I’ve had a couple people ask me recently, “So what exactly IS Surrender?.” At the time, most of them were more or less asking “WHO is Surrender?” But I believe it to be something more than a band. So here it is.
“Surrender” is three-fold.
1. An Industry Tool – a means of bringing Kingdom music to the world. To clarify, this aspect of Surrender is focussed on primarily using people (musicians & otherwise) who are gifted for the professional aspect of the music industry, and know how to expand the platform of the songs God has given me or whoever might write songs with us in the future.
2. A Ministry – Surrender was birthed out of the youth ministry of Rock Church of the Quad Cities (Kingdom Youth Church). Everyone you see (and ever see in the future) on stage in the band on Wednesday nights are “Surrender” band members. This is the heartbeat of what I long to do – bring a tangible manifestation of the Kingdom of God through music (praise and worship).
3. A Movement – I may need to back up a few steps to explain this part of Surrender. The foundation of Surrender is a revelation of the grace of God. Bill Johnson talks about repentance through a surrendered heart in his book When Heaven Invades Earth, and puts it this way:
“Repentance means much more than weeping over sin, or even turning from sins to follow God. In fact, turning from sin to God is more the result of true repentance than it is the actual act. Repentance means you change your way of thinking. And it’s only in changing the way we think that we can discover the focus of Jesus’ ministry – the Kingdom. This is not just a heavenly mandate to have happy thoughts. Obeying this command is possible only for those who surrender to the grace of God. The renewed mind is the result of a surrendered heart.”
For a while I wasn’t sure why God wanted the name of our band to be Surrender. All I knew was that it sounded epic and that it was from God! I’m just now starting to see a clearer, more focussed vision for what God wants to do through us. We’re looking to start providing more opportunities for you to be a part of this. Through more consistent “worship nights,” outreach opportunities, and hopefully another cd in the not-so-distant future.
Anyway, you can get the most recent CD here. Otherwise, come to KYCon Wednesday (every Wednesday) at 7pm to catch more of the latter 2 versions of this.
This is Surrender. Thanks for reading.
