So you guys are on the road now?

Yeah, we will be tomorrow morning; we’re headed out early tomorrow morning. We had a little time off for Thanksgiving.

Is that the show with Todd Agnew, or you guys are on your own right now?

I think we’re on our own

I was reading something on your site about the Strangest Day Experience, is that like a special show that you guys are planning to do?

Basically what it is – it’s kind of a concept that the Lord gave to me in a roundabout way…it kind of seems to me like the church as a whole in America is in this comatose state and we’re really kind of at a stand still. We’re not really breaking any new ground. There are some churches that are trying to break out of the mold or whatever and trying to be cutting, but that’s not really, in my opinion, what Christianity is about. Christianity is more about…well it all can be summed up where Jesus talked about, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and love your neighbor as yourself.” And it just doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of that going around. And so the Strangest Day was an idea where we would tackle the issues that didn’t want to be addressed, and so that’s what we do live. We tackle the issues of internet pornography and we tackle the issues of suicide and really we’re just trying to just wake people up in a sense.

Yeah, it seems pretty interesting. I know you guys have an awesome live rock show, but from the description of the show - it goes from rock, there’s a guest speaker and a worship time, can you kind of give us a more detailed breakdown of how the Experience goes?

Well I wouldn’t say it’s worship like the traditional worship that’s been coming out of Christian music industry per se. It’s more that we breakdown in the middle of the set, and it’s a time where we try to musically and lyrically to usher people into a place where they feel like they’re in the presence of God. It’s kind of funny, when you play as many dates as we usually do, you would think that it would get monotonous. But it really doesn’t. It’s really a time where people can kind of reflect on everything we said and really take it to heart.

That was actually going to be my next question; because I know that you guys are playing a lot of dates and that you guys are very passionate about your message, so I was wondering how you can continue every show to give out that passion in full. What allows that to keep coming out?

(Laughs) That’s a good question, because sometimes you spend so much time on the road - we got a joke in the band that we actually drive for a living and we’re blessed with the opportunity to go out and play a show - But it’s different man…The church isn’t a building, the church is a body - it’s the people. And so, I’m constantly reminded of that when we play a set. Every show is different. Every show that we play has a different group of believers there, and they’re all dealing with different issues. And so the response to our show by the listeners, that always kind of triggers in one way, shape, form that passion. Some shows it’ll just be 11 people and be about loving the lost, and another show, the Lord will take me to a place where I’ll spend quite a bit of time dealing with the addiction to pornography or something like that. And so the cool thing about it is, because we’re doing it with the Lord, it never becomes monotonous, ever. Because everytime He has us go to a show, whether it’s in the middle of Timbuktu or a major city, it’s always refreshing. Every time we play, everytime we plug in, there’s always something different to trigger that passion. So there’s never any forcing yourself to do it. Plus, it’s almost a prophetic message, so to speak. And I know in the Old Testament, when the prophet stood up to speak, it didn’t matter who was listening, because God’s truth is so universal that it applied to everywhere and everyone that they spoke to.

It sounds like a lot of thoughts maybe for a new record.

Haha, yeah. Actually we are going to be tracking a new record; we’re at the end of the early spring watch. And it’s actually, the theme of the new record is going to be based around war. Because, going back to what I was talking about, it kind of seems like the church has been so involved in this worship “movement” that it’s almost like, the worship, in essence, has kind of lulled the church to sleep. We’re so focused on making our churches cooler and better and more relevant, and we’re not focused on reaching out to the needs of the lost anymore. It kind of seems like the church has spent the last 5 or 10 years now with their hands raised and their eyes closed to worship -and there’s nothing wrong with worship by any means- but when that becomes the existence of the church, you leave out the crucial element. Jesus didn’t climb on the cross to worship, He climbed on the cross to save the world, out of a passion for the lost. So we’ve got all these people - we got the whole church feeding into this worship movement, so to speak, and their eyes are closed and their hands are raised, and the enemy’s coming in through the back door and tearing the church apart while we’ve got our eyes closed.

So we’re kind of moving into a new season in Jonah 33 and the team that we’re involved in, we’re moving into a new season where we’re going to make a record to remind people that this is spiritual warfare that we’re in, and we can’t for a split second think that we can just ignore the enemy and he’s going to go away. Scripture is very clear about what his purpose is and why he’s here. And if you look around in the body, we’re in like the 4th or 5th year now where the divorce rate is higher in the church than it is in the secular world. There’s a song on the Strangest Day called “Desensitized” and I wrote that after I heard a statistic saying that 86% of church leadership in America has been or currently is addicted to internet porn. And you hear stuff like that, the statistics of divorce and pornography, and dissention among believers and among denominations and all this kind of stuff…and we’re standing around, head over heels in this worship movement, standing around trying to figure out why the church is falling apart. So the Holy Spirit just kind of placed that message on my heart, and so this new album - the whole album is going to be focused around the theme of war and the significance of remembering that we’re in a battle.

For myself, I’m over here in SF and I go to a small church, so I’m not completely aware , a lot of the times, the kinds of situations that are going on in the church as a whole in the US. But what kind of comes to me, if the church is in that kind of situation, what kind of message do you bring to inspire people to get back into and fight this battle? Because if there’s that kind of bad news and it’s like “Oh we’re not really doing this,” and maybe they thought they were – how do you bring that message and make it effective?

The overall theme, like I said, is about war, but the underlying theme of the whole record is love, which is kind of ironic, you know – war and love, and how can you possibly co-exist the two? But, that’s something that we’ve forgotten man: the greatest weapon that we have is love. That’s the most powerful thing in the universe, it really is. And love in the true sense is being able to love your enemies, you know, that’s how the Lord defeated the enemy, is through love. So what we try to do is to make people aware of the fact that maybe they’re spending a little bit too much time focusing on themselves or their church or their family or job or whatever, and we’re trying redirect their focus towards the needs of people, be it through missions or even their neighbor. It’s kind of frustrating in a sense, and it seems a little bit overwhelming to tackle, but we’ve got to trust that this is where God has put us, and this is the way that it’s gotta roll.

It’s one of those things where, I’m guilty of it myself, but you get into the thick of the message and all you do is talk about is the problem. So it’s a constant challenge to be able come up with an alternative, to be able to come up with a solution, to come up with a redirection of focus. Like I was saying, every crowd is different, every church is different, every region is different. Different strongholds of religion are in different parts of the country, you know. It’s always interesting to get out on the road and to see what kind of message the Lord places on our hearts, but it all boils down to those two commands: to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul, and to love your neighbor as yourself. And the interesting thing about those scriptures is that Jesus says that all the laws and the prophets hang on those two commands. And so that’s what we’re trying to do is to redirect people away from themselves, which is the core of the enemy – he’s just all about himself - and try to get people to spend a little energry being focused on other people and trying to meet others needs.

I’m still in the forefront of it, so if you talk with me in about 6 months or so, I might be able to have a better answer for you. But I feel that right now, it’s just trying to redirect the focus, I think that’s the key.

I’m not sure if you guys are doing this intentionally, but when I think about even just the name of your band, Jonah 33, and the scripture that that comes from, it really seems like you guys are trying to live out that commission. There’s this message that the Lord wants to give, and it’s basically, “We need to wake up. There’s something we need to fix.”

Yeah, totally…and like I was saying, it’s so overwhelming, because there’s so many different…the enemy is coming in in so many different ways in the church, and there are so many things to address. But I have to believe that the Gospel is simple, people have made it difficult through doctrine and denominations, but the Gospel itself is simple, and we are the church, and I just really look forward to seeing what happens.

Musically, on the new record, are there any surprises? Any new directions?

Yeah, actually, it’s funny that you bring that up. I was at a show at the Kingdom Bound festival in NY, and I was actually thinking about hanging up the hat, going back to civilian life, if you will, and leaving the band behind. And just moving on, because it just kinda seemed like things were at a standstill, and things with the team were kind of funky. So we played a show, and we had a really good show, and I decided to walk around the park, the Six Flags park, and just kinda hang out with some fans or what not. And then I had six different people come up to me at that show that I had never met before in my life telling me that they felt like God was telling them to come up and tell me to not give up. And that was pretty much a confirmation for me. So I kind of took off, just took a walk, just praying, and the Lord just shared with me, He said, you’ve tried the whole radio thing, you’ve tried the whole Nashville Christian music industry approach to things, and He said now I want you to set that aside. And what He basically told me was that He’s specifically gifted me to reach out to the people that deal with the darker issues. Basically, He told me that our crowd is more of a rock crowd.

And I could feel that in my heart man, I can’t explain - it was just something that, once I got done praying, I knew. You ever felt like that about something? You can’t explain it, but you just knew it…So we went to a meeting with our record label, and I told them that if you give us the opportunity to do a third record -because nobody has a guarantee, unless you’re selling hundreds of thousands of copies- I said, if you give us the opportunity to do a third record, I just want to let you know that I’m very clear of thought that it’s going to be a rock record. And that’s what we’ve done. We’ve started writing for the new record, and it’s a lot heavier, not just musically but lyrically, it’s a lot heavier, it’s a lot more intense, it’s thicker. And we’re diving in deeper into dealing issues that I’ve been talking to you about.

But other than that…I’ve had people tell me that Christian rock doesn’t sell well and all this kind of stuff. But like I said, I just knew that I heard the Lord’s voice that day, and I’m just running with it.

Amen.

Because our measure of success is so astronomically different from the Lord’s measure of success. I’m just like any other band: I want to be able to get my guys on a bus, and have somebody drive for us, all that kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, we’re a vapor, we’re gone, and the best we’re here for 80 years, and at the best I’m going to be doing this for 10 to 15. So it’s really not about the momentary status or the fame or anything like that -even though I’m not going to lie to you, that would be nice- but that’s not what it’s about, it’s about people coming to see our shows and being changed.

Right on. And when can fans expect the new record to come out?

You know, that’s a good question. (Laughs). We’re shooting for late spring. That’s what we’re shooting for.