Purpose in Pain (ft. Jeff Frankenstein and Adam Agee)
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- Welcome back to this week's episode of Unlocked. I am extremely excited about today. Also, I feel like God knew I needed today, 'cause I woke up this morning in tears. But today I have the guys from Newsboys here and I'm so excited. Thank you. - Thank you for having us. - Thank you. So you are the bass player,

Jeff. Adam is the bass player. Adam. Yes. See, guys, this is why. That's what we're here for. And we've got Adam, who is the bass player. Thank you. And then Jeff is the keys. Okay. But Jeff does play some bass on the keys, though. See? You got it half right. I kind of got it right. Half right. Yeah. Okay. So give us, for the people listening, I know for...

I know for me, Newsboys came about with God's Not Dead. Yeah. That's when it came to be for me. And after that, I was obsessed. Like just that movie as a whole, it really causes people to like take a step back. And it's kind of like a gut punch at times because you're like, I've been a very judgmental person at times. I've

you know, question people. And that movie really causes you to just be like, Whoa. Yeah. That, that movie was very, uh, unexpected success for us. And in fact, it's pretty funny how it all came about. We, you know, we tour a ton. So we were touring, you know, hundreds of shows a year. And, um,

we actually had the song God's Not Dead that had already been out to radio and did well. But the movie was presented to us at the time as an opportunity to be a part of this thing. And so, you know, we were so busy touring back then. We were like, okay, you know, sounds great. But, you know, up to that point,

you know, Christian movies had not really been in theaters or done well, you kind of were like, "I don't know about that." - Yeah, it's never been a cool thing. - Yeah, so we got our scripts and kind of looked it over. And honestly, we thought we were just gonna get out of the bus one morning and shoot a couple scenes on a camcorder. And like, we would never see the end of it. That would be it. It would just kind of fizzle out. And so we got out of the bus the morning of a shoot, which was actually at a show.

and a Hollywood movie set. - Oh yeah. - And we realized that we had not learned our lines like we should and panicked. And you know, a typical thing, we did a day or two of shooting and then it was like three or four months later before the film came out, we had kind of forgotten about it. We were on the road one day and got a phone call that it was like the top two

top two movie in the country. People were lining up to see it all over the place. I, uh, I heard from fam family members I had never met before after that. And it really started a movement and, uh, like people like yourself that, that, well, it reached like new generations. It did. Yeah. It was an awesome experience for sure. So that, that

that's how I knew you guys, but you guys have had what? Over 16 albums. It's crazy. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to age ourselves here, but yeah, I started with the guys back in 1994. So over 30 years ago. Yeah. I mean, I was not even a thought. You were a thought in God's eyes. So you started back in 94 and then, and then I started a band, uh,

in 99 called Stellar Cart. Well, I was two. Cool. You were our target audience. We actually toured with Newsboys a couple times and did a bunch of shows together. And so we became friends, I mean, 25 years ago. And then I've been in the band now a couple of years, but we've been on the road together for the last seven years. That's amazing. So actually,

as children like was this what you had mapped out for you like or that's a great question it was always a dream of mine like i come from a family with musicians in it and uh it's interesting because

I always had that kind of dream of wanting to do music. My mom was a music minister in church, so I was forced into mandatory service. - Oh yeah. - And we had a very lively Pentecostal church growing up. So the services were like three hours long and there was so much music involved and like pastors could call audibles and you'd have to play anything. It was kind of like a black gospel church, you know, for white people. - I love that.

I love that. So, you know, I was kind of involved in music, learned, you know, learn the ropes that way of how to play or whatever. But I was actually a friend of mine promoted a newsboy show when I was 18 years old. He was like a youth pastor and he asked if I would help out with that. So I was the runner for the band for the day. Like the guy who just does the errands and drives the band to the hotel and back. And that's how I met them.

And so my friends behind the scenes apparently were telling the guys like, hey, this guy plays keyboards about, you know, and I'm like, OK, whatever. So I get a call like three months later after that whole experience. And it was the lead singer of Newsboys saying, hey, we need a keyboard player. Would you be interested?

So within like 10 days, I dropped out of college, moved to Nashville and hopped on a tour bus. That's the short version of the story. No way. Yeah. 19 years old. God written all over at that point. Went from never leaving Michigan to do in 280 cities in one year. Did you ever find yourself obviously at 19 years old? Yeah. It's.

very hard. Did you ever have that challenge when it came to religion or Christianity of like being a normal 19 year old or wanting to be a normal 19 year old? Yeah. Whether it's, I mean, let's face it, whether it's like going and sleeping around or drinking or doing things that just happen. Yeah. I think like a lot of kids, you know, I growing up in a Christian home, like you hear about

you know, biblical principles, like godly living, all these things, you know, your parents try to instill in you. I think when you turn 18 and like you said, you leave home is when the rubber hits the road. Like that's when you have to apply the things you've learned and see if they're real or not. So, I mean, for me, it was like, it was a great experience. Like I remember going to college, you know, going from like a very conservative Christian high school to a public university for a couple of years. And I was like,

wow, this is where I get to put things into practice. This is real life. And so it was good. It was good for me. And like, yeah, I mean, there's challenges with anything. Like as a kid, just traveling the world as a teenager was like insane. You know, you were learning things on the fly, you know, so those first couple of years were insane. Honestly, I thought it was never going to last. I thought I'll do this for a year or two. This band is going nowhere and I'll just go back to college.

and here we are 30 years later. - This band is going nowhere. - We were so unorganized back then. - We still are. - What do you mean back then? - And what about you when you came into the band? How did that happen?

Going from the band that you started and then into Newsboys. Yeah. It just happened. I mean, we're just friends. I would say most of what we do on the road, it doesn't matter how good of a player or a singer you are, it's about chemistry on the road. And so if you can get along with people when you're living in a tour bus for half the year, at least, that's one of the big things. And we'd known each other for so long and we all kind of had the same...

like drive to, to do this. And, you know, uh, I had the same vision of, of trying to play music and, and I could, I think just in this recent season, I was able to fill in maybe a couple of gaps that, you know, not that they needed anybody to add into the band, but, but also times are evolving. Yeah. It could be, would it, would it add anything? Yeah, maybe. And so I think, I think it helps a little bit, um, just to add in,

somebody like me who I play a bunch of different instruments and so whatever the song needs I can kind of jump in and help and it takes a little bit of pressure off the rest of the guys and so with your music are you guys writing it?

Yeah, for the most part. I mean, Adam is probably more involved with the writing side of things than I am. I'm more involved with the production of the show and the behind the scenes technical stuff and music directing and band directing and stuff like that. But yeah, Adam, especially on this new record, has really taken a huge role with the writing side. And I mean, songwriting is such an interesting craft because, you know, people don't realize that songwriting is mostly failure, you know, like, yeah.

it takes a thousand songs written that don't go anywhere before the one is a success, you know? So that's why musicians are so kind of weird personality wise, because all they've done is like fail at these things until they get that one thing. And all I have to say, Adam's kind of a good example of that. Like I've seen. A good example of failure. A good example.

Great. We have Adam be a good example of failure. And then we've got Jack the Comedian. That's about right. But in a serious way, like, you know, I've seen, I've watched Adam's career before he was even in the band and what he's been through and the struggles and all that kind of stuff of really chipping away at it and his faithfulness in it.

and just like last year, he wrote a number one song for Toby Mac. Just had that, and I think for him, he can talk about it more, but seeing him, seeing that drive and that vision pay off for him was awesome for me to watch. That's awesome. It's been cool to be invited in to write for

Newsboys, right? Like, I mean, it's, it's crazy thing. You can help write the Newsboys album. And so, uh, I remember the first day we started writing for this new record. We, we did a writer's, uh, camp at our label and, uh,

The first day I wrote like three songs because I was actually in the room with great writers and I was just like, this is amazing. And, you know, I wouldn't have to do everything myself. And, you know, it was everybody's excited to write for, you know, a band like Newsboys. So it was just it was really fun. And and it's just been it's been cool. Like like Jeff said, getting to write a couple songs that people finally get to hear. Is there a song on this album that is very personal to you?

Yeah, I would say the first song I wrote for this album is a song called How Many Times. And it'll come out whenever the album releases on July 19th, I think. But it's basically a song about...

me joining the band. - Oh wow. - It just talks about, it talks about how many times God has just proven that he loves me and that he's faithful and that you go through these things in your life and you go through moments where you just can't understand why this would happen and it just makes no sense. And then through the journey,

at least for me, God has given me just a little glimpse of, okay, that happened for this reason. Okay. That happened for this reason. I'm still here with you. Yeah. And just those little touch points along the way, it just,

it's just proven how many times that he's, he's been there for me. And even when I, you know, mess up or I, you know, fail miserably, he's still right there. Or even when I turn away and I'm just like, you know, I'm done with this. He still follows me down that path. And he's just right there as soon as I turn around. Yeah. And so I think that's the biggest misconception about Christianity. Religion as a whole is like, it's supposed to fix everything. You know, people look at it as this tool to, you know,

just save you and like, oh, if I like, if I turn to God, he's going to fix it. Right. But in reality, it's all of the valleys that you're in that prepare you for that big moment.

Yeah. Yeah. It's not a, it's not a, it's not a bandaid. It's not a fixer upper kind of thing. It's, it's just a journey. But what it is is it's a, there's a peace and there's a hope that you don't have if, if you don't have that faith and if you don't have that experience. Um, and I, I would not be where I am right now. I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be married for 23 years. I wouldn't have kids and be in this position with this band if I

if I didn't believe what I believe. - Yeah, and I say, I definitely say after the pandemic, everyone wanted something to believe in. Like I look at what was something positive that came from it, I feel like after that, everyone was searching for something to believe in. - I feel like they still are too. I feel like the world's definitely a different place. I think that the pandemic time made you think about

at least for me, like what's my identity? Am I just, am I Jeff the musician or am I Jeff the father or the person or the follower of Christ? You know? And I think a lot of us, we find our, our identity in things that are pretty fickle. And I think the pandemic exposed that to a lot of people. Cause they're like, Oh, I lost my job or I can't go visit my friends or I lost a family member or whatever it was. So yeah, I think, um,

That's one great thing about the music that we play is that it can play a role in people's lives. Like I think they're healing. I think that's why we've been able to do it for so long. Cause I think if we were just at it for our own,

You know, that kind of wears out over time. But I feel like all of us in the band feel like there's something greater going on and we can be a part of that. Whatever, whatever God has for the world. Hey, that's, that's a great thing. Yeah. And during the, during the pandemic, because you guys at that point, no one was touring. Oh man. We were, we had it the worst. We were in Ohio and we had, we,

We've been watching everything, all the news and government shutdowns and it's coming. We're in Ohio, we are set up for a show. Ready to go in this theater and we're waiting on the governor's announcement at 2:00 p.m. And sure enough, 2:00 p.m. we're all watching the TV and he shuts it down. Everything's shut down and so we just tear down our stuff and we're like, well, we'll drive to our next show which is in Pennsylvania. Surely they'll let us do a show.

No, shut down. And so we just came home and then we were home for like a year, like a little over a year. I remember driving home from that last time we tried to play sitting in the back of the bus. And I was thinking to myself, this

this might be the last time I ever do this. Who knows what's going to happen. Back then, everyone thought we were all going to die. - Yeah, literally. - So yeah, and I'm sitting in the back of the bus bouncing down the road, looking at Jody, who I played in a band with for, you know, 30 years thinking, wow, this is crazy. The world's never seen anything like this. And we were the first people to shut down and like the last people to kind of get our jobs back. So after,

after touring for 28 years, we were home every single day for a year. And that's why we had our fourth child. You know, all the pandemic kids. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah, that's, you look at it too, because I have so many friends who are in the music industry here. And I feel like there was zero support for artists when it came to

like you said, the whole identity crisis. And because a lot of these artists, that's all they've ever known. Like that's where you find your identity. That's where you find your validation and love and all these different things. And then when it stops. Yeah. And to financially it,

Everyone took a hit. Identity is a huge thing. I mean, and I've been trying to navigate that with my daughter. She's 17. Okay. And so identity in high school and she had to go through the pandemic online school and just in middle school, like it's awful, right? It's awful. It's miserable.

And so having to find her identity, not in her friends, not in how popular she is, not in, uh, how much she has or doesn't have, we live in a, a pretty nice place where there, you know, you can see really nice cars driving around and every, you know, every kid in her school has a nice house and has stuff. And it's like, that's not where you find your identity. You find your identity and what God thinks about you. And, and he loves you more than anything. And so, uh,

I think refocusing into that really takes the pressure off of a lot of other things. Yeah. Well, life has a way of humbling you for sure. Like that's what I say about the past two years of my life is like God has a way of humbling you and, but it's not always a bad thing because now it's finding purpose in the pain is what a lot of people

people struggle to do, but I feel like you have to seek it out. Like you have to seek out the purpose. - Correct, yeah. - And I know for me, like if it wasn't for both my parents being in prison, I wouldn't care about what was happening. Like let's face it, you don't, until you're slapped in the face with it, you just don't know any better. And then you look at it and it's like, all right, God, why me? Why me?

And I'll never forget, even as a kid, I was 15 years old. I had gone through so much trauma and all kinds of stuff. And I tried committing suicide.

I came home from the hospital that next morning and there was a daily devotional and my dad's email and it was from Joel Osteen and it was Romans 8, 28. And it basically says every hardship adversity you go through, I'll turn around and use it to your advantage. And it was like in the snap of a finger that I went from why me to why not me, you know, like what makes me better than anyone else to have to deal with this. And so let's figure out what the purpose is. And

And when you start looking at life that way, I feel like so many people are afraid to look at life that way because you don't know what you would be without the things that had happened to you or the things that you had gone through. No, it's an amazing story. And I think that, you know, that's, you know,

what we were talking about earlier, you know, God doesn't promise you that everything's going to be perfect if you follow him. But we do know, you know, not how the story ends, but we know where we're going. We know where that purpose is. And yeah, I think a lot of us are in denial of facing things like you have head on and asking those questions. And obviously your life will never be the same, but in a positive way and what you're doing now is incredible. So that's fantastic. But yeah,

Yeah, there's hardships in life. I mean, you know, we all go through them. We're all trying to raise kids. You know, I have four daughters, you know, trying to teach them. Like you look at, you look at the world. It just seems like sometimes it's just this beast that just wants to swallow everyone up. And, and so when you look at the world through a spiritual perspective and you actually believe that there is good and evil, like,

It's very helpful as a parent to raise your kids in that way instead of just like denying, like we're talking about, that those things even exist. Yeah. At Hotels.com, we know some travelers crave sand between their toes. Others want to be poolside with a drink on the way. And more often than not, those two people end up in a relationship. With the Hotels.com app, compare properties side by side across amenities like pool and ocean view.

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I think right now, obviously, with it being an election year, don't worry, I'm not going to ask you to do it, don't worry, but with it being an election year, you're seeing a lot come up

to do with faith and faith based organizations and all these different things. And you see a lot of people saying that Christianity is just a tool to hurt and judge and whether it's within the, you know, LGBTQ community and all these different things. And I, again, can't believe everything you read, but I did, there was one of you guys had made a comment about it that said,

we're not as divided as we like to believe. And that it's not, you know, basically your viewpoint on people that think, you know, okay, it's, you know, your music or being a Christian band, you're judgmental or you're not accepting. How do you respond to claims like that? I think, you know, as Christians,

you know, we're commanded to love above everything else. That's like, that was God's, you know, the new commandment that was giving, that was given. And I think, um, the best way I've heard it described is like, you're always going to have very extreme people on both sides of the spectrum who are the loudest, who are the loudest. And, and,

as you get more towards the middle, you find that most of us are actually a lot alike and share a lot more things in common than what we know of. I think a lot of the problem is that we've stopped talking to each other. We've stopped looking at each other face to face everywhere you go. - You become keyboard warriors. - Yeah, like if you go back into the 90s, if you remember those years,

Like if you wanted to buy anything, you had to go to a store. Like you were forced to like interact with other people on a daily basis. You don't have to do that anymore. And even after COVID made it even worse. And so I think we've really like...

we've hardened positions. I think there's nothing greater than like talking to somebody, even if it's somebody you don't agree with, who's a reasonable person, you can find something. How's your family? How's your kids? Like just those small things in life that we've stopped doing. - Well, that's what I say is I've said, we've- - We've just become bitter. - Yeah, everyone has become bitter to life circumstances.

And we also don't take time to get to know people because if you took time to get to know people, I have...

Granted, people follow me on social media. Clearly, you know, which side I lean. But I have friends who are on the complete opposite spectrum. And they're like my best friends. But we sit and talk and it's like, hey, I understand why you believe what you believe. Like because of things that had happened to you or maybe just who you are as a person. Like, I understand it. And I love you. And that's the thing is we don't take time to get to know people. And

And I even say now, just obviously with everything I'm doing in our prison system and I've partnered with pray.com to bring their technology into state prisons. So we're in the process of doing that. And I say that like those men and women, people just forget about, like they don't, they're just a number. And, and,

we need more people to go into these places to invest and to show that like, Hey, this isn't, this may be part of your story, but it's not who you are. And people forget like, that's who Jesus was. It's interesting. I learned a lot from my dad. Um, since you mentioned the prison thing, he had a prison ministry and had, uh, many people from his church that he, uh,

would go visit every week and follow him around to all the different prisons they went to. He had one that was convicted of murder and whole family had like disavowed this guy. And you know, my dad went to visit him even after all his own relatives had died. He was like the last person my dad ever talked to before he died. And my dad just had a heart for this guy.

and just like never gave up on him. And I think that, you know, did my dad have, you know, anything in common? Did he agree with what this guy did? No, but he was trying to show this guy that, you know, Christ died for him. Like the least of these, like wanted him to be redeemed. And I think, you know, getting back to what you said, I think that what we see now in our culture is like people,

they can't differentiate between disagreement of an opinion, of a viewpoint and hate. They feel like as soon as you disagree with their view, that they are being hated by you. But that's not what the Bible taught. You know, the Bible teaches us to love

firstly, and then you can have disagreements. It doesn't mean that you hate that person. You know, it's even something you have to teach your children, you know, like they think, Oh dad, you're mad at me. You don't like me. Cause I did something you don't agree with, but no, of course love is unconditional because God loves us unconditionally. So we're supposed to, you know, be like him. So we see it at our shows. We see our, our audiences are not like us.

Republican or Democrat. Like it's a, it's a mix. Like there's, there's people that, cause there's, there is a, there's a utopian side to each, each political view. Like you want the best of this is what this party represents. This is what this part, and you want to believe that. And, you know, obviously corruption happens and things get, get cloudy, but we, we really have a very diverse, uh,

And so sometimes, you know, you say some things from stage and you get half the crowds like, yeah. And half the crowds like, boo. And saying, yeah, what part of the country you're in. Fine. Yeah. But it is cool that we get to be a uniting place for people. Yeah. And that's the thing is you can come as you are. Yeah. Oh, 100%. And it's, you come to a show and it's,

you kind of forget about your differences for a little bit because you're all, you know, they're singing the same songs and doing the same thing. That's awesome. So this next album that's coming out, what would you, what, what's it titled and what's the message? It's called Worldwide Revival. And the message is just, we feel that, you know, even what we're talking about today, like the earth is just kind of,

ready and prepped and people are just looking for something. And I think that can be a revival. It can be a renewing and a rebirth of what might be already inside as far as a faith that you have that might've been growing stale or something, or it could be just something fresh and new that people are looking for something. They've tried everything. And it's like, I'm looking for something that's permanent, that's real, that actually does something.

make a difference in my life. And for anybody else out there that's just wanting to join with a movement, like that's what we're trying to do. We played hundreds of shows all the time, like a hundred shows a year. And we were always out there on the road. And so we're just trying to create this movement of

you know, being positive and pointing people to the King and giving people hope everywhere we go. So that's what the worldwide revival album is all about. It's, it's, uh, we started out with a song called heaven on earth. That, uh, is, it was our first song that we launched from it. Cause it kind of sums up, uh,

that duality of like, okay, we've got heaven and it seems far away, but we can experience that here on earth. And so the songs, it even talks about the moment in the Bible where it says the spirit came to earth and we can begin our lives, our eternal life here on earth before we move on to the next phase in life. - That's what I say. I say, there's a story of when I went and visited my dad for the first time.

And obviously you don't know what to expect. You're like, okay, you hear all these horror stories. And I will never forget sitting in that visitation room in a prison. I was like, I've never felt the presence of Jesus more. Like going in, not knowing how anxiety filled, like just not knowing what to expect. And then you look and you're like,

This is what it's about. Yeah. Like these people and people who felt forgotten about, like you see more tears, more laughter, more, all these things in these visitation rooms. And it's just, it causes you, because I've,

have a problem in saying. I always thought like, oh, you're in prison, then yep, you belong there. Like, you're a bad person. You're this. But when you actually start looking into it and educating yourself, you're like, ah, okay, it's not all that I thought it was. No, it's not. And it's, even Michael, our lead singer, his brother spent 28 years in prison. Mm-hmm.

was released a couple years ago so he's come out to quite a few shows his name's Nate and I love that yeah and so we've been able to hang out with him and just you know a deep person now after living what he's been through made a lot of horrible decisions and a lot of

bad mistakes, you know, but like you said earlier, there, there, if you go back, there are reasons for that, you know, and now to see him out and like coming out on the bus and hanging out with us and telling, telling us about what he's been through. Like I have, like you said, a lot of compassion for people. That's what Christ had for people too. He was always sniffing around with the least of these, you know, and he would probably be,

ridiculed by Christians now if he behaved like he did then here now on earth, no question about it. So it's always something good to keep in the back of your mind. Like, you know, how would Jesus treat these people? He would love them. He would want to forgive them. He'd want them to find

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And I think too, it's when it comes to Christianity, faith-based programming, anything in that nature, it was when I started working with pray.com, obviously they're all about the numbers too of it. And I met the founder and he sends me all these studies and they did a study at an Ivy league school and said,

66% of the people who participated in this study had an overall increase in their mental health, like a decrease in anxiety, depression, and just better overall mental health. And you look at it and you're like, all right, it works. Yeah. Like it works. If you put in the time and you,

actively seek it out, it works. - Yeah, it's super interesting when you talk about going into the visitation rooms or prisons, we've done prison ministry stuff. We've played in there and it's, there's just a different, there's just a different feel to the place. And some other places where we've done some mission work, we build houses down in Tijuana in Mexico, or we travel all over the world to some of these places. And some places where

maybe they don't have as much or they don't have anything and they're not as busy or they don't have all this other stuff that... - All the distractions. - Yeah, exactly. It's interesting that the veil between the spiritual world and our actual world is much thinner in those places. And so you can feel things that you don't really feel when you're just hanging out here in Nashville.

on a daily basis. You go to some of these places and it's, and it's life or death. Cause God's all they've got. Yeah. And, and it, but, but I think he also, he also reveals himself in a different, more like physical relationship.

in those places because that's what those people need in that moment. Yeah. More than, you know, something like we have the access to be able to pursue our faith in whatever way we want to. We can do research. We can do, we can go to any church we want to go to. We can pray any way we want to.

But some of these people, this might be the first and only time that they're hearing about this and God's going to show up and he's going to do it in a way that is so mind blowing that these people are completely changed and they have no other way to think about God other than he did this miracle in this place. And we've seen some stuff that's,

unexplainable. We've experienced things that. What would you say is the most, is the craziest, just God moment that you've experienced that you're still like, was that real? Was it, did I dream it? Did. Ah, man, I, and there's one that comes to mind that is, is pretty spectacular. I remember, uh,

A few years back, we got invited. This was a crazy invitation to play in the country of Morocco. And it was actually the king of Morocco's, like, they were trying to organize a music festival there. It's all a little unclear. But it was a...

Fest. So they were doing this music festival where they wanted to have like Muslim musicians play and they wanted to bring in some Christian musicians to play. And it was kind of like a piece sort of thing to, you know, a cultural whatever. So we got the invitation and we were like,

you want to do this? And we thought about it for about two seconds. We're like, yeah, let's go. You know, that's this, this will be unlike anything we've ever done before. Let's check it out. So, you know, we meet their delegation and they have these dinners for us. And then, you know, they, they have this, this festival and some of the other artists there, I mean, didn't even speak English. We were like the guests from the Western country or whatever. And so we were playing our show literally in the desert of Marrakesh on a stage and

And it was, uh, almost a completely Muslim crowd, super polite. They were like kind of taking it all in watching this Christian band play, but there was like soldiers with machine guns lined up across the front of the stage, kind of monitoring the crowd or whatever. And we have this song called, uh, I am free. And it talks about just, you know, freedom you find in Christ, you know, like we were talking about. And as we played that song, um,

like the soldiers started dancing and like their AK-47s and we're like, I'll get into it. And you could tell, like, I don't know exactly how to explain it, but like something spiritual happened there. Yeah. When you, when you, you know,

the Lord showed up with those people. They saw something they had not seen before, almost like an old Testament style way or whatever, you know? And it was awesome. We've seen that and we've seen it happen over and over again. But I think, you know, like, and you see Christianity growing in countries where,

Not America, you know, but in countries like Latin America and in other places, it's growing way faster than anywhere else. Yeah. India, all these places. Because again, when you, you know, when you're in a place where you're searching and you're, you're crying out and you just don't have all life's modern conveniences, you depend on God. And he shows up. I feel like people just.

There was an increase in Christianity during that time and even after because people wanted something to believe in. Yeah. And people who have a relationship with Christ know that like when I have nothing, I have that. Yep. And so Adam, what would you say? Like something that sticks out to you? Oh man. There's a lot, but I think one of the craziest things, and I'll go back to what we talked

what we've done, Newsboys for the last, I guess, for 25 years have been partnering with Baja Christian Ministries down in Mexico, building houses for people who are living under tarps and in tents and stuff. And

multiple times we've taken teams down there and we half the trip as we go and we build a couple of little 16 by 20 houses for families and we take a couple years we took over a hundred people down there and we'd build four or five houses for people and but

but that's only half of it. Um, and then the other half is we would go and we would just knock on doors and speak terrible Spanish to these people and just invite them out to a little gathering. And, uh, so we'd set up this little tent in the middle of their little community and we'd just invite everybody out and we'd give them, you know, give the kids like watermelon and give the, uh, adults a Bible and a little devotional book in Spanish. And we would just, we'd pray for them and we'd,

We'd talk to him and we would see, like, you would see people, like, one time there was a guy who was demon possessed. And he was just kind of like, he was crouched over and like,

contorted and just screaming and whatever and and he he was on the outskirts of our meeting and when we started talking about Jesus and we started saying the name of Jesus he's he was screamed and ran and like fell down like 20 yards away and some guys went over and they prayed for him and he got up and

he was just fine and clear and totally like normal. And it was weird. And I'm like, I don't, I don't like to over-spiritualize stuff. And I'm just like watching this and I'm going, it's just, I couldn't explain it. And it was just bizarre. And everybody's like, his family's crying because they're like, he has been messed up for so long. And

He's back. And it was just this, you know, nothing that we did or anything, but we just showed up and God puts people in the right place. Yeah. It was just a miracle. And it's just, it's wild.

- That is insane. I can only imagine the stories you guys hear or the things that you see or the like. - Oh yeah, actually I had one more that was crazy. One time I was in, we were in Uganda, Africa and we were on a missions trip there and doing some filming and stuff. And we went to visit an orphanage, like in a little tiny village, little tiny room, like the size of the studio.

And so we had our acoustic guitars with us and there was like 20 orphans in the room. And so they're like, oh, can you play some music? You know, so we're playing He Reigns, which was, you know, a popular song that a lot of people know. And so there were some other missionaries that lived at the other end of the village that heard that somebody was there playing music. And

And they came down to, uh, to see what it was all about. And so they come in the door while we're playing and the, the two missionaries, young couple, they just start crying. I'm like, wow, this is crazy. And, uh, so after it, they're like, yeah, we, um, when we were like teenagers, we,

we were listening to that song and we felt like God called us into ministry. And here we are like 10 years later, and you guys just happened to be in the village that we're in in Uganda. - Holy cow. - And they're like, this is just like, you know, one of those things that's just too crazy to be a coincidence. - Holy cow. - Stuff like that happens all the time. Like, and even kids, like families who sponsor children at our shows,

they'll look at the sponsorship packet of the kid that they're sponsoring and their birthdays will be the same. - That we just hand out randomly. - Randomly. - Just a completely random. - Yeah, I'll sponsor a child, hand them a random packet and it's like, well, this is the date of-- - Our anniversary. - Or it's like our son passed away a year ago and this is his birthday. It's just like-- - It's crazy. - And that's the thing, for people that say,

I don't believe in that. God's not real. I'm like, explain it. It's harder to not believe. It's hard. That's what I say. And I say, I'm like, you know what? If guess what? If I'm wrong and there is no heaven and there is no, if I'm wrong, then what do I look? I lose. I lose nothing. But if I'm right. Yeah. What do you lose? It's much harder to disprove a creator.

Like just take a simple, like a book, like how the, how'd all the words get in there together? How'd the letters get in there? Somebody created it. It didn't just happen like out of nothing. So I, that's, it's just harder to disprove it. What would you say to people listening that are maybe struggling to believe or maybe not

you know, they can't quite get themselves to that point to do the research or to come to a show or to go to a church. Yeah. I think like, I mean, there's probably a quite a few different answers to that. I think that for a lot of people, they've had bad experiences with Christians. And I think sometimes as Christians, we can be

the worst face of Christianity to people who don't believe. And so I would never proudly say that like we have it all together and we're perfect. Like we talked about before, we're all works in progress. But if I was searching, you know, I would probably,

I think a lot of what you see about Christianity on the outskirts of the people that have the biggest voices, probably, you know, you have to be discerning, you know, there's, there's good voices, there's bad voices. There's, there's people that are in things for the wrong reasons. There are leaders that make mistakes. So,

people are always gonna let you down. You know, if you're following a person because of what they say, there's a good chance at some point that person's gonna make a mistake and could cause you to lose your way. So,

you know, to me, it's finding those mentors, whether it's books, authors, you know, do you have to go back, maybe going back to the classics like C.S. Lewis or some of these writers? Some people need that sort of apologetic writing, like they want to see more proof. Other people need to feel it. Other people kind of know something's there, but they just need need help. But I think that

as somebody who's, you know, if you're searching, don't be afraid to dig deeper behind the surface. Cause like people, especially Christians will, we will let you down, you know? And so it's good to be aware of that, you know, when you're getting into it. And if you feel like,

you know, you're not in a place where you feel like you're, like you're loved by other Christians, then you probably need to go somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. Hotels.com knows that planning your book club's annual trip can get chaotic. Self-improvement Steve needs a hotel gym and horror Harriet ghosted the group chat about budget. Collaborate, vote on your favorites and book all in the app. Find your perfect somewhere with hotels.com.

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- Yeah, I think if you really wanna know about something, then I think you just have to put, it's like anything, you have to put in time. Like if you wanna get fit, you gotta go to the gym and you can't just go once. You gotta go a bunch of times. You've only gone once and you look great. - Yeah, yeah.

No, it's like anything worth doing. It takes time and it takes commitment. And so it doesn't, you don't have to do anything fancy. I don't think, I think it's just a matter of spending the time in, it could be meditation, prayer, whatever you need to do in order to earnestly seek after God.

Yeah. And I, I fully believe that even if you're just sitting in your bedroom and you're like, you know what, I'm going to take the next 10 minutes and I'm just going to be quiet. I'm just going to listen. And I'm just going to just be like, God, just, just prompt me, say something. Yeah. And I think, I think he'll show up and he will. Sometimes it takes, you know, one time or sometimes it takes long, long time and multiple, multiple goes at it. Um,

it just depends on the situation. But I think individually, if you earnestly try and pray and try and seek what God, you know, just ask him to talk to you, ask him to say something to you. Yeah. I think he will. And I think too, for people that are listening, it's so hard when you, like you said, sometimes Christians can say,

really do you in. No, I can really do you in. Um, even right now there's a few women that I'm speaking to that were part of this huge, um, in Dublin, California, there was a prison out there and the guards, warden and chaplain sexually abused them. And you look at that and

a chaplain did that. So now these women are also, they don't want to touch God. They don't want to touch him. And I get that. And it's so hard to try to, you know,

I totally get it. But at the same time, I think it's a reminder that like, God didn't do that to you, you know, like this, this person did. And that is not a depiction of God. Correct. Yeah. Then that's what's so hard to try to help people through and to, but I do believe that it's like, God gave us all a platform for a reason. And hopefully if someone's listening to this, they can take that.

from it and realize that when you've got nothing else, you've got him. Yep. Yep. A hundred percent. Well, I thank you guys so much for coming on. The album comes out July 19th. Yeah. July 19th. You're shut. What's your touring like right now? Uh, we're getting ready to go on a big West coast run, which would be fun. We got a bunch of shows coming

Coming up here in the next couple months and shooting a music video. And we got all kinds of fun stuff coming up. That is awesome. Yeah, we're always on the road so you can check our schedule. Yeah, that's what I was about to say. Where can people find you guys? Newsboys.com's got everything you could ever hope for. And what else? What else we got? Oh, one other thing is you said you were a fan of God's Not Dead. God's Not Dead. I...

love that movie and that's I think that's a good place for people to start honestly if you are questioning yeah if you maybe are like this isn't real I don't believe it I need answers yeah I'm telling you I've met people who have seen that movie and just like that that's awesome like y'all saw people were walking out of theaters in tears yeah because it

it causes you to think. And if, if you want more, God's not dead, it's kind of like the fast and furious. There are basically, there are several of them. Um, and we actually just filmed another one. And so it's called, it's called God's not dead in God. We trust. So is that like, it comes out in September number one,

I'm not sure what number it is. I want to say five. 45? No, wait, four or five. I want to say five. I don't really know, but I think it's five. And so we've got a couple of songs in that movie. We actually make an appearance in that movie. Some incredible acting. You can see Jeff's acting skills. Oh, I cannot wait. He's just brilliant. So that comes out in September. I think it comes out in September, yeah. And what can you tell us about

that movie? Oh. The storyline of it. Well, it's funny. They actually sent me the script last year and they're like, hey, do you want to

try to write a song or something for the, for the movie. And so I was like, yeah. And a buddy of ours flew in from LA to write with us and we were trying to figure out what to write. And he was like, Oh, I got this idea. It's called in God we trust. And I showed him my phone and I had the same exact in God we trust. Like as the, this is what, after reading the script, I feel like we should do this. And then it turns out they actually called the movie.

In God We Trust, which is crazy. Wow. And so it's basically about this pastor who reluctantly runs for office. Congress. And Jeff's actually seen the movie. I haven't seen it yet. But...

It's about his journey through all the, you know, all the navigating through all the process and like reluctantly, you know, deciding whether or not he wants to do it, feeling a call on his life and having to debate his enemy, the senator at the end. So, yeah, it's it's cool. Standing up for what he believes in the political realm. Yeah, I.

Hey, the people who started God's Not Dead, they knew what they were doing coming out with this movie during an election year. Oh, yeah, absolutely. They knew what they were doing, without a doubt. It's not an accident. No, not an accident. But I also love that it brings it back to...

In such a crazy year and politically to where everyone is so far left, so far right and at each other's throats. Yeah. It doesn't have to be that way. Right. And I feel like probably that's going to be the message of this movie. It is. It's the message of a song. Like we were very intentional with the lyrics of the song and God we trust. It's not a Christian nationalist song. It's not, it doesn't have any political anything. It's just, it's,

focused on, you know, this, this is, this is God. We put all of our faith and all of our trust in you to handle whatever, whatever, you know, whatever sides of the, the, the spectrum you're on. It's, it's all about, you know, we put all of our faith in God. That's amazing. So the album comes out July 19th. Yep. The movie is mid September, I believe. Okay. Yeah. Amazing. Well, all right. You guys can find them at newsboys.com. Maybe I'll see you at a show.

I'm going to go look at so many. Savannah's going to come to a show. Come on, Savannah. Come on. Thank you. Thank you so much. What if I told you that I just walked away from a wonderful and very high-profile fitness brand to pursue bigger dreams? And I broke away from my own golden handcuffs to pursue a more artistic life. What's up? I'm Kendall Toole. And I'm Gailey Alex. And we are so excited to share our new podcast,

We'll be right back.

and talking with you through building careers, self-worth, relationships. Oh, and get some good laughs, please. Or tears. There's tears. That's true. There's always tears. That's true. All with our hearts on the line. So if this sounds additive to your journey, we are here for you. Join us every week on Wholeheartedly with Kendall and Gailey. Wholeheartedly will be available July 17th. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcast.

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