Interview:

I remember the first time I heard the Bryan Adams song “Summer of ’69”. Suddenly the day was brighter, the sun shone a little warmer, and it seemed as if everyone was a little happier. That song took me into an experience of summer that Bryan Adams had before I was even born. This is the power of music. It transports people to places that would otherwise be impossible for them to go. Forgiveness is often one of those places that is hard, if not impossible, for many people to go. It doesn’t take long for us to put walls up in our heart that are too big for us to get over or around. We put these walls in place in an attempt to protect ourselves from the pain that hurt us in the first place. The only problem is, these same walls that stop hurt coming in also stop love, affection, relationship, kindness, and truth coming in too. This is where the arts hold a special anointing.

Music and the arts have an ability to bypass the normal filtering systems and walls that we as people put in place. For example, there a lot of people who would never step foot into a church to hear a preacher give his sermon, but they will listen to a Christian song over and over again, even singing it themselves, whether they agree with it or not. Take the Christmas carols for example. Thousands, if not millions, of non-believers sing carols like “Joy to the world, the Lord is come” every year even-though they don’t yet believe that Jesus even came! This is a unique position that the arts alone seem to hold.

Most people, like me, don’t like being told what to say. We don’t like people putting words in our mouths, and yet, as song-writers this is what we are doing all the time. We have the unique privilege of telling people what to say. The Bible makes it clear in Proverbs 18:21 that: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue”. Meaning that words have the power to give life or to kill. As song-writers we are able to get people singing words of life over themselves, saturating their homes and families with an atmosphere of life. This is incredibly powerful! We have seen dozens of people healed just because we have created an atmosphere of life around us. The most powerful way to do this is through the arts.

I have a friend who is a great artist. He is also a prophet and loves to share what God is saying over cities. The only problem is people have so many preconceived ideas about God and Christians that they aren’t really interested in hearing what we have to say. This is where the arts come in. My friend heard of a campaign the local council was running in his city to bring some culture through the arts to the place. They wanted several artists to paint a design with some meaning on a number of specific locations. He submitted his design which in his own way reflected the heart of God to his city.

The council loved it and ended up asking him to paint his design on the most central location they had available! Once he has finished the piece, the local TV station came to him and asked him one simple question and before he knew it he was prophesying over his entire city through this local television station with an audience that wanted to hear what he had to say. Now thousands of people see the piece of art every week.

Forgiveness and love are two things that only come when we are willing to lay down the right to “make sense” of things. Why? Because love and forgiveness often make no sense at all! In the information age we live in, intellectualism and logical reasoning are of such value that it is often hard for us to step into love and forgiveness because they don’t make logical sense. Music and the arts have a way of teaching us things we cannot be taught. We hear and see things we would normal refuse to hear or see. The arts have an ability to soften our hearts where they break the walls down from the inside, allowing the two way river of love and forgiveness to flow again.

“Forgiveness is often one of those places that is hard, if not impossible, for many people to go.”
– Josh Klinkenberg, Singer-Songwriter