What are Christian artists supposed to create?

Is a Christian photographer supposed to take pictures of Jesus? (Highly improbable, though if anyone could do it it would be TMZ).

Is a Christian painter supposed to paint portraits of Jesus? (Wait what color was he?)

Is a Christian writer supposed to write about Jesus? (Done. Apostles did that already)

Is a Christian actor supposed to play Jesus? (Talk about starving for lack of work)

Is a Christian sculptor supposed to sculpt figures of Jesus? (Hey, buddy, what is this? I think Jesus wasn't as muscular as you made him there.)

What is a Christian artist?

We are humans. We are artists. We are Christians.

In that order. The first two you are born with, the latter you are born again with. If you try to flip that order, nobody will understand you except other Christians.

A Christian is a person. Just like any other person. Only they’ve chosen to believe they have a Savior, and exhibit Christ-like behavior. (Which is not exclusive, as there are many people who reflect this behavior who are not Christian.) The exhibiting Christ-like behavior part is much harder than it seems. We often fail miserably at it. And if we are honest with ourselves as well as others, it brings us back to being human, just like anyone else.

Freedom

As Christians we are free. And as artists, it is in that freedom we should create. We should create what we feel, and in that freedom we will be relevant, authentic, and transparent.

As artists we need to be sure our work is top notch. Our standards are extremely high. Having the constant awareness that we can always be better.

There is nothing wrong with calling yourself a Christian artist. For an artist who portrays/reflects Christ in their work, it's an extension of their new life.

There is, however, a growing segment of artists who are Christians separating themselves from the Christian label. Why are they doing this? For some, they don't want the baggage of what is viewed as Christian to influence other’s opinions of their work. For others (myself included), it's a desire to be seen, heard, or read just as one would experience any other artist.

This is very similar to the cultural stance on Religion vs God. You will hear more complaints and accusations hurled at religion than you actually will hear about God. Religion is a flawed human system because we as humans are flawed.

Here's the real deal: the label, in this case the Christian label, is not the power. It's not what makes something good.

If you invite a friend to a Christian concert, and this friend has never been to church, there’s a good chance Todd is going to say no. But if you simply asked Todd to check out a rock band you’ve heard good things about, well, you might just get Todd’s attention.

If Todd goes and 1.) the band plays quality music, and 2.) there's something more to it that you can't put a finger on, then that's where the power is. It's not in the Christian label.

Unfortunately, we as humans feel comfortable with labels. If at your invitation Todd asked more about the band and what kind of music they play, you'd have to describe them in some way, indie, alternative, whatever. And by Todd knowing you, he might ask if they are a Christian band.Again with the labels making our simple invitation to check out a band more complex and exhaustive.

The cultural idea of what is Christian is often so far removed from Christ that anything with that label now hurts more than helps.

Take Chick-fil-A restaurants for example. The founder is a Christian. Truett Cathy. However, in the name Chick-fil-A, there is no reference to it being a Christian restaurant. No taglines under the logo that say Our Chickens are Baptized. It's just a franchise which has become very popular for the food they serve. Their customers go there because they like the food. Simple as that.

I never thought I'd quote a chicken salesmen, as I myself don't eat chicken.

It is when we are creating and doing our best, maintaining high quality standards and constantly learning and growing that we make an impact, becoming relevant and influential.

Who Are You?

The key to relating to people is found in you. The key to people relating to your work is found in you. The more you know who you are, the more transparent you become. When you cultivate the characteristics that make you interesting as a person and impart them into your work, there becomes a oneness between who you are and what you create.

What you create is an extension of who you are. It doesn't always define who you are, but it does inform others about you.

It’s time to strip the labels and show people who you really are. Share your opinion, speak through your work. As an artist, at the end of the day, your work should say more about you than any label ever could.

I have a mark.

I do not know what this mark looks like. I have never seen it. This mark is invisible to me; only seen by women.

The closest I ever come to seeing it is when I look into the face of a woman after she has seen me, or perhaps she's simply looked right passed me.

Sometimes it's like a superpower of invisibility. I cannot be seen.

It’s the mark of rejection.

“You are ugly and no woman will ever want to be with you. I simply enjoy showing you these beautiful women because I know that He has put his mark on you. Now it’s my job to make sure you focus on only yourself—how alone you are and will always be. I'll highlight all of your inadequacies so you'll see them in the reflections on the faces of those women you admire day in and day out.

I want you constantly reminded of how alone you are, how undesirable you are. No one will ever want you. Isn't it obvious?

Go ahead. Try to encourage yourself when you see a beautiful woman with a man you believe is less attractive than you. He's obviously doing it right. What are you doing?

You know what? I wasn’t going to say it, but I can’t resist. I love God. He and I don't always get along, but I love to see you go through this pain. I mean, I couldn't have planned it any better myself. You have to hand it to the guy...

He doesn't like you. If He liked you, truly loved you like he claims, then why aren't you normal like everyone else?

A smarter man would have left him a long time ago, went and got himself a hot woman. Remember, those days. Those were the days... You never used to have any problem. I know because I was there. And not to brag about it—well, yeah, fuck it, why not—the only reason you got those women was because of me.

How many years now have you been on this pathetic God journey? Didn't you notice that once the sex stopped, you started thinking more and more about Him until you actually bowed down to that loser and gave your life to him? Let's be honest here. How's that working out for you so far?

You are a sinner. You always have been. And always will be. Quit denying who you are and just celebrate it already.

Do you get it yet? Let me say it again: God does not like you. He just shows you all these women that you will never have. Rubs it in your face. Worse, you think you are being of service to Him by trying to do things His way.

What about your way?

I know tons of so-called Christian men who have hot, beautiful wives. But they obviously are better at this God thing than you are. God likes them. He just doesn't like you. Fuck this. You know what? I don't like you either.

But at least in the women department, I treated you better than He does. I felt sorry for your pathetic self.

God has abandoned you, and you think you are too good for my help again? Let me ask you something, hotshot. Where does that leave you? Hey, no sweat off my back. I'm having a great time watching you struggle with this ordeal. I’m having to put very little effort into it down here. This is a win-win for me.

Hey, cheer up buddy.

It's always darkest before the dawn.

It's always too soon to quit.

Haha. You’re too old anyway.

Hey. Hello? Are you still there? Are you listening to me?”

She finds me in the coffee shop, again. She sits without invitation. We've been doing this dance for months. She hasn't missed a step.

I pretend to care about the surrendered Sunday paper at the table to my right, now her left, and she wants to know what I'm looking at.

It's always this way when I'm not looking at her.

The coffee's cold by now. I drink anyway.

She won't order anything. She never does. Not here. She won't be around long enough to enjoy it.

An unlit cigarette between my lips, she offers me a light.

I kindly oblige.

I want an answer by the time you finish that, she dutifully instructs.

I've got no more answers, only questions.

How can she look at me, I want to know. So I say, I look at you and I only see her.

Don't call it a her.

A piece of us is missing. Something we'll never get back.

I ran through the hallways screaming, Don't do this!

I screamed, Stop!

Screamed, You're not the only one this is about!

Three orderlies and an armed security guard. That's what it took to stop me.

Has she forgotten already? I want to ask, but I just drag on smoke and ash instead.

Afterwards, when the whole debacle finally settled, we held each other on the steps out front and cried until our insides dried, until we were so tired we couldn't walk; our throats so sore we couldn't speak for weeks.

She moved out three days later, and I subsequently lost the two people I loved most in life.

She takes my hand in hers, shows me her teeth, her lips, her tongue.

I've never felt so alone in such a mad, crowded world.

We can do this, she says. I can't do this without you.

We were young, and in love, and now she just needs someone to hate.

You martyr.

You mastermind.

I blow smoke and tell her I'd have died instead. Had I known it was going to be like this.

Like what? she asks.

Like everything I ever loved is hanging by a rope that hurts to hold.

So I let go.

How do you think I feel? she wants to know. Why do you think I'm here?

What happens if it happens again? I ask, drawing on the last of the ambers inches from my lips. I stub the butt into the ashtray and smear stray ashes across the table with the palm of my hand.

Sometimes no answer is your answer.

She slides into the booth like she's fallen from the sky, dropping in from thirty-seven thousand feet just to ask why she's been dragged here so early in the morning.

The duct tape holding the torn, red vinyl seats together groans and stretches against the sudden onslaught of her heroin-thin frame. She wears her flip-flops, and stubs her toe against the door on the way in. It's all she can think about.

He thinks the sunglasses she wears are too big for her face, and he's glad to see her take them off.

His face full of stubble, she's annoyed she'll have to kiss him goodbye.

He's already ordered their coffee.

She sips and complains that it's cold, and he says, well, they were supposed to meet at seven.

I know, why so early? Where were you this morning? She tucks her feet beneath her legs, her toe throbbing all the while. Can you believe how hot it is already today? She's looking out the window like you can actually see the living, breathing entity the summer heat has become.

I'm going away, he tells her, getting right to it. No sense in wasting any time.

The air is thick with bacon grease and burnt coffee. They'll have to get a shower in and change their clothes when they get home.

Really? She wants to know where.

Her pale, blue eyes are gray today.

I can't tell you. He won't brush his bangs from his forehead. His hair is getting long, but not long enough to keep it tucked and secured behind his ears. This frustrates her.

It was nothing but stubble when they first met, when she asked him to grow it out.

I'm not sure I understand. Why can't you tell me?

Because I don't know where I'm going. He keeps biting his thumbnail, wishing he had remembered to clip it this morning.

You don't know? She can't help but think this all seems a bit over-dramatic.

No.

It's too loud in here for her. All these early-morning commuters turning their newspapers page-by-page, talking on phones clipped to their ears. She enjoys her coffee at quiet cafés, and her breakfast in bed. She says pancakes taste better that way.

She asks him, Then why would you leave?

I have to get away from you.

What?

Their waitress walks by. He motions with his empty mug for more coffee. You're no good for me. He says this like he's talking about saturated fats and not the woman he's been seeing for two years.

When will you be back?

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never.

Quite skeptical of his declarations she says, You don't know where you're going and you may never return?

That sounds about right.

Sounds like it's made up.

Sounds more like life to me.

She wants to know if he's taking anything with him.

I put some clothes and an extra pair of shoes in a garbage bag this morning. It's in my trunk.

You packed before you left?

Just the essentials, he tells her.

Your toothbrush was still on the sink when I got up.

I can buy a new one.

You know I hate waking up alone.

And to think how much we used to hate going to bed alone. We just can't win.

She's had enough at this point. His elusive statements. The cold coffee. The early morning. Why don't you tell me what's really going on? She wants to know so she can go home. Back to bed where she'll enjoy a proper breakfast.

The waitress refills their mugs. His mug. Hers is still full of coffee and getting colder.

I just want some consistency from you. I told you if we kept this up, you'd drive me away.

She sighs relief. I get it.

I hope so.

This is all metaphorically speaking.

This is me getting behind the wheel and putting as much distance between us as possible without driving into the Atlantic.

She's not so sure how to take that so she says, You know, I found your suicide notes, and believes this to be the appropriate retaliatory response.

Don’t take it personally. It was just something to pass the time.

Her feet are falling asleep. She can no longer feel her toe, and this pleases her. Are you going away because you plan to kill yourself?

He picks up the dinner knife and twirls the tip of the blade against the table. It was more of a hobby than anything.

What will I tell my friends?

You never tell them anything. I can't imagine there being an issue.

She wants to know what he'll do for money. Did he quit his job?

He tells her he just isn't going in today. They'll figure it out.

Don't I get a say in this?

I never got a say in us. Why should you get a say in this? He pauses. He's being unfair. He says so. I guess that's being unfair. Then he says, Go ahead and say what you'd like.

I'd like you to stay.

Is that all?

She shrugs. More or less.

Let's talk about less.

I feel like you've just brought me here to prove something. She sips her coffee and makes a face like she's surprised it's cold.

I sent you letters, but you never read them. I called, but you wouldn't answer. I showed up at your door, and you were never home.

What was I supposed to do?

All this time, you've only wanted me the way you wanted me. He returns the knife to where he found it. I have to go. He takes one last sip of coffee, knowing it'll only be a matter of minutes before he'll have to stop somewhere and pee.

Now?

It's all I've got. He stands.

Looking up at him she wonders aloud, Can't this wait until tomorrow morning? She's confident this will pass. It always passes.

And if morning doesn’t come? He plays with the change in his pockets, taps his toes, fiddles with all that hair that just won't stay still.

Morning always comes, Silly.

He looks out the door to a world he's all too unfamiliar with.

Looking back at her he says, That's what scares me.

He leaves enough money on the table to cover the bill.

She touches her toes to make sure they're still there.

Goodbye, Love. He walks away.

She orders the pancakes. They just don't taste the same.

The End.

The Rolling Stones, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Big Brother and the Holding Company, The Doors. Each band, legendary heavy-hitters that defined the music of the late 60's to the early 70's and arguably beyond...

Club 27 Originals

• Brian Jones
• Jimi Hendrix
• Janis Joplin
• Jim Morrison

Certainly a kick-ass list of musicians, and all original members of an unfortunate group, each of which died at the age of 27.

It started with Brian Jones, he was the first to die on July 3, 1969. Then came Jimi Hendrix on September 18, 1970. Following Jimi was Janis Joplin who passed a couple weeks later on October 4, 1970. Lastly, Mr Mojo Risin, Jim Morrison left us on July 3, 1971 sharing the same date as Brian Jones, only two years after.

Within the span of two years, four giants of Psychedelic Blues Rock & Roll had dropped like flies and starkly reminded us that youth does not equate with invincibility.

The list of members in Club 27 grew to include musicians long before this time, namely, legendary bluesman Robert Johnson in 1938, and post 1970 members included Alan Blind Owl Wilson of Canned Heat, Ron Pigpen McKernan of The Grateful Dead, and Nirvana's Kurt Cobain. Also, the list expanded to other art forms including painter, Jean-Michel Basquiat and poet Alexander Bashlachev. Unfortunately, this isn't the extent of the list, there are more. {ref1}

I was born few weeks after Janis died, November 15, 1970, to be exact. I was heavy into music at a very young age. My parents had a great vinyl collection, and I would spend hours pulling them all out, staring at the covers, examining the fold-outs, looking inside the sleeves for posters. The smell of those records was incredible. Sometimes I would take them up to my room, sit down with a pencil and my sketchbook, and draw entire album covers. I'd spend hours and hours on end studying them, occasionally bringing my drawings downstairs to show my parents.

This marriage of art and music became the foundation of my self expression. The music I heard inspired me and fueled my art. I had one overarching desire— to translate visually some semblance of what I was hearing with my ears, even a hint.

Art Direction & Design William S. Harvey

It was during this period that I was introduced to The Doors. Out of all the vinyl this one smelled the best. The cover was dark and eclectic, and seemed to pull me right into it. That's one of the things we've lost in this digital era. Music used to be tangible. There was a smell to it, the paper would become worn, corners would slightly round. It was a warm experience.

I entered the music of Club 27 through The Doors, next was Jimi Hendrix [There's not enough space in this article for me to talk about Jimi, trust me I could go on, and on, and on...] and the rest followed shortly after.

It wasn't until my 20's that I really started thinking more about the members of this list. What drew me in? With each of these musicians there was a seriousness, a weight, artists who took their craft and their talents with such vigor that they virtually exploded on the scene. Not only in performing, but in completely defining and redefining their instruments. Whether it was Jones' multi-instrumentalism, Jimi's guitar playing, Janis's voice, or Morrison's words. These were not just musicians. These were masters.

Jim Morrison said in reference to The Doors when being interviewed that Foremost, we're musicians and writers... {ref2} It wasn't about being a band it was about pure art.

It's one thing to be born with talent, it’s quite another to push beyond it, shape, refine, and master it. This is a process that when lived out continuously with relentless fervor and standards so high—that they are nearly unreachable—causes incredible things to happen. Greatness happens; mediocrity be damned.

Every time I think about the members of Club 27, the same questions always come to mind.

Did they know?

This is probably the question I think about the most. Did they know their life was going to end so soon? A natural tendency is to take it easy, to kick back and take life one day at a time. With youth comes energy, but also at times a lack of focused concentration. And certainly thoughts of having a limited amount of time is not a youthful muse.

Being young is about exploration and self discovery, often with boldness and a desensitized awareness of fear. Time is a central theme of life and we've always been told You've got time.

As human beings we are bound by time, there is no escaping it, it's a natural law like gravity and hot girls getting stuff for free.

Was there something inside them that encouraged each of them on a daily basis, saying your time is limited, focus on your talents? Clearly, time was not on their side, However, something else obviously was. Something that transcended time.

Maybe it was the drugs or booze? Perhaps that played a part, but clearly a minor role; substances don't create amazing works of art, people do.

How is it that they were so prolific and influential, did they know that their work was going to inspire countless numbers of artists and music lovers throughout all time? The massive amounts of “new” material that is unearthed from them year to year is mind blowing. From shows to studio recordings and obscure bootlegs that existed in secret places of collectors' closets. Any new song—be it a demo, an outtake, a version—brings us that much closer to the artist and the work that inspires us.

Were these artists any different than us? What is it about them specifically? Can it be surmised that hard work is all it takes? Did risk play a part in their success?

Just think for a minute what it would have been like if each of them had taken up a day job and made something of their lives. Thank God that didn't happen. Each of them were true to their calling as artists, they pursued their art passionately. Plunging themselves head first, sometimes with wreckless abandon into the abyss of creativity, finding their unique place of freedom and self expression.

If there was some kind of voice inside them, is it also in us? Is it encouraging us to pursue what we've been given with fervor? If so, are we listening, or are distractions getting in our way? Are the pressures of getting a real job mounting, or are we saying to ourselves that we have all the time in the world to do what we want? If there's anything that the members of Club 27 are telling us, it's certainly not, Kick back and relax.

They are calling us to be who we are, to really and truly live our dreams, to pour out everything that is within us as an offering to our audience, and to continue to do so until our very last breath.

Other than all of the political babble that is going on these days, the hot topic among genders seems to be about relationships. Men and women picking each other apart, picking themselves apart, and trying to make sense as to why they are without someone special.

Recently a friend of mine told me a story about this doctor who got engaged to a hot dog vendor. I thought to myself, If everyone was as real and non-superficial as this doctor then we would all find love, without finding fault with another person’s profession or economic stature.

Another story I heard was about a woman who allowed herself to be talked out of two separate relationships—on two separate time frames—by her friends. Both of the men she was involved with are now married with children. As for the woman who was talked out of being with either of these men, she is still single and in her early thirties. She regrets taking advice from those friends because both men were good to her, but the advice was poison, causing her to deal with her current frustration of being without love.

My male and female friends have had multiple conversations as to what they want in the opposite sex. Both genders want their spouses to be of a certain nationality, a certain height, a certain build, have a certain kind of personality, and have a certain profession in play, or currently working on one. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s okay for individuals to have their preferences, but when does it get to the point where preference goes from reality to fantasy?

The doctor who got engaged to the hot dog vendor, there are people that I have spoken to who won’t even consider a person with such a profession. Is that shallow or preference? I have heard women say they would not even bother dating a man who worked in sanitation because it would just be too embarrassing for them – mainly around their colleagues and family. Is that purely superficial or preference? While most men won’t consider women who are defined as out of shape, I have spoken to women who won’t even consider a guy who is shorter than they are.

Why?

Are these men and women being shallow or superficial, or is this purely preference on their part?

My personal life spews over with reasons as to why I have considered a woman unfit to be dated. Picking out flaws such as bad acne, her not having enough hips, breasts being too big or too small, height (I am not romantically attracted to women who are taller than I am – even if they are gorgeous). Women who wear too much make-up or jewelry are out of my equation, as well. Superficial, shallow or dense women do nothing for me – not even as friends. And my most shallow preference? I used to say that my wife would have to be mixed – Asian and Black or, European and Black. I have grown up and matured a bit, and let go of the idea. Whatever our reasons are for not wanting to date someone, or consider them as a potential spouse, there is a thin line between reality and fantasy.

In a situation where someone has been emotionally stomped on – I get it, I’ve been there and it hurts to the core of the soul when you have been rejected by another—I say do what is necessary and healthy to get over that person and move on to a loving relationship. What has been done to us, should not keep us from finding happiness. We all too often project our emotions of bitterness onto everyone that attempts to enter our world on a romantic or platonic level. If we all remained bitter, vexed, sad, insecure, and broken from what has been done to us then the world would be a miserable place to live.

Life is about constant progression. Take healthy steps to getting where you want to go. Your age is not a factor when it comes to finding healing and progression. As long as there is life in your body, you can always forgive and move on because whoever hurt you is enjoying their life as we speak.

What is it about skateboarding that it can completely capture a young persons life as it did yours when you first discovered it? It really does become and obsession doesn't it?

Obsession is a word you could use, it's definitely a life-style, and really it's almost like salvation, it's kind of hard to explain, you've just got to experience it. There's nothing like standing on a skateboard and starting to roll, the freedom and the thrill that you get from just skating.

Did you plan to turn pro and make a career out of skating?

No, that was never my goal, I know for most guys that's a goal, to be a pro skater, but no that was never a goal of mine, it just kind of happened, I never really tried to pursue it, I'm just a skateboarder, that's all I've ever done and that's what I am and who I am.

You must have had a lot of natural talent to get in that direction.

Well, you know I just love skating, and it did kind of come natural to me.

Who were some of the pros that inspired you?

When I first started out there were all the guys like Bruce Logan and different folks like that, and then Jay Adams, Tony Alva and those guys were just barely ahead of me and stuff, and then all of those guys ended up becoming my friends.

That's cool, what year was that when you started skating?

I started skating in 73'.

How has the culture of skateboarding changed since then?

I've definitely seen skating go thru it's ups and downs, I've personally gone thru some ups and downs throughout the years as well, but you know, it's completely different. When I was skating, it wasn't cool, you got arrested for it, you were considered a loser, and you were treated like that. Now, its definitely become more mainstream, it's like the modern-day soccer. Even though there's that core element of skating that's still there, it's changed all together in acceptance and popularity. When I was at my peak in terms of ability in skating it was all underground, backyard pools, and building ramps.

Yeah, I had a mini half in my backyard in high school, and that was around the time that the Skateboarding Is Not A Crime stickers came out. It's interesting with skating in that it seems to have a continuous lifeline, but it sometimes goes thru some severe ups and downs where its almost completely dead and then it comes back with a roaring vengeance.

Yeah, there's definitely been ups and downs, you know like the late 70's and early 80's when all the skateparks started closing, they couldn't stay open because all of the insurance premiums were getting so high, and stuff like that. That's really when I was at my best in terms of skating and you know it was almost, if you skated, in like 1981, you were a real deal skater, you weren't skating because it was cool or anything like that.

Then of course, it began to transition as well to street skating and all that in the early 90's. I was living in a drug cave for years in the mid to late 80's and then I got radically saved in 1990 and I went from a drug cave to a God cave, so I didn't know a lot about what was happening in the skateworld at that time, because I was either focused on drugs, or I was focused on God. Of course then God gave me skating back and now with everything that's happening with skateparks popping up all over America, it's really rad.

Photo Hosoi Skates

What's the difference with the skateparks that were going under and now skateparks coming back is it all about the insurance?

Well, the laws have changed, it's made it easier for people to have skateparks and most of the skateparks are being built nowadays by the cities. They're free and they're covered under their insurance and I'm assuming its probably real similar for them to build a skatepark in terms of insurance, as it would for them to build some tennis courts.

Well that's good news.

Yeah, for sure!

You've been through some serious hard times in your short life so far, do you find that a large part of the skaters today are in the same situation that you were?

There's definitely an element of that for sure, where you make wrong choices, and those choices lead to other things and it just snowballs and takes you down a road and it can end up nearly destroying your life. I remember when I was a little kid and in a skatepark, I can't remember how old I was but I was way younger than the guys I was hanging out with and I remember we went outside the skatepark, we were getting high and I was just puffin' a joint with these guys and I remember that was the very first time I ever saw cocaine, and they broke it out, chopped out a line and they started snorting it, and they were telling me one day you'll be doing this and I'm like you guys are trippin' I'm totally content just puffin' weed, but sure enough, when I was 15 years old, you know I got turned on to my first line of cocaine.

How long was that after they had told you?

I can't remember, I was probably something like 12 or 13 years old. So it was 2 or 3 years later, and here I am doing the very thing I said I would never do. It lead me down a road that nearly destroyed my life. The first time I ever snorted cocaine, I remember, you know, after several lines I looked at the people that turned me on and I was telling them how thankful I was because it made me feel so good, and I was able to talk and socialize and all of that stuff. But it wasn't too much longer after that, that it began to turn on me, when I first started doing cocaine it made me want to socialize, I wanted to go to the party, and even though I was a teen I was cruising the clubs already. I wanted to cruise to the clubs, I wanted to hang out with all the people, but then once it started turning on me, I got isolated, I became paranoid, I didn't want to be around a bunch of people, all I wanted to do was the drug.

What is it in the skateboarding community in particular that you feel the burden for? Why skaters? Is it because you're trying to reach your own people or is it something apart from that?

I just want to reach people, it doesn't matter to me if it's a business guy driving a Mercedes and wearing Armani, I want to win everybody. I just do that where I'm at, you know, I try to help people where I'm at, how and where I live my life. For me, the way I do life is with a skateboard, it's just natural, and I think that's what it should be for everybody. Whoever you are, wherever you're at, just live for Jesus, live with Jesus and help people.

Photo Jay Haizlip

You used to be into the whole Rockabilly, Punk scene right?

Yeah, I definitely was involved in that whole movement when it all first started in the late 70's here in Southern Cal.

Do you think coming from that background, that it's mostly a misunderstanding of rules that keeps a lot people from coming to Christ, I think many see it as a list of do's and dont's rather than a relationship in where God takes care of things in helping us?

I think for most people, definitely, they have an unrealistic view of what it's all about. A lot of times, when they start giving me their excuses like people are like this, or something's gotta be like this — in a nice way, I will challenge them on that, I'm like have you ever experienced that? and what I've come to find out, with the majority of the people with those excuses, the whole thing is based on hearsay, not on personal experiences.

You can't understand what it's like until you've experienced it, I tell people it's like my leather jacket. If you could put it on and wear it, you would never want to give it back. And Jesus said in John chapter 3 to Nicodemus, you can't even see the Kingdom of God except you're born again, and that word see means to perceive or understand. You won't be able to understand God's ways, his kingdom, anything that has to do with him until you're born again.

God's never gonna remove that equation of faith, it's gonna always involve taking a step of faith, everybody at some point is gonna have to say Ok Jesus, I'm gonna step out in faith and put it in you, and I'm gonna trust you to do what you said in the Bible that you'd do and when you do that, all the sudden the scales fall from your eyes, all the sudden the potential and the possibility of the kind of relationship you can have with God opens up and hopefully you discover it is a relationship.

It's like I have an awesome relationship with my wife, to facilitate her and I having a healthy, strong relationship where she trusts me, and I trust her, there are things that I choose not to do, because I know that if I were to do them they would damage or weaken our relationship, and so out of respect for her because she's given her life to me, and I've given my life to her, I don't do those things.

Some of them are communicated and some of them aren't communicated. There's things she doesn't have to tell me I don't want you doing this, this and this, and then that's the same way in our relationship with God. He's given us his word which reveals his character, his nature, his preferences, and any of the things that he does lay down there in terms of hey you don't need to do this isn't for his benefit, it's for ours.

It's like a lot of the city parks you see where there's a playground for infant kids, they have fences around them. The fences are there to protect the kids, because if the kid wanders out of the park, the car is gonna run over the kid and kill him.

Yeah I think it's the misunderstanding with the rule concept, you don't do it as an obligation, you do it because you love the person right, it's really the whole flip of it.

Exactly.

I bring this up a lot, but I do so because I believe it's happening already, I feel we are in the midst of another renaissance, and one of the evidences of this is that I see Christians finally accepting their talents as God given and stepping out in them, no matter how unorthodox it may seem. For so long, from so many pulpits, we've heard that one should give up everything and follow Christ, and while this is true definitely, I think it has been taken out of context and caused many talented Christians to abandon their talents as some sort of religious obligation. God has plans for those talents wouldn't you agree?

Without a doubt. For sure.

You know it's just like I did with Christian and Brian, we did a Nightline interview the other day, so here we're on ABC Nightline and one of the questions the guy was asking us was are you guys copying the world? I said no, we're not copying the world. They didn't put all of it in there but basically, we've got the Michael Jordan and the Jimi Hendrix of the skateboard world, all of these avenues were their world, and they got saved, so we didn't stop using these avenues, we just used the same avenues that have always been there, we just started using them for Jesus now.

I think that's a key point though and I don't know if a lot of people have realized that yet.

Yeah and the proper application of die to self and to follow to Christ would be rather than using those platforms for selfish motives and it all being about me, use those same platforms and I'm gonna to die to it all being about me, and it's gonna be about Jesus.

Obviously, if he's invested talents in people he's not gonna remit on those talents, he wants a return on them right?

What you're great at...

What you're terrible at God's probably....

[laughs all around]

And you enjoy what your'e great at most of the time right? So the joy gives you the endurance.

For sure, you do stuff you're terrible at, you get frustrated.

How did The Uprising come about and what's the goal?

The Uprising. Actually, we started I don't know how many years ago, but it started just as a tour, it was Christian Hosoi, Brian Sumner, Richard Mulder, Lance Mountain, Ray Barbee and myself, DJ Product, and the band Call to Glory. Basically, it started out as a tour and it still is that, but then we were approached and asked if we were interested in a TV show. Ben Cerullo, who's a good friend of mine, we had already been talking about that and felt that it was God's will and part of his plan and then sure enough, Inspirational Network and Steelroots approached us, and said Hey, you guys wanna do a TV show? and I was stoked and wanted to do it.

We sat down with Ben Cerullo from Inspirational Network and Steelroots and just cast the vision of what we saw it looking like and those folks at Inspirational Network were just stoked with it and it was a go and that's how it all started.

Our goal is two-fold; number one, first and foremost, is to get people saved, we want to introduce people to Jesus. Number two, it's to fan the fire and wake up the church, to passionately go after Jesus. That's our two-fold purpose, we want to spark a revolution, we want to be involved in a major move of God — an awakening.

How do you come up with the ideas for the episodes?

Well basically, they're not really scripted out, it's just real life, the only extent that we do in terms of that is, we just say hey we're cruising over here and the cameras and everything go with us.

Was The Uprising a segue to becoming a pastor or were you a pastor before that started?

I was already a pastor, everything that we do comes out of The Sanctuary Church out here in Huntington. The Uprising is a reflection of what is happening here in church and started here in church, the tour came out of church, the TV show came out of the church. I've been in ministry since 1990.

I was talking to Brian about that and he mentioned people are moving to California just to go to your church.

People are coming from everywhere to be a part of it, it's amazing.

What do you think it is about The Sanctuary that attracts people in that way?

Photo Vision

Well, to me it's just normal, and sometimes I forget, matter of the fact most of the time I'm not aware of how it's really not that normal. Because it seems so normal to me, but I think when people come here and they see the diversity and they see the kinds of people that are here, they see we're definitely not perfect, but there's just an overwhelming unconditional love here, there's a genuine joy and acceptance of everyone and without compromising the standards of God's word or God's character and pushing God back in the closet to do that. In the same hand, the presence of God is usually very strong in our services, the presence of God shows up in a powerful way and we're very passionate in terms of chasing after Jesus, we want him with everything.

One thing that is very encouraging to me as I watch the Uprising shows, is that you guys come as people who other skaters can relate to, first and foremost on a peer level as skaters, and in addition to that you bring the presence of the Lord there for anyone who is open, but you don’t push it or jam it down anyone's throat.

Right.

I think that's very attractive.

You know Smith Wigglesworth, he lead somebody to Jesus just about every single day and he would pray and a lot of times he'd go down to a park down by his house and he would sit there and wait for the Holy Spirit to show him who was ready. One time he was driving in a car with somebody and he told this guy you gotta go up here and they went to the top of this mountain and Smith Wigglesworth made them get out of the car, and they sat on the edge of this mountain and the guy was like there's nobody around here, who's he think he's gonna lead to Jesus up here and then after a period of time, here comes a mountain climber climbing up the side of the mountain and Smith Wigglesworth led the guy to Jesus.

It's kind of like being a fruit inspector, you share Jesus with everybody, you kind of reach out to them in a loving, gentle way and if the door opens and there's an opportunity to take the conversation to the next level, then you take advantage of that.

Let’s talk about leadership. Would you say that you have been a leader most of your life?

Maybe to some extent you know, I guess I was always the guy who was the life of the party and stuff like that, I was never a leader in the sense that I tried to dominate or control people, but I was always a leader in the sense that I didn't do what everyone else did just because they did it. I always thought for myself and there were many times that I wouldn't do what everybody else did. So I was a leader in that sense, and then obviously when I got saved, that was part of God's plan, I'd always had favor on my life and God's the one who put it there, so it just started being used for the right purposes. I just started using who I was to connect people with the Lord.

Where does your confidence as a leader come from? Sometimes there is a fine line between self confidence and pride, and on the other hand a diminishing of self confidence with more of a focus on the Lord, can often lead to not seeing the strengths in oneself that the Lord has given us.

Well, I can only tell you how that works for me, I mean, for me the more God uses me, the longer I walk with God, the more frail and weak I see I am, I see my inabilities, I don't focus on those, if I were to focus on those it would paralyze me, but it creates this desperation in me to cling to God. My confidence or courage comes from him, so I just cling to Jesus, and I realize that in him I can do anything, all things are possible in Christ and if God's called me to do it, he'll give me the power and ability to do it. I'm always desperate, I'm always desperate, God, I've gotta have you, Lord you've gotta help me, God you've gotta give me the power, the strength, your presence, Lord you gotta hook me up. Lord if you don't come thru, I'm a failure, this is gonna be a horrible crash. So that's the way it is for me.

That's the exact point you hit on there, and that's the reason I asked that question, you said that if you were to focus on those frailties and weaknesses, it would freeze you right?

Exactly.

I've pretty much done it the same way you have and what I've noticed is that people will come to me sometimes and say that I'm selling myself short and not recognizing what I have the ability to do, and in the context of leadership, if you don't portray that you have the confidence to do something, it spreads.

Right, yeah, just like in Joshua chapter 1 where God instructed Joshua to cross over into the promised land, he said to be strong and of good courage. In Joshua chapter 1 he tells him that several times in that chapter. Only be strong and of good courage. I'm confident in the Lord. Humility is not like some oppressed beggar, walking around with your shoulders and head drooping going I'm just the scum of the earth that's not humility that's oppression, humility is an inward realization that without Christ you are nothing, but in him you're everything, and my confidence is in him and when it comes to leading, I always reflect anything that God's done, I always reflect it back to him and you can do that in a humble way without acting like you're insecure. When somebody comes up and compliments me, if it's like preaching, I say I appreciate it but God knows that I know, that if he doesn't hook me up, I'm preachin' terrible.

[laughs all around]

But if I'm out skating or something and somebody's like Dude that was a killer trick! I'm like WOOOOO I'm stoked!

What is the greatest thing that you have personally learned as a leader?

Hmmm, the greatest thing I've ever learned as a leader...I don't know if I'd call it the greatest thing, but I just love people. I love people. I love and believe in people, I give everybody an opportunity. I don't know if I can say what is the greatest thing. I've never had anybody ask me that question. Obviously, the greatest thing that can happen to anybody is a relationship with Jesus Christ. But you know, I don't know if I've learned it yet.

Ok that's good, that's a good answer.

Often the leader is the one saddled with the vision, frequently it can be clear, others times not so clear, how do you keep on course?

That's exactly how it is and sometimes it's more vague in the sense that ok, you have a direction but you don't see the full picture, the Bible talks about we look thru a glass dimly. Sometimes it's very precise. I just stay focused on whatever it is, and then I understand that even though I may not see the full picture, at least I have the direction, and the vision operates like a compass, it points in the direction I'm to go in, and so I'm to make my decisions, I gotta make sure that I'm prioritizing properly, that what I prioritize comes in line with the vision, what God's plan is, my resources, that I use those in a way that it reflects the vision, the priority.

Even when it's vague, and there's those seasons or days or moments where you don't see everything, I just trust and rely on the fact that God said if I acknowledge him in all my ways that he would direct my footsteps, and I know that he does that and hindsight is 20-20, you can look back and say Wow, God's ways are perfect!

Photo Hosoi Skates

Have you ever had to change course, and if so, do you feel it was the vision changing course or you needing redirection?

There's definitely been moments where I can say ok, I missed it, and there's been seasons where God had me doing something in a particular way. For years I was primarily an evangelist. There was a point where I had this big huge 2000 seat tent on a Peterbuilt tractor trailer, and I went to inner cities of America and I put it up in the worst neighborhoods and sometimes I'd be there for a week, two weeks.

Wow, how long did you do that?

I did that for several years, and there was a season I know that I know, that God had me do that, he gave me a vision, he supernaturally provided all of that stuff. But then when it came time for that season to end, the doors to do that began to gradually close and the doors to go to the next phase of ministry which was preaching more in churches and doing these large youth events and things like that began to consume all of my time where I really wasn't having that many opportunities to take the tent into the inner cities and eventually it was obvious. Ok I got all of this stuff, this tent, this tractor trailer and I'm not using it anymore because I'm consumed and totally busy over here so I sold it all.

Then when God began to put it in my heart about moving back here to Southern California to start a church, at first I didn't know it was to start a church, at first I thought God just wants me to just move there so that I can increase in terms of influence on the West Coast. But the closer it got time to move here, God required us to take a step of faith. I sold my house, no promise of anything, and to make a long story short, me and my family came here to Southern California, we started a church in a community center and really, we took a step of faith you know, when we drove across the desert, we were leaving one life to go and start another one, and there was really no promise other than what we had in our hearts and spirits from God.

A lot of people said Well you're crazy dude, you're well established, you're successful, you've got a great house, you've got a wonderful family [because of the level of success you have in ministry, there comes a certain element of security when it comes to things like finances and all that], you're walking away from all of it to a lot of people that looked crazy. To the natural mind it was crazy. Coming to one of the most expensive places in the world to live, renting a house, just renting a normal house is 2-3,000 dollars a month.

How do you manage the business aspects of your projects like The Uprising, are you a natural businessman?

I don't consider myself a natural businessman, obviously doing what I do, there has to be an element of administrative involvement that I have to have, but what I try to do is to surround myself with a team that's strong where I'm weak, and even though I have an eye for detail, there's a lot of things that I'm not great at doing. I get frustrated, whereas somebody who is gifted in an area say administration, they can do something in a day that would take me a whole week, and they can enjoy doing it, where I wouldn't. But I pay attention to make sure those things get done. I just try to build an awesome team where we're all committed to one another, we're all on the same page, we understand we're all fighting for the same thing, we're headed in the same direction and we understand that we need each other to make it happen.

Speaking of teams, what’s it like having people like Christian Hosoi, Brian Sumner, Lance Mountain, Richard Mulder and Ray Barbee around you, that’s a pretty strong group of guys.

All those guys are awesome, all those guys are wonderful guys. They all are very unique and different in terms of their personalities and stuff, it's really cool.

What advice do you have for the entrepreneurial readers out there who want to start their own career or business or ministry?

One, you definitely gotta hear from God, and do your best to your ability to follow his leading and that can be a hard place to find sometimes where you don't get ahead of God, but you're not lagging behind where God wants you. I guess the one thing I would have to tell people would be nobody succeeds without failure.

I don't know how many attempts it took Thomas Edison to figure out the light bulb but it was crazy. Colonel Sanders, he had his special recipe and it was hundreds, and hundreds of times and he got rejected, he went from person to person, I got this special recipe for chicken, they said nobody wants to buy your chicken but finally he landed on one person that said we'll give it a shot and the rest is Kentucky Fried History!

It's like the drive thru window, it was one guy in lower management at a McDonalds years ago, he went to upper level management and said I believe that if we put a hole in the building and put a window in it and start selling food out of it people will be stoked on that. Upper level management said Americans don't want to eat in their car they want to come in and sit down, but the guy was persistent he wouldn't let up and finally just to get the guy off of their back they said ok we'll give you one restaurant to try it in so they put a window in there and 80 something percent of all business that is done in McDonalds is done thru the drive thru window. It was all because of one guy's persistence and he didn't take no for an answer.

What’s on the horizon for Jay Haizlip, any new projects coming up?

Well our goal here at the church, we've got more vision than we could ever accomplish in our lifetime, but short-term goals, we're buying the property were we're at here, we're building a building and gutting the building out we have here and enlarging it. We're positioning ourselves to begin to plant churches somewhere here in the near future. We're gonna be planting churches in the major cities of the world, we were recently in London, scouting it out, we had our feet on the ground praying God what is your plan, your future, your purpose for us here in London and I know God spoke to us about London. We're gonna plant a church in Berlin, we're going to plant a church in New York City. That's kinda the next phase we're gonna go to within the next few years to come.

CS Lewis, described his young self (in Surprised by Joy) as being very angry with God for not existing. Can you share your experience with challenging God and his existence?

CS Lewis being from England and me being from England, I just never really heard about it, by the time I was born I think a lot of people just had a belief in the church and in God but not really an idea of a relationship.

It's something that I never really thought about, or it was one of those it's getting late and there's really nothing to do. So there's the UFO conversation, there's the ghost conversation and there's the God conversation. It was never like a bitterness or frustration, it got to a point for some reason, I just always thought there was something there, something relevant, like if I was gonna say something bad about God I would feel guilty.

You know we obviously blasphemed God and not realizing what we were doing in casual speech, but as soon as I thought it was an action I was taking towards Him I would feel guilty, and it wasn't like I knew what I was talking about, whether it was the God of everything, or a specific God, but I felt like I understood in some way that there was a God and it wasn't until I said you know what, I'm so over everything that I'm just going to prove that He's not real, whoever He is, that way it doesn't matter.

It's almost like a challenge, that I hoped I'd find Him and He'd show up. But really, I played devils advocate, saying I know this isn't real, and He of course did the complete opposite. It was perfect.

That's really cool, not too many people go that extra mile to do it, they just say there's no God and go on with their lives, but to try to actually prove Him wrong, that's a whole different level.

How did this struggle impact your skating, did you find that through this experience you had a different or new perspective on your life as a skateboarder?

Well, between the time that I divorced my wife, and we separated, I realized basically that being a divorced parent, you just feel like you didn't accomplish anything, you want it to work and you just feel like everyone else. It was either focus on the junk or focus on the Lord. It was kind of like when He showed up, the way it felt, I mean I had said if you show up I'll give you my skating, I'll get baptized, I'll remarry this woman, I'll give you my life, so in a way I didn't even know what the plan was for skating. Like, was it for me to go do all these things, and just go after skating and glorify the Lord? It didn't feel like that.

Christian, or someone would tell me He gave you all these things, He gave you these gifts, you should use it and in a way, if you look at what's going on with my Christian skating career, I kind of took a step back as far as the public's concerned in those years.

I spent so much time in the word, and prayer and getting involved in church, to where it's kind of awesome because the regular secular world would say what's that guy doing? But, as they start to see what I'm doing, they're gonna say that this guy pretty much dropped everything and responded to the Lord, and now it's like shown to everyone.

I'm not gonna be one of those guys who has an interview and at the end of the interview says Praise God or Praise Jesus if it's not evident in my life all the time. The Bible says all things are created by Him and for Him. It was given to me but so was everything else. We're to use all things to glorify Him.

Photo Brian Sumner

Not to diss these other people and what they're doing, because I know what it's like for people who are raised in the church, but I think the danger is...well you see it, everyone has crosses hanging in their cars, everyone's in their MTV videos dancing around bumpin' their car with chicks, they've got a cross there and a picture of Jesus on their shirt or something and that's not the Gospel. So for me in a way it was like I don't want to do anything at all. The Bible say's let your words be few, we shouldn't be talkin' about any of this stuff, we shouldn't be throwin' around the name of Jesus, and liken it to be something that we choose it to be about, it's His name.

So I realized quick, Ok I want to get plugged into the church, I'm going to read and I'm going to figure out all I can and in the mean time I was still on probation, I was getting off that stuff, there was a season that kind of controlled me, that kept me calm, so I couldn't go all over the world and skate, I couldn't really travel yet and jump all these fences because their weren't tickets. So it kind of slowed down my skate career. Now it's like I can travel, I can go speak places, and skate places wherever my body feels good. Now it's like a whole refreshing thing. Especially, where I am with all my sponsors and stuff.

It felt like I guess, to answer it another way, you know Jesus, He said They hated me first if they hate you. As skaters, we're going to be challenged anyway, once we're Christian I think certain people, they go as far to say well I believe in Christ enough and I don't get harassed, but really the evidence that you're a true believer is that you are being persecuted and you do have challenges, because people don't like the gospel, it is the good news but they don't want to receive it because we're so used to liking sin.

When you tell people that Christ died for you and your sin, it makes them frustrated, but the Bible says that the message of the cross is foolishness to those that are perishing. Meaning it is a spiritual issue, they don't understand, that's fine you know, but when I have people that are frustrated at it or don't understand, it's not really that they don't understand me, it's that they don't understand the Gospel, and that's where we have to ask for divine revelation that the Lord shows them, look, you are in sin, and that's what I'm called to share, I'm called to speak the truth, I'm called to not budge on the faith and the rest of it is the Holy Spirit's responsibility.

How has the sport of skateboarding changed since you were a kid?

Well, when I started skating back in Liverpool it was like the Police Academy video, it was Gleaming The Cube, there was probably just a handful of videos that even had skating in them. I started skating around 92' and you already had the whole Tony Hawk, Hosoi and Caballero, the Powell days and...

The Animal Chin days...

Yeah, way after that even, I pretty much started skating late, really. As far as a pro career, I got in there probably in the days of late shove-its and pressure flips and it was kind of like a nasty time for skating when all the flip tricks were on the floor and they were low, and nothing looked that nice.

But by the time I was actually able to skate and do stuff, all the people were flippin' their tricks properly and they were catchin' them the right way, and that was my generation, we went to California and they were doing all these tricks in places and having to catch a kick flip and then slide down a handrail and all the rest of it? It was perfect you know.

Photo Brian Sumner

It's been my experience and from the stories of friends and others with talents, that there is a consecration that takes place where we realize that the talents we have are truly a gift and more importantly, we know the gifts came from someone; that someone being God and that we can then in turn, thank Him for those talents, since we know God personally through Jesus Christ. For us, God is not some force but a real person who enjoys relationships with us. Did you also have this "consecration" experience with your skating?

It's funny because I'll use yourself as an example saying that the only time you felt like God had spoken to you was to do a lot of this web stuff and a lot of these interviews and ask people about their talents. We can prophesy to one another all day and we can say things that the Lord said in his word, but I don't feel like people are given this new revelation, but when you look at your gifts, you can speak about your gift, it could already have been revealed that we've been given gifts.

So for me personally, there's something that the Word says, there's gifts and people go as far as you know as speaking in tongues and healing and those things which are gifts of the Holy Spirit and then there's specific personal gifts.

For me, the skating I'm doing everyday, the emails I'm writing, the phone calls I'm getting, just even going downtown and hanging out with my family and all these things, I'm constantly giving it all to the Lord anyway so there isn't even really a separation in the skating I'm doing or the conversations I'm having.

But I feel like in my mind, I don't know where anything is going. Spiritually, I can feel what I'm meant to be lining up, so it's like this thing a person spoke over me 3 years ago.

The guy said I'm not going to see signs and miracles, [this is a guy who preaches at our church, Greg Devrees], he said You won't see signs and miracles in your own life in this period of time, you've got to get yourself prepared for the season, because you're not going to be like Saul, you're going to be like David, but you've got to get yourself ready for when the Lord sends you out.

That was 3 years ago pretty much, November - December, and just two weeks ago, we went up to Bear Mountain and all the pastors and deacons sat down and Pastor Jay wants me now to start preaching full time on the Saturday night service, and have Josh Harmon playing worship, and when you look at that, that's a big deal because I've been a Christian for four years, we've been doing this reality show, I've been skating as a pro skateboarder, that's what I'm going to do, a lot of my sponsors now that are behind me understand what my faith is about and they're doing it, and now I'm being sent out where I'm going before a congregation.

So I feel like this whole season of, first I couldn't leave the country and I'm pluggin' at the church, now I've been doing all this evangelism getting involved in so many ministries and having skate conferences, and all these things going on. I've been preparing and giving it all over to the Lord and now, it's kind of like Ok well I'm gonna use you in this season so again, it's like the gifts He's given me are all His really, the apostle Paul he says it best out of everyone, talkin' specifically about all the things he doesn't want to do that he does, but that there's those two laws at work in him, the law of the Spirit that actually guides him the right way and there's the sinful nature in his members that just guides him the wrong way.

You know if I say to you, You're a sinner it sounds blasphemous because you're made righteous through the blood of Christ, but you in your flesh, your flesh is still in sin. You can get very caught up with faith doctrines, cause you know, it is difficult to get fully deep in it, where I look at today and all the good things that I do, that is Christ movin' in me, and all the bad things is the sinful nature that's been killed by the spirit, but isn't bound by that, it's still alive in me.

So when I look at Jesus, and you know He has killed sin, and the way the Bible talks about things and specifically saying, he who knows to do good and doesn't do it sins, we're not meant to sin. The apostle Paul, even after he met Christ, kept on sinning, he said it's not me that sins, it's sin at work in me. So it's like we're sewn into this accountability process, where we're mourning to be with the Father and to have outlived this flesh, it's like this constant crucifying of our flesh and attending to the Gift because we do have the victory.

I heard a guy last night, Don Williams, preach at a church near here, and he talked about World War II, D-day and V-day, and how the war was won on D-day but the victory didn't actually come until V-day which was sometime after. So the war's already been beat by Jesus on D-day when He came and hung on the cross and was risen, and we have the victory already, but V-day is still arriving, when He comes in His glory and it's kind of like that, how Paul was, he knows the victory was there, he's got to go forward, and it's coming but it's already came you know?

Photo Jaime Owens

We're facing a brand new world today, how can we make Christianity more relevant?

The danger in trying to make things relevant, is that we try and sugar-coat the gospel, but then at times you've got to realize, I mean, I've driven down the street and I've heard this guy, he's holding his bible, shouting at cars going by, and you've gotta think the guy driving by at 60 miles an hour on that road, just sees you shouting the Gospel, you know what I mean?

So in a way you can say it's a word out of season, because people went out to hear John the Baptist, they heard what he was doing, they went to sit down, and spend time in front of him.

And as far as I know, it's only been 4 years, but a few years ago skateboard ministries got more popular, a lot of churches kind of thought it was crazy, because they thought it was a gimmick, some churches bring it in as a gimmick, they have like a little skate thing, and the kids don't really know who Christ is, and then you have some kids maybe sharing something, and they might not be so deep in their faith, living very secularized.

But the way you gotta do it though is, the Gospel is just meant to be preached and it's simple; it's receive the good news, repent, and follow Christ. All we gotta do is be sure we know what we're doing. It goes back to those same verses the Apostle Paul was saying, I did not know sin but by the law. If you are going to go downtown today with one other person and share the Gospel, as long as you use the Word of God and you use the Law to challenge the proud, but you use Grace to exalt the humble, there's gonna be fruit bore.

Now to take it How are we going to make it attractive?, you've got to walk in love, there's got to be a meekness, a boldness, a Christ-like disposition, but nowadays we get to use things like speakers and microphones, skateboards and bikes, and all these things. I'll tell you personally, I'm very skeptical to get involved in a lot of ministries because you got a lot of these guys, that have been around the church for years, that have a lot of business mind, and they will have a bunch of people come in and they will have microphones, they'll have this huge Christian band, but you don't really know how serious they are, you'll have a couple people that are agents, to handle all their business so they'll show up and they're getting a bunch of money, and then you'll have 5 skateboarders show up who are really sold-out and they want to bring the Word, and they end up getting put on the side as just skaters.

In a way, the church is disconnecting the kids who really want to know the skaters because they've seen this other flair, and the people that are coming in to see these big bands that may have the Christian title, but aren't really carrying the sword, they come there not really expecting much, other than to see their band, and they leave not really expecting much because they didn't get the Word preached to them.

So the way for me, is like look, there are a lot people who call and want us to do things, but if it's not where we can openly just preach the Gospel direct, you can sit everyone down, you can give your testimony, and you can share basically, that it isn't a one time prayer, or you can share that there's actual evidence in your life that He's in you, there's a regeneration, and there's a transformation.

So I guess, rather than go after all these things that we can do to strategize, just start being Christ like right now and as you see the fruits, people are going to be drawn to us, and you know there's probably a bunch of people with skateboard ministries right now that don't really know anything about skating and that's a good thing, but really, is that what they're called to do?

I can try to start Ultimate Fighting and become the UFA champ, but God hasn't called me to do that. It goes back to understanding who we are in the Body and in Christ, that we're all members of the same Body.

Describe a typical Brian Sumner day.

Get up probably around 8, 8:30, and that's a good day if I manage to do that. Take my son to school, or my wife will, then I'll watch my baby girl. I'll jump up and I'll normally get into some kind of prayer, just like a thanking of the Lord, because my mind isn't even awake yet. So I feel like for me to go get into the Word or to start praising Him that early, I'm not even thinking, and I don't want to just give Him 60% of my attention. So I'll wake up and sometimes I'll watch something I've Tivo'd or one of the Christian networks or I'll jump into all the emails because a lot my friends are from the east coast and we're behind so I can get my day started that way.

I'll get washed, I normally pray in the shower, I normally try to read the Word after that, then I'll go eat with my wife, or whoever is in town, we'll go meet up, eat somewhere, then we'll normally go skate somewhere, like one of the local parks or one of my sponsors places. Then mid to late afternoon try to film a trick. At night, we either go attend a couple different churches or we'll be goin' to our church "The Sanctuary" where we'll be doing some kind of Bible study. Or just having friends around and fellowshipping in downtown Huntington Beach. The only other time when things are different is when we're surfing or pretty much going out and doing full time ministry stuff.

I asked Christian about this, and I'm interested in hearing your response as well. Is there a duality in skating that is unique to it alone? Meaning, there's an opportunity for quiet time, to be alone, focus on your work and meditate on God, and then there is a communal time where you can encourage and be encouraged by other skaters?

Personally, for me I can never separate this stuff because my mind is always spinnin'. We're filming a TV show The Uprising and the whole time I would have a microphone on, and a guy who's filming us will be able to hear everything I'm saying and doing, so when I'm skating around or about to share with someone I can say Hey film this.

Photo Brian Sumner

After a few weeks, a guy said to me He just trips out on you all the time cause he says all day I'm praying, and speaking, and I'm thinking things and I'm rebuking and walking around and I don't really realize I'm doing that.

So I guess, I'm all the time reflecting and I'm praying and I'm going after stuff. But in skating, it gets really intense, like when you're trying a trick, and you didn't stretch that week or you're about to do something you could get hurt on, it's like you get more challenged by the things you do in your daily life that are sinful, that you don't want to do, things will become so sharp, like man why did I do that?. Because of the fear of getting hurt, you fear the Lord and you give up all those things.

But for me when I'm skating, a lot of things will come up about trying raise my kids the best way. What was the right time I used my voice and when was the wrong time. When was the right time to be doing this and doing that and when I'm deep in skating and trying to do something where I could get hurt, I'm always like yes Lord I'll do this differently or I'll do that and it isn't like I'm trying to sweet talk Him so I get the benefit of the trick, but I just feel like my mind is so open then, because it's just me and my skateboard, I'm not thinking about anything.

But skating in general, it's so divided nowadays. You can preach anything except for Jesus, you can preach sex and drugs, and partying. A lot of people have passed away in skating and it just gets covered up by It's all good... well man, people that I care about have died because of the things people have allowed them to fall into.

Or these companies that watch them come from other countries just like I did, they'll get sponsored and a year in the tour van with everyone, they can drink like crazy, they get stoned like crazy, and in two years time, they're like filthy and their clothes are hanging off of them, not that that's irrelevant it's not, but the point I'm making is that they're just this rock star little kid, who, even though he might be shredding on a skateboard, he's still attached to his addictions, and give him five years after skating and he's just gonna be thrashed, he's gonna be bound to rehab, he's not gonna have anyone picking up the tab for his life then because he won't be worth anything, it's sad.

We've only really seen a couple generations like that in skating, but then again, it's come back where even the old school guys who raged the parties and almost died, are like lifted up now, so they have kinda like the rock star lifestyle still.

It's dangerous you know, but this is the season. Think about it, who are my sheep?

But it could be five years after this when it's friends I really care about, friends that I've grown up with, who are in skating right now, making millions of dollars and getting all of the attention so they're not thinking about it. But give it a few seasons away, when life challenges them and they're probably gonna be thinking, man, Brian's just always stoked, always excited. Even when those hard times come in and you don't know what to say, you don't do the right thing, I still know at the end of the day, that everything is outside of my hands, and I'm submitted to the Lord, you know?

The problem is that no one is perfect, the Bible says a just man falls seven times. We're always losing, but we're always winning when we are crucifying the flesh.

But there isn't a day that goes by that you didn't wish that you could have said something else better than you did. Especially, thinkin' about a guy my age, that we went through a divorce, I was over everything, two young children, probably gonna have another one soon, and you know all the answers are in the Bible, but how much are we submitting our flesh to that?

We are, we're headed away from where we ever were, but now it's a place where we're starting to understand each other, day by day we're breaking off all the junk that was put on us for years, that Christ has overcome, but we've still got to tear away, crucify our flesh ourselves, we've got to do that, He's done it but we're called to do it with Him.

Tell me about that reality show that you, Christian and Jay have going on, what's that about?

A couple of years ago, you know there was a couple of projects going around, we always talked about stuff, I felt the need to do a movie about Jay, Christian and myself. Each of us would have like a 20 minute part or 10 minute part. Just a way to give it to all of these kids in America, and Christians around the world, to see these guys stories, and see that we're living it, we're going after it, we're trying to just live the right way.

Pastor Jay felt like we would be having something that's on the air, some kind of show that was out there, whether he meant just preaching or whatever, he just meant that. I gave Ben Cerullo a call one time and said Hey I really want to do this movie and he said I'll just make it for you, I'll hand you it, I don't want anything to do with it, and as we got through talks, it became, Why not do a show, why not do some kind of reality show?

We just got done filming 8 episodes, the premiere is going to be at our church this Saturday, and it's a really gnarly, crazy show. It's going to air on Inspiration Network, iChannel, Sky TV in England, it's gonna be in Australia, 80-140 million homes. It's called The Uprising and it's on steelroots.com. We're about to start filming season 2 in January. So 8 episodes for the first season and then 12 for the second season.

That's awesome, I read you went to art school, what role does art play in your life?

You know, I was just growin' up, there wasn't much I was into, just martial arts, and I guess just drawing. I don't really have the skills to do all this art, I couldn't draw anything in front of me and make it look much like it, but basically, to be straight forward, in Liverpool, all the best spots are in the city, and as soon as I finished school I was like Ok, if I just go to school in the city, I go in there and I just draw some pictures for a few hours, and I'm in the city and I can just skate all day, then at night come home and sleep, then go in and do art again. I didn't really know what I would be doing, I didn't know that I would be sponsored there, I didn't know that I would be over in the US. It was just something that I did.

How did you get into art school if you didn't do art?

Well, I did art in school, I passed everything easy, I was good at it so they'd accept me, but I got a lot of good grades in school, so I could kind of do whatever I wanted. But over there, it isn't a big deal, you just pick art college kinda like to do whatever, I was 15 when I went there, I finished school at like 16.

So who were some of the skaters that influenced you?

Photo Brian Sumner

Well, growing up I think the first guy I ever heard of was probably Tony Hawk. Then Geoff Rowley, he's from Liverpool, for years he was the guy I was watchin' do all this crazy stuff down stairs in Liverpool for years.

Who else... just everyone who skated good, their styles you know, I guess today I can't really say anyone because my mind's on other things, my mind looks at skating like its own individual thing, I can appreciate the tricks and the skills, but I can't subscribe to what everyone is doing because I do have kids and I see the influence that we have on America, and the world today.

There's guys I like to watch, I like to watch that kid Alex Olson skate, Sean Malto, there's all these kids that are around, and I just got back from this Reliance trip and the dudes on that tour are just absolutely killer. They're just guys people haven't fully heard of yet, that are on tour 7 to 8 months a year, skating demos and parks just to share the Gospel, and they're really, really good at skating and they're original. So skating's not mine, it's not yours, I mean it's mine individually and for everyone, but really it's it's own thing, it's you and a skateboard making some emotions come out of your body, you know?

See yeah, that's exactly back to what I was mentioning about you and your skateboard, I grew up skating and there was just no other sport like it.

Yeah there isn't.

Except maybe surfing.

Yeah, well you know, people believe you can just do anything and it's true in one sense, but in another it's not. Like, you got a guy like Eric Koston who's just so talented, that even if I worked as hard as I could all day, I'm not gonna be Eric Koston. But there's also gonna be kids who might not even care about him, and they might go, I like this kid who just does all these other tricks, and does all this stuff. But the reality is you get to see, I mean, look at Guy Mariano, if you look at him the way he skates, no one skates like him, so part of what's so awesome is, you have years of this guy not being around and you see him doing all these tricks that you remember him doing, and the new ones, that progress now it's just awesome.

But you look at Transworld magazine today I guarantee you there's probably 4 to 10 ads of kids doin' the gnarliest tricks, that no one's even gonna think about because they're not pushed. Those guys weren't pushed, not even I was pushed years ago through the Tony Hawk videos, and the Birdhouse stuff, the Adio DVD's, to where your name's established on a different level.

Skating's so big and so ambiguous, that unless 5 bands get behind you and they all push at the right time... I guess what I'm saying is the tricks amature's are doing today, are so ridiculous, that if some of the pro's were doing them, it would just do so much more for the pro's careers, but because kids are used to liking who they like, it's more like it's their style, their character now, whereas you see so many tricks, you know what I'm saying?

Skating itself is progressing, but people just like who they like. How many times can a kid new show up and do 50 gnarly tricks? Where years ago for me, I had video parts and tricks that were progressing, and the whole skate world was united together, we were all doing it together at the same time, now it's just everywhere.

The industry, it represents what everyone thinks, but, like I said skating isn't anyone's you know? You can't look at that stuff and take that as skating. Skating's always been what's fun for me, I've never been a competitive person, so I can't get into this whole I've got to go get the cover of this, and do this and do that.

Man, I like to skate and I know, within just even in the Christian world, what's been happenin' is there's a whole realm of kids there that are stoked and supportive, and want to back people who are down and gonna carry their cross, and it's like Why am I gonna go chase the other side of the world, why not step into this?, and at the same time, go through the magazines and do the videos and do stuff, but they just know what I'm about.

On that note, what are some of the challenges you have had to face?

As a Christian skater?

As Brian Sumner

Nothin', honestly, it's all just, you know, I'm a guy with a wife and two kids, and obviously life's been a blessing, all the biggest challenges were things that we didn't understand and we've been trying to overcome them.

I mean, just get over all the things so we'll be better and better for each other first, it'll be better for our kids, better for people around us, you know be salt and light. But I'll give you an example, when I became a Christian, I could have quit Adio and rolled for this other brand, but I just said "Lord, I'm gonna just stay here, I'm gonna honor these guys, I like what they're doin', I'm gonna just have this shoe and let all these things happen, and if You want to bless me and You want to do this You do it."

The whole year the shoe killed, it sold as much as I've ever had, so two years later the guy said Adio's doin' this, and I'm gonna leave and I just said Ok, I'm not gonna stay over there, I'm gonna go somewhere else, and I went and asked companies, You know I'm gonna go share, I'm gonna go film this reality show, I'm gonna go around the world skating, but I'm gonna be preaching, I'm gonna be a Christian, are you cool with it?

Nice skate shoes was like Yeah, we're cool with that. So I said Ok, I'm gonna ride for them.

I'd rode for Birdhouse for a long time, the video's finished, a lot of those kids on there, they don't know what they're doing right now, a lot of things going on with that brand that I don't really know what's next for them. They have a really good market with the Completes and with the Tony Hawk style of things, that's where I would take it if I were them.

Photo Brian Sumner

Reliance shows up and they're like, they see this as the season, they want to really get involved in skating as much as they can, like the industry side, they want to be all about the Word and sharing the Gospel.

So for me I'm like I'm gonna go over there and support them, and put my foot down and try to lift them up because they've been lifting Christ up and when people look at the website they're gonna see all these kids that for 7 years have just been going around sharing the Gospel, and hopefully it's gonna just get them more and more attention because, here's what people have got to realize, you have so many people skating now, and a massive part of that does involve the Bible belt, it does involve kids that are raised in sports families, and they won't just let their kids watch junk, they won't just let them read the magazine with the curse words and the foul language, and all that stuff.

Even though there's a lot to follow there, that was kind of the way skating was and now it's changed, you have this whole division of who you're marketing skating to, you can have a video that plays on Fuel for a year, of your board brand, and it's gonna get you way more coverage than probably if you had 10 interviews in a magazine, even with great stuff you know what I mean? There's certain kids who are gonna buy your stuff that won't even read those things that their parents won't allow them.

You know when you go to a Christian event, you've got the Dad, the Mom, the kid that skates, the brother and sister that don't, it's like you're getting to reach out to all his family, skating's in their family, parents are supporting it because they're Christians, their kid isn't gonna be influenced by the bad side of it, and so in a way it allows us to go do what we want to do and bond with them and at the same time you are bearing witness to everyone else.

Do you consider yourself a perfectionist?

You know if I look back on my career, there's so many things that if I wasn't a Christian I'd be like Why did I do that? I went and rolled for a hair care company because my friend was there, and I just thought You know what, if I don't go and do this, would I want to honor my friend?, I went and did it and it looked so silly, but if I wasn't a Christian and I didn't understand God's plan I could look at that and go Why did I do that for?

Or, there were times where I switched companies, and I was like Why did I do that? In that realm you always want to have a good record, but really, it all make sense now.

So I'm a perfectionist as far as like today, I'm not skating because I'm worn out, I don't want to go skate and just cruise around and not really tryin' because I feel like the Bible says you're to do all things as to the Lord. If I go messing around and not serious I could get hurt, but tomorrow, when I go skate, I want to be 110%. I want to do everything I can, so even if I come home sore and worn out, I know I tried to do everything I can with the gift He gave me.

But also too, if you become too extreme, it can be your focus rather than what the Lord is having you do, because we've got to be, within our church, we're so disciplined, I mean there's just the amount of effort that goes into presenting the Gospel, and having the place in order and lined up and a lot of people would say, Well you should be focused more on other things but we're so focused on the Gospel, that everything else you want it to be perfect down to the way the chairs are set, down to the way the music sounds, down to the way of all these things and that just kind of carries off in your life.

Yeah that's the perfectionist part I'm talking about, it seems like that comes with being a Christian in some sense.

Yeah, it is dangerous, because think about it, we just had a skate conference at our church and I preached on Daniel, and how Daniel purposed in his heart not to slack, not to go live the Babylonian lifestyle, which represents the world, and part of my reason for preaching that was Look, you show up at a church and you can run around, all sweaty fighting each other in the corridors of the church and you skate the whole demo and you're talking about all this secular stuff and you share your faith in Jesus Christ but the whole rest of the time your mind was on something else.

Even though you're a Christian, you're not walking in the perfection, and the purpose that you're called to walk, because when you go into a church, when I go in there as a skater, they don't know how serious I am about the Bible, they don't know if I'm reading it, they don't know what I believe, they don't know what I'm listening to, and when a pastor sees you and you're sold out like that, you're trying to do everything you can, it bears witness to them, it shines a ray of light in their idea of skate ministry that Wow, the Lord is using this you know what I mean? And that's where maybe, it is you know, the position He's put myself and other people in right now, that there are so many kids in skate ministries, there's so many kids that are Myspacing me and have all these ideas and they want to do it.

Hopefully this generation, me being able to ride for these sponsors and laying it all down, allows people to go look and at those younger skate kids who are serious, and go invest funds into them to go and do these outreaches and go to the parks that I can't go to, go to the parks that the show isn't going to, that's how I look at it. If I can step out and do this stuff, it'll hopefully shine a light for them, they'll have people say This is the season, and rather than go buying a new car and raffelling it off in the parking lot of your church, hopefully people will just come for something free, they'll all go and fast about it, receive a word from the Lord and go and sew their money instead into 5 outreaches that year for the skate community because skating is huge now.

I've been really digging those SkateBible trick clips you've been doing, one of the reasons I think they are really effective is that you're teaching kids how to pull off tricks, that's the tangible concept part, and also, I think the really cool part is that it's showing us Christians as real people with interests like anybody else.

Well, that's what's gonna happen, I think with me people aren't gonna care about the tricks, they're gonna go this guy's really trying to be as serious as he can and we are trying to touch those kids who are like in need of the Light. When you go to a demo and you meet kids that are getting molested or beaten, or that have been through hell, it stops you in your tracks you're like What am I doing, I just do tricks and I think I'm cool, what's this all about, I don't understand who Christ is it totally convicts and challenges you. Now, it could be some kid in Alaska and you're watching me talking about slappies and the next minute you're listening to a testimony and you're like WOW.

But the coolest thing is he's hearing a testimony and he can do a slappy, you see what I'm saying?

What we're gonna do right now, is we're gonna get my whole site revamped, get all the Myspace's and the YouTube's and everything all lined up so it's accurate, and every time there's an update, it will hit everyone like, Boom, boom, you know, it will just blast everyone.

I think that really captures what we need to be doing right now, it's teaching people to fish you know? It's like a kid who wants to skate, he might not come even to hear the Bible, but here's Brian Sumner teaching him how to do a slappy, he's like WHOA and then all of the sudden he starts checking you out and then you've got him bit, and at the least, if he doesn't bite, then he learns a new trick and he see's that Brian dude is a cool dude.

Yeah, and then in 10 years time, yeah, it's all between the Lord and them.

I think that's a really awesome thing you're doing with that.

Amen.

What's your favorite all time deck?

Photo Reliance

There was a Jesus one I did one time with just the eyes it was the crown of thorns, and just now Reliance skateboards they've got 2 or 3 decks comin' out, one's a cheetah, one's Jesus Christ and one's a cross. I'd have to say for me personally, I've had these cool Bruce Lee graphics, I've had these old school secular bands kind of stuff I used to like and now, obviously none of that stuff means anything so it's gonna be something with Christ on it, and the cross, and scripture and everything. So probably my 2 newest Christian lookin' style boards on the Reliance brand.

I am extremely encouraged to see that you are still a skater, after all that you have been through, and what you are today, it’s really inspiring. I see a lot of situations where talented people come to God and then are encouraged to leave everything in their past behind, sort of a throw the baby out with the bath water vibe. Could you share your thoughts on this?

God created you with talents and gifts and a lifestyle not to use for your own glory but to glorify him. Everything that was made was made for him and by him. He created the whole skateboard thing and he gave me the opportunity to use it for his glory, at first I didn't, I was all about me. I was a selfish guy who thought that the world revolved around basically whatever I wanted to do, just be a good person and if there was a heaven then I'd go there.

So my idea of heaven was being a good person, so I was a good person, but I was getting all the glory for myself, I was sitting on the throne, I was on that chair. He was obviously trying to get my attention, my name is Christian, my nickname was Christ, I invented the Christ air, and really there wasn't any laborers put in my path that talked to me about a man named Jesus who loved me and died for me, who claims he's the son of God, and the Savior of the world, and that in his blood I have the remission of sins, and that I can have eternal life if I just give my life to him, and believe that God raised him from the grave.

So for me it was one of those things like Boom! Wow, how can I have not been told this? It's like the best kept secret in the whole wide world. Here I am in prison, the first time opening up a Bible, and God just breathing his truth into my life, the scales falling off my eyes and me finding the reasons why I was created, what my purpose was for and all these things. I remember sitting there on my bunk bed, a triple decker bunk bed in county jail, and saying God I'll give it all up I was in one of those holy moments you know what I mean, I'll just go to the amazon for you, I'll give up my wife, my kids, I'll quit skating forever!.

I thought I was being super-spiritual, Lord I'll just sacrifice everything for you,

I was immediately apologizing to God - Lord forgive me, I'll be the best husband, I'll be the best father, I'm gonna try to be the best skateboarder so that you can be represented well, and I'm going to tell the skateboarding industry, I'm going to reach out to all my friends, I'm gonna raise my kids and my wife in the things of God, and immediately, Boom!, that whole idea of giving it all up for you God, that's not what God truly wants, but I'm not saying that God isn't able to call you out of where you are at and tell you to go to another place.

If you can hear the voice of God, well then you'll just get up and go. Like Abraham did. He didn't question God he just said: time to pack up our bags, we're goin'!. It was counted as righteousness for Abraham, because he did the things that God told him. But for me, I saw my place, and I saw what skateboarding could do, I saw the condition of the culture of skateboarding, and where it was going and how I was a big part of leading them down that trail of just crazy, rebellious type people.

You call them artistic and creative because of the lifestyle they live, but it's really just rebellion against the truth, and just trying to create your own idea of what life is all about, and where you find true joy or happiness, and you can't find it in the world, you can't find it in money, you can't find it in things, you can only find peace, joy and love in Jesus Christ, and that's the only place you'll have that, and it will satisfy you, and it will be a complete satisfaction that will never go away.

So for me, being a skateboarder, I saw the opportunity, I saw the platform, and I can use my name to reach out and touch people because God gave me this platform and how popular I've been. But now, I just want to use that platform to preach the gospel, in a loving, non condemning way, that shows them the love of God is real, and his presence is life-changing. It's his presence that's going to change your life and that's what changed my life, having an encounter with Jesus that was not religious, ritualistic, it was based on me having a genuine, real encounter with the living Savior that touched my life when I asked him to come into my heart.

Often when it comes to talents and gifts there seems to be not only more of a focus, but more of a validation when it comes to the spiritual gifts that the bible speaks of, like the gift of faith, prophecy, healing, etc. But shouldn’t gifts and talents work together? An artist can equally express his gift of faith thru his paintings as someone else with the same gift prays with people on the street corner, is one more valid than the other?

Yeah, you know, it's all about being rescued out of a lifestyle that has no Jesus in it, and then taking you back to that place where you were saved from, using you as a tool and an instrument. The very thing that was trying to destroy your life, for me it was drugs and that crazy partying lifestyle, that was sucking me up like a toilet bowl just flushing me down, so now finally I can speak to people about drugs, and having a lot of money at a young age, being famous, or just being popular, or a number one skateboarder, whatever it is that you are into.

I have that ability and experience- I can talk to people about prison and what prison is like, I'd been there for 5 years. Those are things that I have access to because I have experience in them. Whatever you've done, God can turn it around like he did for Joseph, he said what the enemy meant for harm, God turned it around and used it for good.

People put God in a box, and they think Ok, I'm gonna become a Christian, and I'm just gonna be a missionary, or I'm gonna go to church and I'm gonna wear a suit, get clean cut, get rid of my tattoos, don't wear earrings, because it's time to get into the Christianity box. Where is that place of reaching out? Because we're supposed to be on the rooftops preaching the gospel. So for us, to not go into the places that we have complete access to is shortening the arm of God.

Because we're his hands and feet. It's not like God needs us, but God wants to use us. So we just need to be available for him to use us, and if we could just get into a relationship with God it will break down the religious barriers, there's no denominations in Christ. So many people get caught up in thinking, Oh are you baptist, are you non denominational, are you one of those born againers?

We have to have the absolute intact, we have to love people and tell them that Jesus Christ is who he says he is, and you need a genuine encounter with the living Savior, and when you have an encounter with Jesus, there's not going to be one denomination, there's not gonna be any walls, you're gonna have an encounter with God that is real and it's gonna change your life.

All of those things are awesome things for us to cling to, but there just comes a point when we just have to read the bible for ourselves, we need to stay in prayer and surround ourselves with mentors and believers and get into a healthy, healthy church that's full bible believing, and really researching and know what you're getting into, because it's simple if you just make it not seem like God is in a box.

Once you take God out of that box, then it becomes clear, but when he's in a box people put this yoke around your neck, of legalism and laws, just like the Pharisees and the Sadducees, who said you gotta do these things, you gotta look this way, you gotta act this way, you gotta talk this way you know what, we just gotta know what sin is and not sin. We need to know what God's righteousness is and walk in it, we need to be slaves to righteousness and not slaves to sin anymore, and if you can do that you're on your way to changing the community you live in, your family, the world that we live in today, and that's the bottom line.

Photo Jason Olivia

What is it about Christian Hosoi, and what is it about Skating that God decided to use them both in such a huge way?

God makes us all different, I'm different than you, my abilities are different than your abilities and that means we can reach different places, that's why we're the body of Christ, each member has its different function, like the eye and the foot. How can we work without each other, we can't, but when we work together, we can really make that difference, that will be powerful. It's working together, it's teamwork.

It's not I'm gonna be captain save the world on my own. It's man, let's go out and fight this battle together, let's lock arm in arms, let's pray, and then we go out there with the anointing of God, believing that God is going to heal people, we're going to believe God for signs and wonders, there's going to be demons cast out in Jesus' name, setting the captives free. When we walk around with the expectancy that God is gonna use us, and we're pure and cleansed and our hearts are purified, and we're constantly sharpening our sword, and edifying each other, that's what it's all about. That's the uniqueness about every one of us, we're all different and God can use us all. You just have to choose to be used.

What is the most important part of skating, and what does it mean to be a quality skateboarder?

For me skateboarding was all about fun, and it was so much fun to me that I just wanted to do it all the time. Going from fun to doing it all the time, I wanted to be the best. So I had a goal that I wanted to meet, I wanted to reach that goal and nothing was gonna get in my way. Bruce Lee was one of my idols as a little kid, and I wanted to be the best Kung Fu guy in the world, but when I finally got the skateboard, I was like Wow, this is FUN!.

Bruce Lee and fighting is like aggressive, and I wanted to be the best and I wanted to beat everybody up, and be the best martial artist, because I went to all the Kung Fu movies and that's what I was into as a little kid, going to Chinatown and Japanesetown, going to Chinese movie theaters and watching samarai movies, I wanted to be a warrior, but when I got a skateboard I was like this is fun, and it's an extension of surfing and I'm like surfin' down the street, sprayin' dirt and smashin' against barrels by bushes, and I was like this is SICK! and all of the sudden I was at the skatepark and I was like WHOA you can fly in the air???.

That's when I went this is INCREDIBLE. This was like in 76' and 77' and I thought if I could skateboard for a living, I'll never have to work a day in my life!, and I haven't worked a day in my life, you know what I mean? Skateboarding has been my job, and to me it's not a job, it's what I love and I'd do it anyway. So, those are the things that made me who I am and why I do them, and what does it mean to be a quality skater?, It means that you're having fun, and you're doing it for the right reasons - It's not about the money, it's not about the fame, it's not about winning first place, it's about enjoying what you're doing and progressing at what you do, and that right there is the real ultimate reason why I love to skateboard. It's the love of skateboarding, it's the passion for it that drives me to do it. The quality part of skateboarding is the enjoyment and fun that you have skating with your friends.

Photo Quiksilver

You were an entrepreneur at a very young age, I think that’s encouraging, in that it shows that there is more to the skating industry than whether a kid can turn pro or not.

How were you able to successfully implement Hosoi skates, do you have a head for business or are you an idea man who gets together other talented people who can make the ideas happen?

No, I started my company at 17 years old, and just did it out of the garage, we screened the boards ourselves, just me and my father. My father is an artist and went to art school at Berkeley, and graduated with his masters in Fine Art. My mom was a secretary in Beverly Hills for major stock-broker firm, so she understood business, my dad was creative, I had both worlds of influence all my life, so when I came to that place of skateboarding is my life, I'm making thousands of dollars a month, at 14-15 years old, traveling all over the world, it was like ok, well how about starting our own company? and it was just like yeah, just do it! It wasn't like it was something hard that I couldn't fathom, it was like man this will be fun, and that's what it was all about, fun, going through business partners and joint ventures, and contracts and relationships with companies.

You know I had a great amount of experience dealing with partnerships and all that. So for me it was a learning experience, to do it all and be successful at it on top of all that. Not only being young, but being successful, making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, it was kind of like, over the top successful, to the point where I was almost a loose cannon just goin' off. Blasting anywhere I wanted to blast and doing whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, and no one could tell me otherwise because I was successful.

So, my parents weren't raising me in the things of God, even though they were great parents, they raised me with great morals, great upbringing, supported me to the utmost, but the fundamentals of faith and God weren't implemented. So, when I came to the Lord, I introduced my parents to God and said that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life, and you guys need to read the bible and understand this because I want to spend eternity with you guys, and both of them got saved, and praise God, that God would allow that to happen, and that I would have the opportunity to be the one to present them the gospel.

But back in those days, it was all about freedom and creativity, and I was smokin' pot at 12 years old, with my parents, and it was no big deal. Bringing girls back to the house at 14, 15, 16 years old and spending the night wasn't a big deal back then. Today, it would be completely horrific, you know what I mean? I look at these kids at like 14 and 15 and they look like babies. But maybe because I was so young back then, I didn't know what I looked like, but back then I think it was a little bit more open minded, whereas today, people like us are really standing up and revealing Godly principles into the lifestyle of even skateboarding that people are recognizing what's really good and bad.

Because when you don't know God, good and bad to us, before we come to God, is much different than today as how I look at things that are good and bad. When I look at things that are good and bad, I look at it through the eyes of God. It's about sin and righteousness, they're two different things, it's not about good and bad, because what's good in our eyes can be a sin in God's eyes.

So for me, I was just being creative, starting my own company, and having a good time. I didn't save any money, I was just like I'm gonna spend all my money on my friends, I'm gonna live a crazy lifestyle, different than anybody else, and I'm gonna be a giver I was like one of those generous guys that took everybody out, no matter what, spent it all and just paid for everything. If you're with me, it's on the house. Today, I get people who tell me how that really touched their lives, and now I can tell them how my life is today and how it's not kudos, it's not for me to get a pat on the back, for everybody to go you're the man.

Praise God that I was like that, praise God that my parents raised me to be generous, they were the ones who told me not to be tight and selfish, but I took it and said I was gonna be a good person. But now I'm doing it for a reason and that's to glorify God, and give God all the glory for it. Now, when I give things away it's not about me, it's about what God has done through me. So, I'm just humbly being used by the Lord to be able to bless somebody rather than hey look at me, I'm really a godly guy, like the Pharisee's standing on the corner with their eloquent prayers and all their garb.

Photo Chris Ortiz

What we do in secret God will reveal in the open. When you see people coming into that place when you're ministering to them and them receiving it, that's the priceless gift that you get, when you tell somebody about Jesus, and you can see them give their lives to the Lord. You shared your testimony, you preached the gospel, and many come forward and give their lives to Jesus, and that you can be one of those people. Right? That's the pay, that's priceless in a Christian, or choosing ministry. It becomes a place of looking into the eyes of people and seeing them receive the lord. That right there is worth more than all the money in the world.

Obviously, there is a tremendous amount of hard work that goes into perfecting ones talent, but more importantly, there is also something else special there, something at the core level – divine intervention – help to do something that ordinarily one wouldn’t be able to do without that help. Do you agree?

I believe God has a part in everything, cause he created it all. There comes a point where we choose to do things for him. Because we were created to glorify God in our lives. So me, I was looking for my best interest in doing it, but God all along was like I'm gonna use this for my glory and I want to use you as a mouth piece for me to reach out to this generation of people, and it took me thirty years to finally come to the place of revelation that Jesus is who he says he is, and that without him I will have no eternal life.

So my testimony of 8 years being on crystal meth, running around the streets with my head cut off, people can relate to that because they're going through those things. Now I'm helping to set people free and break the chains of bondage in their lives and addictions, and pleading the blood of Jesus over their lives, and breaking the curse that's been passed down from generations to generations, which ultimately is what cuts the thing to the root, takes the axe to the root and they become completely set free, Who the son sets free is free indeed.

That right there is complete freedom, liberty, the peace that passes all understanding. Then you have the strength and the power, that fire that comes from the Holy Spirit, the place where the rubber meets the road, when life gets hard, because life isn't gonna be all a bouquet of roses, it's easy to praise and glorify God when things are good.

But when we're prepared, and when God has really conditioned us to that place of what the perfect will of God is, we would be thankful and thankful in all things, that is the perfect will of God. That means all things, in my sickness, in my hardships, in my difficulties, as well as in my strengths and my accomplishments, you know what I mean? But we tend to forget about him in our good times and acknowledge him when we need him in our bad times.

Praise God that I got touched by God when I was in a place of desperation. I was addicted to drugs for 8 years, I was in a prison cell looking at 5 to 10 years, and I surrendered my life to God and said God if you're real and I cried out with a cry of desperation, and said I'm lost and I can't figure it out, and that's when God supernaturally blasted me, and the scales flew off my eyes and I saw the truth and I just ran after God, and kept my focus on him and I haven't looked back since that day. For me, that test in my life, turned into the testimony that I have, and going back to your question of, has God been a part of that?, oh yeah he has. Because now that I acknowledge him, all that is to be used for his glory.

Do you consider yourself to be a perfectionist?

I very much am a perfectionist when it comes to the serious things in my life, but I'm also easy going when it comes to other things, like the leisurely things, or stuff like that. So a perfectionist, if I want to be I sure can, and like skateboarding, that was one of the things, and my walk with Christ, I want to be a perfectionist, not legalistically, I just want to glorify God the best I can. I want him to be pleased with my lifestyle, I want him to be sitting up there having a sweet smelling aroma, when I'm worshiping him in spirit and in truth.

Does prayer play a part in your creative process? Do you pray before you skate?

Oh yeah, definitely. I pray before everything. The bible says to pray without ceasing, in Thessalonians, the perfect will of God is to be thankful in all things. So you think about it and you're like ok, so pray without ceasing, so do I just not stop? No, pray in a constant communion with God based on our relationship with him, that's communion, he's my best friend, and I know he's right there, he's with me, he's taking the rocks out of my path, he's the light to my path and a lamp to my feet, you know what I mean? When we walk like that we're not walking alone!

I'm always looking for divine appointments, God's just put it in me, to want to talk to people about Jesus, every opportunity that I get I'm gonna take, it could be that one thought that that person has, like myself back in the day, that somebody didn't take the opportunity to do so. That they didn't sacrifice their time for me, when they're like man I should have said something, and what if they didn't. Well, my eternal salvation was on the line and I don't want somebody who's been placed in my path, who God has put there for me to minister to, to plant or to water, whether there's already seed planted or I'm just planting the first seed, or if there's a harvest there and they just want to give their life to Christ and they do so. God gives the increase and it's for me to just be available, to be there and to open up my mouth.

I remember in Livin it LA, the part with Tim where he's alone, by himself practicing, and the whole time he’s talking to God and thanking him for being able to skate, and at the same time being honest about himself with God and saying things like I’ve always had a desire to be by myself and that you wired me to be like this.

Is there a duality in skating that is unique to it alone? Meaning, there is an opportunity for quiet time and to be alone and focus on your work and meditate on God, and then there is a communal time where you can encourage and be encouraged by other skaters?

Photo The Uprising

Me, I'm a people person, so for me, when I have my quiet time I don't wanna go skate a ramp by myself. Never, I'm never gonna skate a ramp and practice by myself. I told you that when I started out skating it was for fun, you know what I mean, it's for enjoyment, it's for people getting together, and having relationships and I think that really shows the love of God more than anything. Because the bible says that they'll know we're disciples by our love one for another. So for me being there skating by myself, it means there's a photographer there to get photos and there has to be nobody else on the ramp. I did that just two nights ago at a bowl in Hollywood. It was one of those things, I was by myself, on the ramp, but you know, there was a reason. But to go and to meditate while I'm skating, I'm either going to meditate on God, or I'm gonna be skating with the boys, you know what I mean, and trying to minister to them if they're not saved. Cause that's what we really do, when we go skate we go with an agenda, that hopefully we'll be able to minister to whoever's there. Every time we go skate.

Lets talk about art. I dig those pieces that you did with Mark Gonzalez. You mentioned before, your dad is an artist as well, what role does art play in your life?

Well, I grew up in the art scene, I grew up with my dad painting my whole life, I went to art galleries and art openings, my whole life in Hollywood, and understanding now Michaelangelo, and the Sistene Chapel and going to see all of that in Europe and seeing Picasso's work and seeing it live, before I got saved.

Now that I'm saved, seeing how artwork plays a huge role in representing a time and place, it really is interesting and it's really something you can hold on to and look at and constantly talk about, so for me art is something that lasts, it's a sign of the time, it's an extension of oneself who is the artist, and you can grab a hold of the purpose and meaning and it tells a story as well, and in relationships, like if it's a collaboration like me and Mark Gonzalez. The art was way beyond just the art pieces, and the person that did it, the relationships they have, what they do as skateboarders and the stories they have to tell, and then putting the art together. It means way more than what the art piece was in the first place.

That's what's so awesome about art and why I do it on my own, you can use it as an expression of who you are, and that's why I paint Jesus and I do crosses, and it's all about him. I'm going to do some for a website and start showing it.

Music is a huge part of skate culture, have you been able to see any collaborative works between Christian skaters and Christian musicians?

I go out and I do huge events and I'm there with the huge Christian artists, I get to meet them personally and hang out with them. You know what, I'm just so focused on the Lord and wanting to just be a vessel for him that I don't even have an iPod, I just put it on K-WAVE, at my church we have awesome worship music and for me it's all about worship music.

Then of course, oldies and all the classic soul, that stuff, R & B, I love blues, and reggae, I grew up just listening to blues and reggae. Hip hop and rap, motown, that right there is what I grew up on. So for me, that brings up the emotions of growing up and love and relationships and craziness and all that. But worship music, man there's nothing like it. Hymns and songs to the Lord, listening to the music, that's just Wow. Like there's a band Call To Glory that one of the deacons in our church does. He used to be in a band called Bar Room Heroes and they do full on rock and roll and punk, hardcore Jesus songs, and you're like this is just SICK! It's like full on military, like we're going to battle, and there's worship in it too. It's like, ah man, it's awesome.

One issue that seems to be recurring lately with people I’ve talked to, has been the idea that things Christian are cheesy. I’ve dealt with this personally, in that a lot of Christian music I find follows formulas, is very contrived and isn’t half as heart felt as some secular music, it’s like they aren’t paying attention to what they are actually creating and holding up high standards for it. Skaters pour their heart, soul and blood into their work, and can spot fakers a mile away. How can we as Christian artists keep it real and be authentic, and instead of creating mediocrity, become the forefront of inspiration to others?

One thing for sure is that Christians aren't worried about what people think of them and the secular people are. That's why they're so meticulous and insecure that they have to make it perfect. I've heard very poor artists ushering in the presence of God, and it being just like a sweet, sweet atmosphere of the presence of God. You can't do that with secular music, you might get touched and all, but you know what, there's something about when you worship God with your music, that it changes the dynamic of the atmosphere of where it's being played, if it's live or if it's in your car. That's why worship music is for me, it just brings me into that place of just communion with God. I think that's what music was created for.

It wasn't for having the best drum solos or having perfect sound mixing, and all that. Yeah, you can have all that and you know what if I was a musician, I'd be like this: I want to smoke the secular music world by how good I play, and I want it to be a representation of my relationship with God, but you know what, I'm not that, so for me I'm not worried about that, but I can see how people start pointing their fingers and saying yeah that Christian stuff, but you know why, because the presence of God comes with their music and you know what they don't want to change. It changes your life when you step into the room and Christian music is being played.

Why? Because the gospel's being preached, you know what I mean?, and if the gospels not being preached, well then it's just bad music. Or it's just music that's mediocre. It's not about the music, it's about the message that's being told. If it's all about the instruments and all that, well then where's God? It's about we're worshiping God with our tambourines and harps. But I think that when you take it out of context of why you're making music, well yeah, we can get all technical, we can get all stuffy and yeah, ok this band's better than that band, but that band loves the Lord. Whatever, that's all politics, that's why I'm looking forward to somebody who's an awesome musician, and saved, so radically saved that people go what happened? You know, like when Johnny Cash came to the Lord.

Johnny Cash played good music, that's my whole point.

Bob Dylan, he came to the Lord, but what happened to him? He walked back into the world again. I don't know if he's still serving the Lord, I don't know if he's going to be spending eternity in heaven, but God knows, the seeds have been planted, he did read the bible, he did gospel songs.

He's got like 5 gospel albums.

Smokey Robinson's saved, it's not about that anymore, it's about who wants to use your talents to glorify the Lord, well, that's why I'm going out practicing tonight, I'm going to the skatepark and I'm going to get better so when people see you're going to skate and preach the gospel, I want to at least come up and do pretty good! I don't want people to go Man that guy sucks!! But he loves the Lord!!! He sure sucks, but he loves the Lord!

[Laughs all around]

That's what I'm getting at here, the bottom line can't be but he loves the Lord. It's that that kid is DOPE and he loves the Lord.

Yeah, and I think that's happening today, the people who are finally getting off that pedestal and allowing God to get up on it, in their lives, and say ok, you're the one and why I want to do this, and I want to represent you and what does God say? He says, I will exalt you when you humble yourself. All my sponsors, all the money I'm making, it's all God... It's not anything else, I'm not performing, I'm not jumping through hoops, I'm saying to everybody, I'm a Jesus freak, bible thumpin', on fire, spirit filled Christian, who loves the Lord, and I skateboard and I have a family, and I love to go and hang out in a backyard pool and grind coping. But I'm out there on a mission, everywhere I go, and that's what I do, I'm here to be a vessel, used by God to reach out to a lost and dying generation.

Reverend Vince Anderson & His Love Choir. This is not your typical reverend or your typical choir. We had the pleasure of sitting down with Vince over tea at the Blackbird Parlour in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Why Music?

Good question, I started playing piano when I was 3 so it's always been part of my expression. It's also something that I actually returned to because I left it for a while, then went to the conservatory and then felt called to the ministry. So I kind of left music behind for a little bit.

Then when I went to seminary, the music called me again. I tried to say no, and it kept calling me back. When I got to seminary, I went to Union Theological here in New York, I found myself kind of done with music at that point. But I felt everyone calling at me, and they had a daily chapel service, so I felt like God was telling me that "this was the voice I've given you", there's more, but this is one language I've given you, don't not use it.

If I have any semblance of a music career, I took my first job as a music director when I was 12, at a start up church that met in a school, and they needed a piano player so they got me. It's always been a part of my sacred and secular expression. Music has always been a big part of my language.

Who were and are your biggest influences?

Johnny Cash. As far as what I do- playing music in bars and the combination of secular and sacred that I do. The kind of music I play, I call it "Dirty Gospel". Even though I identify myself as a gospel artist,

He gave me a certain kind of freedom, I don't have to be in that box, I always thought of Johnny Cash as a gospel artist, always, first and foremost. The more human he got, the stronger his gospel message got- to me. It just added more weight and more depth and breadth to it, like the deeper he got into writing about murder, drugs and bad times, the more powerful "How Great Thou Art" sounded to me, when he would go into a gospel song. He's one of my biggest influences.

Photo withreservation

There's a whole mess of traditional gospel artists- Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sister Clara Ward, Professor Alex Bradford, Blind Willie Johnson, I tend to like gospel artists that veer on the blues side of things. Dorothy Norwood I like alot too, Shirley Ceasar. I also veer towards their 70's records. The Blind Boys of Alabama, The Harmonizing Four, there's countless, countless.

U2, which is an odd one, listing all the other references. But they too, I think are from the school of Johnny Cash in that they are not afraid to sing songs from a Christian perspective that recognizes that we're human first and Christian second. To me, that's the most important thing. It is deeper, we all come from a womb and we reflect that experience, and that makes the experience with God that much more meaningful.

What kind of music do you make and why?

Well, I talked a little bit about it earlier, it's called Dirty Gospel and it grows out of a gospel tradition, gospel and blues. It's very simple chord progressions, maybe a little r&b thrown in as well. I try to take the roots of gospel music and get to the human elements again. Strip away the piety of gospel songs to a degree, get em' back to the root, what is it about this song that really connects with people, and why does this song do it and this song doesn't. Or,

So, I'm interested in that. My music's got plenty of a rock and roll attitude thrown in there as well. It's definitely informed by a punk sentiment in a way, I just kind of go for it, I'm not the best singer in the world, but I got what I got.

Also, at our root we're a bar band, but a gospel bar band. We rarely play churches. That's where we practice, we don't rehearse so much, it's like that bar band work ethic, goin' out there and doing three sets a night, that informs the music a lot.

What's your instrument of choice when you make music?

Piano, and keyboard, I've introduced organ a little bit. But I still love the percussive element of the keyboard, and the piano, I really play it like a rhythm instrument- pound it as hard as I can. I'm a stomper too, so I guess my feet are an instrument of choice too, I'm happy when I get a stage that really sounds good, and I'm happy when I'm wearing the right shoes. Recently, I've thought of my feet as an instrument more and more- what stage, and what shoes go well with that stage.

How many instruments do you play?

Let's see, I play accordian, bass, bible school guitar- like summer camp guitar. I also play clarinet, that was my band instrument, and saxophone, but I haven't picked up any of those in years so...

Did you study under anyone?

Well, I was trained classically, at the Conservatory of the Pacific. I had this German professor named Wolfgang, his tie went way down too long and he was like Wince, Wince... and we would play in this studio that was two grand pianos, and I don't know how on earth he got those pianos in there because that's all that fit in there. I still think to this day that they built the building around it. So, that's been my only formal training, and years of study before that with different teachers. I'm starting to think I want to take piano again and some organ, but I haven't found the right teacher yet.

How many years have you dedicated to your craft?

Well, I started at 3 and I'm 37 now so...so I've been playing piano for 34 years. Professionally, I've been doing this for almost 13 years.

Are you planning on doing this forever?

Well, you know, until God tells me not too. I've had a hard couple of years so creatively, I've reached kind of a dried up point a bit. I wrote my first song in a year, about a month ago. But I feel the inspiration welling up again. And having the opportunity to preach again in a formal setting with Jay has really kind of stirred the pot a bit. It's an interesting time right now, because on stage the creativity really lives, but in the studio I'm having a challenge. The band is very improvisational- songs can develop and things can move. Songs can be written on-stage. As long as it feeds me and as long as I feel like God is leading me in that direction, I'll keep doin' it.

What keeps you excited about making music?

Playing with other people, and that moment that I feel the Holy Spirit has really visited, it's great when that happens in a bar in front of a bunch of people who may or may not be church. There's other times where it's just a good time. And there's that conversation where God has spoken to us, through us, and that we've spoken back to God. And when that happens, that sort of circular conversation happens in front of an audience, it's great. It can turn a very profane space into a sacred space and feel amazing. So, if that keeps happenin'...

Photo withreservation

Apart from making music, what keeps your interest?

Baseball. I'm a New York Mets fan, the season starts Monday. So that's my other cathedral, my temple [laughs]. Running, I like to run. Preaching and doing pastor work too. Meeting Jay in the last year has filled out a certain part of what I feel I've been called to do and gave it a spot in which it felt full and real. I feel that God has given that to me and completed a picture that I've kinda waited for, for years. Preaching at Pete's I don't have to hide my bar work, that can be right there out in front, and it feels very real and organic, like I got God's promise.

What's your best advice for up and coming artists and musicians?

I was just talking to Jay about this yesterday. For all of my success locally- I've really had alot of success, in Brooklyn, I'm an established artist, so people just feel like I'm successful, but I don't sell any records, I don't have any distribution, so I don't know, I think right now, as far as advice on that end, for people who are tryin' to break in and establish themselves- I haven't done the best job of maintaining a career. But, I have stayed true to what moves me and I've followed that bliss. That's kept me performing for this long, and enough that clubs want us so that means somethin'.

I'm happy performing. As I get a little older, I wish there was a level that we're at that would sustain it financially for a little longer. But I don't think of that so often, maybe I should think about it more, my advice would be for artists to think about it. But more importantly though, that can't be what you're after. I still believe that I'm gonna be taken care of somehow. If this is what I'm supposed to be doing and God wants me to continue, God will take care of it so that we can do it.

It's more important for me really, to follow that bliss and to make sure that makes me happy. Performing makes me happy and bringing that Holy Spirit in the room makes me happy. So my advice would be to just follow that.

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