A Vision and a Mission Part III

In October of 2006 I heard from God. I don't want to quote Him, but it was along the lines of, "You shall go forth and work as a minister to children." I quickly obliged.That's a whole other blog series. But suffice it to say that I finally had the audience I needed in order to commit to songwriting again. Tyra agreed that it would be fun to try to write some children's music. And that's where we were wrong.My mentor at that time (a guy named Dan Trippie—Google him) was showing me the ropes of children's ministry. I called Dan on my way to that first writing session at Tyra's place, and asked him what kind of kids' song we should write. "Well, I don't know much about music," Dan said, "but the last thing you should do is write a 'kids' song'."That may be the best advice anyone has ever given me. See, what Tyra and I planned to do was to write something that the kiddies could relate to. Big mistake—as anyone who has spent time with children can attest. Kids relate to real life. They relate to much the same stuff that us oh-so-smart grownups enjoy. So... we were free to write music that we loved! Music we would want loaded on our iPods.Tyra and I spent many hours writing and developing a new sound for Journey Church's "Expedition Kids" ministry. And a unique approach to teaching God's Word began to emerge through the lyrics. We had a blast. And the kids and families of Journey responded in a big way. My buddy from church, Neal Hager, was especially digging the tunes, right from the start.To be continued...