in our lives, Shannon and I always stayed in touch. We never went too long without one of us reaching out to the other. No matter where I was in the country or how busy she was at college, we always found time to talk regularly on the phone. She would tell me about her relationships, and I would tell her about mine. Typically, we would tell each other that whomever the other one was dating at the time wasn’t right and that it was never going to work. It was our regular thing to discourage each other about anyone we were dating.

  While Shannon was attending Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches, Texas, about 150 miles southeast of Greenville, she dated a guy she ended up being in a relationship with for six years. (Six years!) She grew up in a stable home with parents whose marriage was solid, so when she committed, she committed. I dated a lot of different girls over the same time period, and the relationships lasted anywhere from just one or two dates to several months. But as girls came in and out of my life, Shannon remained the one common female thread throughout.

  When I was in Florida, working with Rusty, she called to say her family was coming to Disney World for vacation, and they wanted to see me. I invited them to stay in my apartment so they could save money on the trip. To the outside world, we seemed to have a super-close brother-sister relationship, but in reality it was much more of a best-friend scenario. Built on this strong foundation, our friendship always had potential to turn into something more. No matter where I lived or whom we dated, Shannon was a constant source of stability throughout my crazy, nomadic life.

  Love Is a Battlefield

  In December 1996, just before the band moved back to Texas, Shannon called me in Nashville. She and a friend had just finished their college finals and were thinking about making a road trip to Music City. Because the band was living in the previously mentioned East Nashville house, complete with bullet holes in the back porch stairs, I told her there was plenty of room; they were welcome to stay with us, and we would give them their own bedroom and bathroom for privacy. (I didn’t mention the rat problem.)

  What I had failed to understand was that part of Shannon’s goal in the visit was to hang out with me. I thought she wanted to sightsee with her friend and have a free place to stay. After all, she was dating the “six-year guy,” and I was seeing a girl in Nashville.

  I took her to dinner one night and we caught up, but I was busy the rest of the time. I didn’t know she was upset that I hadn’t made much time for her.

  Shannon’s Side of the Story

  “I got to Nashville and Bart was dating a girl there. But we’ve always been able to hang out, no matter whether either of us was dating. I was thinking we were going to spend some time together, but I quickly saw that was not going to happen. We did have dinner one night, but then the next night, he was sitting out in the driveway in the car talking with his girl. I’m inside, peeking out the curtains at them. I finally got mad, and we ended up leaving early. In fact, we left one evening and drove all night so as to not stay at Bart’s any longer. But the anger didn’t last—and neither did our other relationships. Even though I dated other guys, they all knew they were second to Bart and I cared more for him. When he came around, I always made time.”

  Christian bands typically don’t travel around the holidays, unless they have released a Christmas album or are going on a holiday tour. During December, most churches focus on their Sunday school gatherings, Advent programs, and nativity pageants. So I headed home for Christmas just a few days after Shannon had made her abrupt exit from my house in Nashville.

  On Sunday morning, I sat down beside her in the church pew and asked, “So why did you just leave town so quickly without even saying goodbye?”

  She grinned and answered, “Because you were being such a jerk.”

  We both laughed. I told her I was sorry, and we were quickly back to our old selves again.

  Save the Best for Last

  Remember Kent, our third Musketeer? Well, Kent was getting married at the beginning of the new year, so Shannon and I were looking forward to his wedding. Honestly, it almost overshadowed Christmas that year. We both planned on being part of all the festivities. (I mean, how great could Kent’s wedding be if all Three Musketeers weren’t there to celebrate?)

  Because a lot of our friends had left town after New Year’s Day, Shannon and I ended up hanging out the entire time the week before the wedding. The first night, she talked to me for hours about her longtime boyfriend. As was typical, I just kept telling her that she needed to break up with him sooner than later.

  Don’t get me wrong—I listened and heard her out as she processed the relationship. But my advice never changed.

  I had told many of my friends, “If I could find someone like Shannon, my problems would be solved. I end up comparing every girl I
date to her.” That night I almost told her what I had been telling everyone else, but I caught myself just before it slipped out of my mouth.

  Then the truth finally took root. It had been standing right in front of me the entire time, for all those years, as I went through girl after girl.

  Vanessa Williams had a hit song years ago, “Save the Best for Last,” about finally realizing the right one had been in front of you all along. I had been saving the best for last, and thank God she was still available.

  Through our conversations early that week, we each realized we were never going to marry the people we were dating. Without knowing what the other was doing, Shannon and I called off our other relationships. I wasn’t 100 percent sure everything was going to work out with Shannon, but I knew in my heart that no girl deserved to be compared to another the way I was doing. I knew it wasn’t fair to her and not right for either of us. I was glad to finally get the shot of courage to say no, no matter what might happen in any other relationship.

  Late that week, we had a heartfelt, honest talk about the elephant in the room. We asked each other what in the world we had been doing with these other people when we were obviously supposed to be together. And then came the bombshell—we each realized the other had broken off the current relationship.

  I was looking for another Shannon and not finding her. She was looking for another Bart and not finding him. So here we were, finally facing the truth together.

  God seemed to be making it quite clear what He had in store for us. We had finally confessed our feelings to each other, and then that week culminated in us going together to our best friend’s wedding. How much more encouragement did we need? Now we just had to give it all to the Lord for His timing. We prayed about what these changes meant for our future and asked God to reveal His will to us.