Music for the Soul, Inc.
Stories

Dear Friend - As ones eager to be good stewards of the vision that God has given, we at Music for the Soul prayerfully seek God’s call and leading every step of the way.

Living in the rigors and demands of the day to day it is often difficult to see God’s hand at work. That’s why it is so important to reflect on the journey from time to time; to remember what God has done. For it is through the stories of a ministry like Music for the Soul that one can see God’s faithfulness in weaving together something more beautiful and surprising than could ever be imagined. I hope you’ll enjoy reading some of these stories and seeing the miraculous way God has inspired us, encouraged us, and sustained us.

Additionally, we have been blessed with many wonderfully thoughtful, creative, wise, and passionate friends. From time to time to they have shared their thoughts with us on a wide range of subjects having to do with music and ministry. Some of these are archived here as well. We welcome your thoughts and comments on what you read here. And we pray that you will derive joy in sharing with others – whether through song, poetry, essay, film, art, or the spoken word - the stories of the miracles that God has done in your life!

Steve Siler
Music for the Soul

A Last Minute Miracle 2008 -
A behind the scenes story from the making of 'Somebody's Daughter'

For several years I have been involved as a clinician with a wonderful organization called Write about Jesus. www.writeaboutjesus.com I believe it to be the best organization in existence for teaching Christian songwriting and for building community amongst aspiring Christian songwriters. It is run by the accomplished, award winning lyricist Sue Smith and her husband John. Their heart to nurture as well as educate is what sets WAJ apart.

While most of the clinicians live in the Nashville area the conference is always located in the St. Louis area where the Smiths live. Late in 2007 Sue and I decided that it would be a neat idea to have music city host a Write about Jesus East event.

This would accomplish four things; it would allow the clinicians to teach in their own backyard, expose the conference to new writers in the Nashville area, and provide an opportunity for the many faithful St. Louis devotees of the conference to visit Nashville for the first time. Lastly, it would allow for the participation of some CCM and country songwriters who had never been able to make the trip to St. Louis.

WAJ Nashville was to take place on March 29, 2008. The week before the event I had been attending to details regarding the completion of the Somebody's Daughter music videos and documentary. We had finished filming all the content and we're now down to post-production issues.

But something was troubling me. God was impressing upon me that we weren't done. I couldn't shake this feeling that something was missing. Then suddenly it landed on me. There was nothing on the DVD specifically for youth, for those in their teens and early twenties.

I didn't know what we were going to do. The budget was gone. And even if we had had a budget we had no song.

A few days later the WAJ conference took place at Hendersonville Community Church. One of the standard elements of every WAJ Conference is a song critique. Registrants sign up to have their songs listened to and judged by a duo of professional writers (clinicians). In this case there were seven different sign up sheets, seven different opportunities for writers to have their songs critiques.

My partner in the critique sessions was a writer named Chad Cates. Chad had come to me while we were working on the original Somebody's Daughter CD and asked me if he could write for the project. He'd dealt with pornography in his past and wanted to be able to help by contributing something to the recording.

When Chad and I were seated and ready to begin we asked for a volunteer to have their song played first. A handsome young man in a brown cloth cap slid his CD across the table and said, "I guess I'll go first."

It's important to mention here that the vast majority of songs we listen to in critique sessions at Write about Jesus, especially from first time registrants, are generally in need of some help. In fact, Topher immediately began apologizing for his performance of the song before we even started playing it.

The lyric sheet said Losing Ground, Words & Music by Topher Teague. No sooner had the song began than Chad and I exchanged a glance. The guitar playing was good. The singing was good. The song was very good. But even more amazing than all of that was the topic of the song – pornography.

As each line of the song unfolded I got more and more excited. This was exactly what we need to complete the Somebody's Daughter DVD. This was the missing piece. After the class I asked Topher if he would be interested in Music for the Soul producing a music video of his song. I also asked him to send me an MP3 copy of the song by e-mail.

Ok, so now I had the song we needed. Not only that, I had the singer. Topher was very talented and would be able to perform for the recording himself, as well as provide the band. But this was still only half of the solution. From where would the video budget come?

On the following Monday I called my friend Corey Niemchick at Storytelling Pictures. They had already created two phenomenal videos for the DVD. "We've got a problem," I said. "There's nothing on this DVD for youth pastors that speaks specifically to young people."

Then I told him about the song that God had presented to me at WAJ. "Send me the MP3," he said.

The very next day Corey called. He and his business partner John Evans had listened to the song and wanted to make me an offer. "We believe in this project and we want it to be right. If you'll cover the flight for us to come down to Nashville we will shoot a music video for this song free of charge."

Later on when Topher and I were working on the arrangement of the song at the Music for the Soul office he shared with me that he hadn't planned on going to WAJ. His grandmother in Murfreesboro, TN had seen an ad for the conference in the paper, signed him up, paid for it, and said "You need to go to this."

I know when I need to quickly find an edgy song about pornography written and performed by an 18 year old songwriter I'm going to start by calling grandmothers. Amazing.

So when you watch the Somebody's Daughter DVD now you will see a music video of the song "Losing Ground." Keep in mind for this to take place the following things had to take happen:

  1. Topher's grandmother had to see the ad.
  2. She had to decide on her own that she was going to send Topher to the conference.
  3. Topher had to accept the invitation. He probably could've thought of something else to do on a Saturday.
  4. Of all the dozens of songs he had written he had to decide to enter "Losing Ground" for a critique.
  5. There were seven critique sessions. If he had been in any of the other six I'd have never heard the song.
  6. Corey and John had to decide to record a video for which we had absolutely no budget.
  7. All of this had to happen within a narrow band of time in order for the song and video to fit in the production schedule.

Youth pastors around the country are now using this song to broach the topic of pornography with their groups.

Stories like this are what make me chuckle when somebody calls me the executive director of Music for the Soul. Clearly I am not the one at the wheel – but it sure is exciting being along for the ride!





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