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In a year that saw a wave of new musical talent flood the Christian music scene, MercyMe emerged as the top-selling new artist of 2001 and continues to be strong in 2002. Truth be told, the band isn't really new. The five guys that make up the acoustic pop worship band have been travelling together for seven years, recording six projects in the process. After years of playing camps and churches, the band got the attention of the folks at INO Records. With the release of the group's national debut, Almost There, a whole new audience has been introduced to "I Could Only Imagine," a song that has become the band's career hit. MercyMe sat down with FamilyChristian.com shortly before their debut national album released to talk about that powerful song and the priority of worship.

FamilyChristian.com: Where does the name MercyMe come from?

Bart: I was working in a church in Florida as a youth intern, which means I really didn't do much other than staple stuff. I'm from Dallas, Texas, and every time my grandmother would call-she would call me any time of the day-I'd be home answering the phone. She was like, "What do you do all day?" and sarcastically I would say, "Well, I'm trying to chalk off the next year to spend time finding a band name." And she said, "Well mercy me, why don't you get a real job?" I thought, "Wait a minute. That's the perfect name." That kind of freed up my year but that's where the name came from.

FamilyChristian.com: As a band, do you see yourselves more as worship leaders or artists?

Mike: Definitely worship leaders, first and foremost. We enjoy doing concerts and stuff too but we really feel that everything that we do needs to lead to a point of worship. That's what we were created to do so it's real easy to get to that point.

FamilyChristian.com: What do you see as your mission as a group? What do you hope to accomplish?

Robby: Our biggest goal as a band is to know God and to make Him known. That's our mission as people. Our mission as a band is to hopefully enter into God's presence and as we do that, we draw and bring other people that are in the audience with us. That's what a worship leader does. They don't just say, "Go there and do that." They actually lead them. They actually go there first and then people follow. And so that's what our goal is, to lead people and not just say, "Go there."

FamilyChristian.com: Do you have a principal songwriter?

Mike: Bart, our lead singer, writes 99% of the lyrics. Nathan, our bass player, also has written a couple of songs for us and we all pitch in a little bit. Musically, it's usually a team effort. There have been a few songs where Bart's been inspired and written at home on his own on his piano, but for the most part the band all pitches in for music and Bart writes most of the lyrics.

FamilyChristian.com: Bart, what inspires you lyrically?

Bart: It's more or less life experience. I don't know if it's fortunately or unfortunately, going through a lot of different things in life, tragically or good times or whatever. My father passed away of cancer when I was 18 and I realized a lot of students, more than I thought, could relate. It's not really about having all the answers. It's sharing your feelings. You have two choices when tragic stuff happens. You either run from God or hang on to Him with both hands, and fortunately I found myself hanging on more and more, and through all this finding a more passionate love for Christ. I think that you write about whatever consumes your heart.

You've got some bands—Christian or not—that are political bands, or they write love songs or whatever. Christ consumes us. I think we would always write about Christ because it's who we are. People are like, "Do you have to try to write like that?" I'm like, "No, it pretty much comes naturally. That's all we're about." For example, right before I got married, I wrote about my wife a lot and being in love. Being worship leaders, Christ is such a huge part of us that it shows up in our lyrics. I'm assuming that it will pretty much always be that way. If it changes, then we obviously have to reevaluate our lives because something has changed within us. Christ hasn't changed.

FamilyChristian.com: Although most music fans think of you as a new band, you've have been around for awhile, putting together six independent records and touring together for seven years. Tell me about the journey.

Bart: We started out as a concert band seven years ago. We thought we were going to play stuff and people were going to come hear us. But as an independent band you learn to be flexible. We did church camps and everything else so we learned a lot of worship songs to cover. We had no intention of being a worship band but you had to pay the bills. After awhile, students wanted to hear these songs we were doing at camps. So we went in and did a couple of concert albums. Then we went in and did an album of just cover tunes of worship songs and students really responded to it well. We made another album after that of cover songs and then after awhile, we weren't really satisfied being a cover band. It was like, there's got to be more to this.

We started hearing youth ministers and students saying, "We want new worship." Not that there's anything new under the sun, but they wanted new music. And so that's when we locked ourselves up in an old Sunday school room and started writing our own worship. That's kind of scary because you feel like you're using people as guinea pigs to see if they worship to the stuff that you're writing. In a couple of days we wrote the whole album. It's called The Worship Project and that's what pretty much changed our lives. We realized that God was making evident that that's where He wanted us. It's really cool to think that there's a possibility that we just might write music that lasts longer than we do.

FamilyChristian.com: So let's shift gears to the present. If you were to write a review for Almost There, how would you describe it?

Jim: It's hard to describe because people that are familiar with our stuff from the past will hear our influence. Obviously the lead vocals sound the same, but a lot of the other stuff is totally different because we were able to do more production-wise. You can hear anything from U2, Delirious, even maybe Sarah McLachlan influences, but it's not one particular style you could describe. I don't know. [laughs] I guess you'll just have to buy the album at Family Christian Stores to find out!

FamilyChristian.com: I first heard "I Could Only Imagine" in November of 2000 and it was one of those moments that stay with you because it's such a powerful song. Bart, what's the backstory?

Bart: My father passed away when I was 18. From that point on I became very consumed with the idea that my dad was in heaven—a place—and thinking about the things that he was seeing. My dad had cancer and he went from like 300 and something pounds to 118 so it was a rough time when he passed away. And heaven meant so much more because I knew his strength was renewed and he was in his new body.

I'm just a guy that doesn't have the answers. There were a lot of nights I would lay my head on my pillow and wonder, "How am I going to react? Am I going to do what I do in church all the time? As far as the way I worship here, am I even close? To physically lay eyes on the One that's completely altered our lives is just going to blow my mind.

I always say in our concerts, there's probably going to be some Southern Baptists that can't sit still and some charismatics that are speechless. I think a lot of people have related to the song because it doesn't have any answers. It's just like, "God, I don't know how I'm going to respond to You but praise God I'll be there." In its way it brought comfort through a lot of stuff I went through. The song was only written a couple of years ago, but it's been ten years since my dad died. It's funny, I just talked with a guy last night and he was like, "You've been talking about this song for ten years" and I'd forgotten that I had so it's been on my heart for a long time.

FamilyChristian.com: It's got to be humbling to know that that song is probably going to be used to comfort a lot of people going through loss.

Bart: It's amazing what it's done so far.

FamilyChristian.com: How would you define worship?

Nathan: In Romans it talks about worship being an act of service or an act of sacrifice. We don't really think of worship as a particular song or singing with a band or without a band. It's more of, in anything you do in life, a constant attempt to give God glory through whatever you're doing. We just try to apply that to music as well.

FamilyChristian.com: You never want to say that worship is a trend but there has been a growing awareness of the importance of worship in recent years. Why do you think this is?

Bart: It's funny because we've been doing this for several years and we've seen interviews and magazines and stuff that have said, "So and so has jumped on the worship bandwagon." It's so ironic for the fact that what we've been created to do is worship. I think the thing that we take comfort in is that worship will last much longer than this industry will. It's so funny that over all the years and centuries that worship has taken place, it seems as if the industry has caught on just recently. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing. I hope that God finds glory through this.

The scary thing is that worship has a tendency to create a very shallow Christian, somebody that doesn't want to read the Word or hear the preaching because they like the fix that they get on worship. That just blows our minds because it's having a hunger for the Word and being consumed for that stuff that makes you want to worship. My personal outlook on worship is you have a lot of people that will come to a worship service and their desire is to take or fill up, it's more for themselves.

My idea of worship is coming into the presence of God and instead of taking, just pouring out. I think it's when we find ourselves in the Word and we find ourselves being obedient that we grow with a deeper love for Christ. Being more in love with Christ, the more we want to worship and bring Him the glory. What do I think about the [popularity of] worship? I think it's great. I think that there's going to be more people affected in a good way than in a bad way. I'm sure you've got some that are doing it for the wrong reasons. That's not my responsibility, it's not my problem. I know what God has called us to do and we're going to keep doing it as long as He allows us. A lot longer than the record deals and the interviews last, I pray that the five of us worship until He brings us home.

FamilyChristian.com: It's interesting because we're doing this interview in Nashville, Music City USA, but it sure seems that a lot of the worship stuff is coming out of Texas with Passion, Breakaway, Grace...Is there something in the water down there?

Jim: It's real interesting thinking of just the circle of our friends. We started out in Oklahoma City, actually, and out of that came Nathan and Christy Nockels from Watermark, Jami Smith, Charlie Hall, just tons and tons of people, and Trent Austin, who's done a lot of producing and playing on people's albums. It's kind of interesting how it's all kind of conglomerated in one area. I would say a lot of it has to do with being the Bible Belt, but I think it's a God thing that allowed all of us in that particular circle to interact with each other and grow with each other and learn from each other. Like Chris Tomlin, we've met him a few times. He wasn't in that group, but he's amazing too. There's no particular reason why it's from Texas. I think it's just an odd coincidence.

Mike: I think God put us there. When we first moved there we were going to the church where Nathan and Christy and Charlie Hall were all leading worship. I think that played a big influence on us as worship leaders. Charlie's one of the guys we really look up to as a worship leader and it's obvious why. I mean, you hear all the Passion stuff and he's truly got a heart for God.

FamilyChristian.com: If no one knew anything about MercyMe, what is it that you guys would want people to know?

Bart: If there was one thing people remembered MercyMe for, I would say that the biggest thing would be that we want—we're not perfect at it—to be uncompromising in the fact that we try very hard to be Christ-centered. If somebody left a concert and didn't think that everything revolved around the throne of Christ, or that it was not centered on Him, then we've completely done it in vain. It's ironic that there's Christian music, then there's "worship." I'm not sure where the two split off.

Last night we met a lady whose son passed away a couple of months ago. He was 18. She played the song "I Can Only Imagine" at his funeral. She walked up to me and showed me a picture of him and she said, "I want you guys to know that I didn't know any of your songs except that one and because of that song, I just saw Christ." That's the biggest compliment we could ever, ever receive.

FamilyChristian.com: What is God teaching you now?

Nathan: I'd have to say the biggest thing He's teaching me right now is patience. I guess that kind of encompasses a lot of things.

Mike: Definitely patience is something I'm learning right now, with all the record label stuff, having to wait for things to happen and see what it's going to be like. God's constantly humbling me, for sure, in the past six months or so. Hopefully He'll continue to do that because I can like myself a lot, let's just say that.

Robby: He's teaching me patience as well. Nathan took it from me. But I think He's also teaching me a lot about faith, trusting that He's going to take care of us in the future. Regardless of what happens with the record label, I know that our record exec and our producer and people like that are really pushing to make it the best that it can be. But regardless of that, we know that if it falls apart tomorrow, we're still going to do what we do. There's no time limit on worship, there's no expiration date, if you can put it that way. And so He's teaching me a lot about faith and that He's going to bring us to where He wants us. He's going to sell as many albums as He wants us to sell. We don't have to worry about that kind of thing.

Bart: God teaches me humility on a regular basis. In what we do and with the small amount of success that we've seen so far, it would be easy to think that you're really good. I'm constantly reminded through the Word and through people we meet on the road that God is a sovereign God who will sit on His throne long after our sorry selves are gone. There's a comfort in knowing that we're not in control of this and that we can lean on something that is much bigger than us. It's just a sweet thing to be reminded constantly that it's not about you. We say in concert all the time that we can't perform well enough, I can't sing well enough and we can't say the right words to change lives—only the Holy Spirit can do that. It never fails—some of our worst nights are the times when God moves the most and we walk away and go, "How in the world could somebody could be changed? Oh yeah—it wasn't us. That's right."

Almost There by MercyMe

Jim: Besides patience, trust is a big one because I think we've all learned as a band and individually to trust God. We hear kids come up all the time after shows and say "Oh, you're incredible" and this and that but we realize that it's way beyond our scope because of things like an email the other day from Spokane, Washington when we've never even played remotely close to there. I think San Francisco is as close to that as we got.

It's boggled our minds, basically, to see what God had done because to us it's a gradual progression. But if we look back on the whole picture and look at how many albums we've been blessed with selling, the fact that we've got our own bus and sound and good instruments and all that, it's just amazing because we're not very good musicians. Bart's an incredible vocalist but we're just average musicians. There are so many people out there that are better than us but God has decided to put His hand on this ministry and bless it for who knows what reason. That's taught all of us to learn to trust Him because there's so many times when we're like, "Man, what are we doing this for?" When the bus is broken down at 3 a.m. and we're trying to figure out what's going on. And then you go to a show and just last night Bart was able to lead three high school guys to Christ. Things like that [make us think], "Man, this is way beyond us." And so we just trust God to lead us where we're going and show us the right direction.

Jen Abbas, a writer in Grand Rapids, Mich., originally conducted this interview exclusively for FamilyChristian.com.

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