The Gospel Whisperer.
Steven Curtis Chapman Sings
The Blues & We Eavesdrop
5 APRIL 2006: A RARE BIRD, STEVEN CURTIS CHAPMAN WINS HIS 50TH DOVE AWARD, SHOWING HE IS THE GREATEST CHRISTIAN MUSIC ARTIST EVER. MAY HIS DOVES INCREASE! AND HIS YEARS ADD ON TO
He wins, he loses, he hurts. Like every husband, every father, every songwriter, every singer, like everyone else. And he’s been to a maximum-security prison with Chuck Colson, who was Richard Nixon’s special counsel, feeling the deep pain of hopelessness.
He’s a musical genius. He’s real. (Photo by Diana Morris.) In high school he had asthma. An American from
He’s a believer. It was 11 September 2001, morning. The
‘We were looking out our window at the Capitol and thinking, well, if it gets a little off course, we are 15 stories up, we are right in line. She (Mary Beth) said, ‘Should we run? Should we go somewhere?’ I looked at her, and not in any great moment of my own wisdom, but I said, ‘Sweetheart, either everything that we have said to be true of us is true and we are in God’s hands and He is in control of our lives, or it’s not. And if it is true, then the truth is the truth and no matter where we run, we are in God’s hands and ultimately He is in control of our lives.’
‘Behold, I have not found such great faith, not even in
So you see, Steve Curtis Chapman sings his faith (as millions do), as well as lives his faith (as millions don’t).
His is the sound of faith at work. No, he is not perfect. He has tantrums. He lost his voice once, for 3 months, and thought he would never sing again. He has fallen off the stage twice. He is in a Sunday School with his wife, Mary Beth, in a class on Christian parenting. ‘We need all the help we can get,’ Steven says. His children are teaching him how to use the computer (Mac, not IBM) (Chat, 4 Nov 1996, pages.prodigy.net/). Steven the parent says, ‘I am an extremely reluctant computer user. I am going into the Computer Age kicking and screaming.’ Steven, when it comes to the Computer Age, most parents are like that.
People refer to his music as ‘a cross between ‘70s-style light rock and orchestrated pop’ (Sandra Brennan, no date, All Music Guide, answers.com/), his father calls it ‘the McCracken county sound’ (Frank ‘Buzz’ Trexler, Winter 1997, Maryville Daily Times, Tennessee, members.aol.com/) and his wife Mary Beth likes its ‘rootsy organic sound’ (Jamsline Biography, 2003, jamsline.com/). All that is correct, but a minor point, as the sound is meant to deliver the message and is not the message itself. More importantly, Steven’s music revolves around the imperfections of life, his life. And that connects with me.
Listen: The first day I began my research for this article last week, I was listening to his song ‘I Will Be Here’ the whole morning and well into the afternoon on a pair of Altec Lansing ACS22 stereo speakers on the desktop computer (IBM, not Mac) at home, and I luxuriated in it. That was 7 hours of non-stop ‘I Will Be Here’ – and I’m doing it again as I final-revise this (add 4 hours Repeat Play). Steven composed this song for his wife, Mary Beth, but I insist he composed it for me, a husband who can’t compose but who has a mean voice himself and wishes to sing to his wife:
I WILL BE HERE
Steve Curtis Chapman
Tomorrow morning if you wake up
And the sun does not appear
I will be here
If in the dark we lose sight of love
Hold my hand and have no fear
I will be here
I will be here
When you feel like being quiet
When you need to speak your mind
I will listen
I will be here
When the laughter turns to crying
Through the winning, losing and trying
We’ll be together
I will be here
Tomorrow morning if you wake up
And the future is unclear
I will be here
Sure as seasons are made for change
Our lifetimes are made for years
I will be here
I will be here
You can cry on my shoulder
When the mirror tells us we’re older
I will hold you
And I will be here
To watch you grow in beauty
And tell you all the things you are to me
I will be here
I will be true to the promise I have made
True to the One who gave you to me
I will be here
And just as sure as seasons are made for change
Our lifetimes are made for years
I will be here
We’ll be together
I will be here
This song is the first track of his 1989 (third) album ‘More To This Life’ out of whose titles went on to capture 4 #1 radio hits. A smash 4th year of dedicated Gospel music ministry; Steven started earnestly even before his first album came out in 1987.
‘I Will Be Here’ has become a perennial favorite of soloists in many a wedding in the
I call him THE GOSPEL WHISPERER because he doesn’t preach in his songs – he simply evokes; he doesn’t shout – he simply articulates; he doesn’t gesture wildly – he simply strums his guitar; he doesn’t spout words breathlessly for 5 minutes – he simply sings; he doesn’t tell you to repent your sins – he simply tells you he’s trying to do right by his fellowman; he doesn’t tell you how to be a good parent, spouse, child, neighbor – he simply tells you how he and his family are trying the best way they can. In one word, he’s SHARING. Every song is a sharing of a life, a Christian life. In this song, I have met a kindred spirit in Steven Curtis Chapman, Gospel music artist, 44, and he has inspired me, Frank A Hilario, feature writer and blogger, 66, to devote the next best years of my life to a grand mission of sharing through writing. Great.
I call him The Gospel Whisperer also because, for the last 21 years, STEVEN CURTIS CHAPMAN HAS BEEN REINVENTING THE ART OF GOSPEL MUSIC MAKING – songwriting and singing and gospeling itself (not to mention producing albums and videos) – WITH HARDLY ANYONE NOTICING THE PARADIGM SHIFT Steven has made. Scott Thunder writes of a paradigm shift in relation to Chapman’s album ‘Signs Of Life’ (1996) where Thunder refers to ‘a grittier musical approach’ and more ‘earthy tunes’ and different ‘vocal phrasing’ and ‘fine artistry’ – explaining what he calls ‘a new level of creativity and expression’ (1996, Features, CCMmagazine.com/). That’s true also, but that’s not what I mean. The paradigm shift I am referring to is this: Instead of motherhood statements as by other Christian songwriters, SONGS ON HIS FAMILY GROWING AND LIVING IN FAITH ARE STEVEN’S MEDIUM AND MESSAGE. His family’s journey in faith is all what Steven Curtis Chapman has been songwriting and singing and playing and talking about – no other Gospel music artist has done that. And the deafening & repeated applause is testimony to his growing up in faith as husband, father, son and neighbor.
An unexamined life is not worth liking. So, let us explore the worlds of this musical great so that we may appreciate more of life. Let me then talk about the unique and the common, for Steven Curtis Chapman is both; he is in fact:
(a) AS SONGWRITER EXTRAORDINAIRE, he talks to himself. He has 9 Dove Awards as ‘Songwriter of the Year,’ a record, showing that it helps greatly to listen to yourself. He also listens to pastors, authors, family and neighbors. A Dove Award is a prize for performance officially called the Gospel Music Association (GMA) Music Awards in the US of A; it is the Grammy Award in the universe of Gospel music. In fact, I like to call him a ‘songmaker’ – because he makes the music and writes the words, he creates the song.
(b) AS GOSPEL SINGER EXTRAORDINAIRE, he has recorded 44 #1 hits on radio (O’Connell cited), the same number as his years (44). He has performed at the White House and appeared on CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, CMT, Fox News, Hallmark, E!, Tonight Show (Jay Leno). Remember, his is Gospel music.
(c) AS GOSPEL MUSIC ARTIST EXTRAORDINAIRE, he has won 5 Grammy Awards (the last in Feb 2005); he has to his name 2 albums certified platinum and 7 albums certified gold. An album or record goes gold if it sells half a million copies, platinum if it sells a million copies. And Steven has 37 #1 single Christian videos (Ross cited).
(d) AS HUSBAND, FATHER, SON, IN-LAW ORDINARY & EXTRAORDINARY, he argues with his wife, children, parents, parents-in-law. Steven and Mary Beth, his wife, have founded Shaohannah’s Hope, a foundation providing assistance, including financial, to families who would like to adopt children in the
An unexamined life is not worth living. So: Let us examine Steven’s life in relation to our own and focus on:
(e) US AS CHRISTIANS NOT UNIQUE, since even if we cannot sing like Steven, cannot be in a mission, cannot adopt a child, or cannot donate to charity, there is still something very important that only each one of us can do. That’s what I call Steven’s Surprise.
In the meantime, on
And now more details on the remarkable-unremarkable many worlds of Steven Curtis Chapman.
(A) AS SONGMAKER
STEVEN IS THE BEST, BEING HONEST WITH HIMSELF.
Steven Curtis Chapman talks to himself, to God (or listens to His words in his heart), to his family, to neighbors; he also reads – for inspiration, for insights into what is begging to be sung about. When he lost his voice once, lasting 3 months, he took time to read more books and they influenced his thinking, two in particular: ‘Rumors Of Another World: What On Earth Are We Missing?’ by Philip Yancey (Zondervan Sept 2003) and ‘Don’t Waste Your Life’ by John Piper (Crossway Books May 2003). He lost his voice and found other voices.
Steven must have learned from Yancey that some people seek to take apart while others seek to connect and put together.
With Piper’s book, Steven says: ‘I grabbed it on my way to
Steven learned songwriting from his father, an amateur songwriter who never achieved fame. Now, many a father would have in the son what he could not have; so, I may say the son has been songwriting in the name of the father. In his father’s music store, he had learned to play many instruments, especially the guitar and piano.
He enrolled as pre-med student at
He writes his songs. He joined Sparrow Records in 1987 and came out with his first album, ‘First Hand.’ Near-success: The song ‘Weak Days’ became hit #2 in the contemporary Christian music radio chart. The next year, he came out with his second album, ‘Real Life Conversations.’ Success: 4 songs became radio hits; co-written with James Isaac Elliot, ‘His Eyes’ became #1 as well as earned a Dove Award as Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year. Also in 1989, Steven won a Dove Award as Best Songwriter of the Year. Later that year, his third album, ‘More To This Life,’ had 4 #1 hits. In 1990, he was nominated for an unprecedented 10 Dove Awards and won 5. His next album, ‘For The Sake Of The Call,’ had 5 #1 hits and he received more Dove Awards and his first Grammy Award for ‘Best Pop Gospel Album.’ He was the King of Christian Music (Brennan cited). He still is, if uncrowned.
He describes himself in his songwriting in these words: ‘One who even writes very honestly in my music about my concerns’ (Trexler 1997 cited). He examines his own life and writes about what he finds out into his songs. Like so:
Once, it was the baseball season and one of the Chapman’s children was playing baseball and was now at third base and was waiting for Dad to show up and watch, whispering to himself, ‘Where’s Dad now that I need him to watch!’ Dad was busy writing a song. Mom put it to Dad above a whisper: ‘You know, this song’s really nice, but here’s what we need from you … and I feel like you’re kind of disconnected from what’s going right now in the family.’ Dad got the point and so, says Steven, ‘We took a lot of breaks for baseball games; it was right at baseball season’ (Trexler 1997 cited). He learned to say, ‘Enough is enough. This is gonna have to do.’ He was writing a song about being a good husband and father.
‘Most of the songs I write are more out of hopes and intentions,’ Steven says (Michael Herman, 11 March 2002, ChristianityToday.com/). ‘They’re not usually written in the past tense – (not) ‘I’ve mastered this and I’ve climbed this mountain, so now I’m going to write a song about how I got to the top.’ It’s more of a process, writing while still climbing the mountain.’ Mohamed must keep on climbing the mountain.
In a chat, Peninsula02 asks Steven: ‘How did you know that God had plans for you in the music world when you first began writing?’ (Chat, 1996, pages.prodigy.net/). Steven says: ‘Well, I’m not sure that I knew God had plans for me, but it seemed to become evident over a period of time that God was using the abilities he had given me in a unique way. I think it was more of a process than an instant revelation.’ A slow realization of your God-given gift, a slow realization of why God gave it to you.
Steven adds another dimension to the gift: ‘I have always believed that it’s very important to bloom where you’re planted.’ When you know more or less your gift, with it you must be the best you can be. You owe it to the Gift Giver, you owe it to the people whom the Gift Giver loves.
From the chat, we learn that when Steven began performing, it was in high school and in churches. When he got a job in an amusement park in
No, he doesn’t use the computer to compose. He looks into his heart; the moving fingers write and having writ, the songwriter moves on to the tape recorder, the guitar, or the piano. He has recorded more than a hundred songs. (I have the complete lyrics of 150 of them, no repeats, exact titles in alphabetical order – click on my website and then click on the first link, ‘Steven Curtis Chapman Lyrics,’ or visit directly http://aromalight.blogspot.com/).
He even has a word for writers like me: ‘Sometimes a song gets so well-crafted that you sacrifice The Passion and emotions that originally went into it. You write and rewrite. You tweak and tweak again. In the end, you’ve taken the life and energy right out of it’ (Chris Lutes, Sept-Oct 1997, Campus Life, posted ChristianityToday.com/).
The best writers are those who have agonized in real life, who have suffered in relation to others, who have felt pain inflicted by someone close, who have been hurt by unrealized expectations or unfulfilled dreams – and can relate all that to the future with a hope. You don’t need talent for doom and gloom.
150 plus written and recorded songs in 21 years: If you can out-write him in number of songs, you cannot out-write him in the number of ways he touches people with his songs. Like this:
‘I Believe In You’ is a song I wrote for my oldest daughter Emily when she was going from fifth grade into middle school … It’s a song of affirmation, and there’s a line in it that says (Maryann Hunsberger, 19 Dec 2005, ChristianityToday.com/):
‘Aren’t you the little one
That hid in my arms afraid of the thunder?
Aren’t these the little hands
That held so tight to mine?
Didn’t we both agree you’d never grow up?
And now here we are, and here you go …’
You wonder where it’s all coming from? From a father talking to his daughter, just the two of them. Shhh! We’re eavesdropping.
(B) AS SINGER
STEVEN SINGS HIS HEART TO WIN YOUR SOUL.
Is the song the singer? It’s always the singer, not the song. Steven has released 22 albums, some being collections of his own previously released songs, and has scored an unprecedented 44 #1 record hits on radio (O’Connell cited). In my list, he has composed 150 different songs, so that’s 44 divided by 150 equals 29% success rate when it comes to being #1. In other words, you can expect 3 out of every 10 songs to be #1 if the songs have been composed and are sung by Steven Curtis Chapman. To hear is to believe.
How powerful is the singer? Let’s take another song. ‘Chapman says it is in the performance of ‘Free’ in concert that the song’s impact is felt’ (Trexler 1997 cited). Steven says:
‘I played this song ‘Free’ in a maximum-security prison in
Maximum security, maximum impact. ‘It was a very profound experience of the presence of God and the reality of this song,’ Steven says. Amen to that. That song had not been recorded up to that time; here are the first lines:
FREE
‘The sun was beating down inside the walls of stone and razor wire
As we made our way across the prison yard
I felt my heart begin to race as we drew nearer to the place
Where they say that death is waiting in the dark
The slamming doors of iron echoed through the halls
Where despair holds life within its cruel claws
But then I met a man whose face seemed so strangely out of place
A blinding light of hope was shining in his eyes
And with repentance in his voice he told me of his tragic choice
That led him to this place where he must pay the price
But then his voice grew strong as he began to tell
About the One he said had rescued him from hell.’
At that time Steven was visiting with Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship Ministries (PFM), visiting adult inmates, also visiting their families back home, singing, giving his own testimony.
As a singer, Steven Curtis Chapman has won 7 ‘Male Vocalist of the Year’ Dove Awards, the 7th in 2001. You don’t know where his singing comes from until you hear him. Listen:
Writing of Steven’s 2004 album ‘All Things New,’ Russ Breimeier (2005, ChristianityToday.com/) says, ‘As good as the album sounds, Chapman’s primary strength remains his thoughtful and accessible words.’ Coming from everyday life, permeating the listener after permeating the songwriter. Steven uses ‘personal examples, catchy turns of phrase, and introspective questioning’ to come up with his songs. ‘Here’s a guy expressing faith amid everyday living with lyrics that are all his own.’ And when you listen to them, you realize they are your own.
He reads for inspiration. For instance, the song ‘No Greater Love’ (in the 2001 album ‘Declaration’) was inspired by the book ‘Through Gates Of Splendor’ by Elisabeth Elliot (1957). It is the story of the martyrdom of five American missionaries in the jungle of
Steven quotes Saint Francis as saying, ‘Preach Christ to all men; use words if necessary.’ What Steven has been doing is trying to ‘put some hands and feet’ to the Gospel (Frank ‘Buzz’ Trexler, 26 Aug 1994, Maryville Daily Times, Tennessee, posted aol.com/). So, Steven has come up with album titles like ‘First Hand’ in 1987, ‘For The Sake Of The Call’ in 1990, ‘Heaven In The Real World’ in 1994 (the first platinum album, with 5 #1 hits), ‘Signs Of Life’ in 1996 (gold album), ‘Speechless’ in 1999 (second platinum album, with 7 #1 hits), ‘Declaration’ in 2001, ‘All Things New’ in 2004, ‘Musical Blessings’ in March 2006. The Gospel according to Saint Francis and Steven Curtis Chapman.
(C) AS MUSICAL ARTIST OVERALL
STEVEN IS #1 EVEN AFTER 21 YEARS.
Steven Curtis Chapman has won so many Gospel music awards that every year at the Dove Awards in
He is that good. ‘Contemporary Christian music is the fastest-growing form of popular music in the world today, and Steven Curtis Chapman has achieved unprecedented levels of success in the genre’ (Moderator, Chat cited). He is ‘Christian music’s most successful solo artist’ (Oldies.com/). He is ‘Christian music’s most heralded artist’ (Breimeier cited). He’s incomparable.
The Wikipedia entry says ‘Steven Curtis Chapman is one of the biggest legends in contemporary Christian music.’ I beg your pardon. He is not a legend – he is flesh and blood. He is the BIGGEST of them all.
What’s his secret? I can venture this: HE IS AT HEART A WONDERER. He wonders at God; he wonders at the world; he wonders at his gifts; he wonders about living as husband and father and son and neighbor – and he writes of all these, he sings of all these from the bottom of his heart.
Steven himself is a wonder. We are talking here of Gospel music, not some highly likely commercial iTunes music, not Britney Spears music, not Eminem music, not Nat King Cole music. He now has more Dove Awards (50) than he has years (44), being born on 21 November 1962. The 50th Dove Award was for a track on the album ‘Music Inspired By The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe’ (Hunsberger cited). ‘I am a big fan of that story,’ he says. In Narnia, Aslan the lion is the Messiah. Steven Curtis Chapman is the modern Messiah in Gospel music. (Read more on Messiahs in my other article, ‘The Messiah Phenomenon’ also in American Chronicle.)
He has sold 10 million albums. Can you imagine that? If you laid them on a case-to-case basis, 10 million CDs would reach 900 miles, which happens to be the length of the arduous journey of the Boy Lama (the 17th Karmapa) when he traveled for 8 days by horse, car, foot and faith escaping from virtual confinement in Lhasa in Tibet to seek refuge in Dharamsala in India with the exiled Dalai Lama (Patrick Sawer, 7 Jan 2000, rickross.com/). Our journeys may not be like those of the long march of self-liberation by the Karmapa across snow-covered passes of the
On the night he received his 50th Dove Award, last 5 April, in tribute to Steven’s phenomenal artistry, David Crowder, Jeremy Camp, Mark Hall and Mac Powell performed an acoustic set of Chapman’s own music: ‘For The Sake Of The Call’ (recorded 1990), ‘More To This Life’ (1989), Magnificent Obsession’ (2001), ‘I Will Be Here’ (1989), and ‘Dive’ (1999). The four artists themselves have all been inspired in their musical careers by Steven. He was ‘visibly moved, hugging his wife, tearing up’ (John Gerome, Associated Press, 6 April 2006, usatoday.com/): He said later ‘I spent most of my last 21 years trying to find new and deeper ways to try to articulate the message of the Gospel.’ Well done, good and faithful servant.
He is a joiner. On 8 Oct 2005, he performed at the Luis Palau Festival in
A Luis Palau Festival is full of sports and fun (I shall call it here ‘a festival for faith’) – an invitation to Jesus. Borrowing from Billy Graham’s ecumenical model, Luis Palau maintains ‘an uncritical relationship with the Roman Catholic Church’ (Wayoflife.org/).
I can see in Steven’s Gospel music what Luis Palau says are 10 good areas of life (2005, Guest Bio, cbn.com/); in brief, here they are (with my editing):
(1) Happiness, not pleasure – Pleasure feels good, joy feels better. Joy erupts from the inside.
(2) Love, not sex – Sex focuses on the body, love on the intimacy.
(3) Connectedness, not popularity – Popularity is easier to cultivate, but friendship pays greater dividends.
(4) Forgiveness, not acceptance – Acceptance doesn’t go far enough. In forgiveness, God sets us free.
(5) Peace, not relief – Books give you relief; only God gives you peace.
(6) Success, not achievement – For high success, we need a higher purpose.
(7) Adventure, not excitement – Real adventure touches the soul. The Christian life is the greatest adventure.
(8) Safety, not invulnerability – You are safe if you take the risk with God.
(9) Significance, not activity – People settle for busyness instead of purpose, meaning, significance.
(10) Hope, not positive thinking – Positive thinking depends on us, hope depends on God.
Steven is an author. He released a book, ‘Restoring Broken Things’ in 2005, about Jesus’ commitment to make all things new and man’s role in the process (Kuo cited). He and Mary Beth have written 3 volumes for children in a picture book series called ‘Shaoey & Dot’ published by Tommy Nelson. In real life, Shaohannah ‘Shaoey’ was adopted from
(D) AS HUSBAND, FATHER, SON & NEIGHBOR
STEVEN IS #1 IN ALWAYS STRIVING TO BE #1
Last year, he released a new album, ‘All I Really Want For Christmas,’ which is about family. While they build their own family, he and his wife Mary Beth are helping others build their families through adoption. And they are learning the hard way, as others are. Like, Mary Beth says, ‘With an adopted child, you throw all the rules out the window. For example, because of attachment issues, when an adopted child cries out at night, you go to her every time. Shaoey needs to know I’m always going to be there for her. That’s stuff we never would have done with our biological children’ (Carla Barnhill, March-April 2005, Today’s Christian Magazine, posted ChristianityToday.com/).
‘Mary Beth and I are drastically different people,’ Steven says (Jamsline cited). (Aren’t we all?) ‘It’s Eeyore marries Tigger. Is the glass half empty or half full? It depends on the way you look at it. You bring those different perspectives and life experiences together in a relationship and find yourself asking, ‘Hmm, how do we make this work?’
‘You’ve won 49 Dove Awards, more than anyone else,’ Maryann says. ‘And you’ve adopted three daughters from
‘The Dove Awards weren’t goals I set out to achieve. Those are wonderful side effects of people happening to like the art you create. But my top goals in life have been honoring God with my life, finishing the race as a husband and as a father, and having my kids know that Dad loved them and pointed them to Jesus. To see our family grow through the miracle of adoption far overshadows any musical accomplishments. Adoption is 100% evidence of the hand of God at work in our family. … It’s not what I would call an accomplishment of ours, but an accomplishment of God’s.’ You do your best, and let God take care of the rest.
The Chapmans have been learning about parenting and they are now more relaxed with 6 children than the first years with 3. Steven says, ‘With our first 3 kids, Mary Beth thought she had to do it all, but now she knows she can’t. The house is going to be a wreck, and we can either stress about it or sit on the floor and play with the girls’ (Barnhill cited). The problem with being parents is that when you learn to be good, it’s (almost) too late.
And the children are learning about a growing family too. Mary Beth says, ‘Our children have been confronted with the fact that life isn’t just about their agendas – it’s about God’s agenda. They don’t always like that, but this experience is teaching them that their wants and needs aren’t the most important things in the world’ (Barnhill cited). They have to learn from the mother, or the father who has learned from God, or who has heard a little voice tell him: ‘Even when adoption doesn’t make commonsense, it makes spiritual sense.’
In case you were wondering, yes, Steven has humor. In the Prodigy chat cited earlier, CCEmmy asks, ‘How are your kids doing? Any stories to share?’ Steven says:
‘Thank you very much for asking. The kids are fine. There are many stories, and in fact I’m sharing several of them currently on my tour each night in concert. Most recently, Will Franklin received a smashed finger, which is currently healing nicely. Caleb has lost yet another tooth, and continues to dominate the soccer field. Emily is now 10, going on 20, and has asked for a plane ticket to a foreign country for a mission’s trip, for her Christmas present. So, all is well with the Chapman kids.’
That was before any adoption by the Chapmans. Years later, in an interview, Steven tells Ashli of his extended family (O’Connell cited): ‘We had three children before adoption, and with 3 kids we had chaos, but at least it was controlled chaos. But by the time we had adopted Maria, we had 6 children and we went from controlled chaos to utter chaos.’ I know the feeling, Steven. My wife Amparo and I have 12 children, and not one is adopted.
This all-time winner in Gospel music awards is to me one of the best things that ever happened to love and marriage, to people in places known for, among other things, hot dog and one-night stands, wind-blown marriages and whirlwind divorces. He has struggled with his own husbandship, fathership, sonship, neighborship, so he knows, so he composes music, so he sings, so the world listens.
What’s Steven’s vision for his own life? In two words, I say it’s ‘WELL DONE’ – this is found in Steven’s song ‘Heart’s Cry’ (in the 1992 album ‘The Great Adventure’) where the singer says, ‘So let my life become a testimony of my Savior’s grace and love / Oh – this is my heart’s cry – to stand before the Father one day / And hear Him say, ‘Well done’ – this is my heart’s cry.’ And Steven’s mission in life? Husband and father and son and neighbor DOING WELL.
Prodigy chatter BLKuss40 says, ‘Just wanted you to know how much our family enjoys your music and your witness’ (Chat cited). Steven says, ‘Thanks for letting me be a part of your family’s life. I know how much music means to a family, having three kids and a wife of my own.’ That was 1996; today, 10 years later, the number has grown to 6 children, the Chapmans having adopted 3 from
‘We believe that by rescuing one orphan or two orphans, or a church coming together and adopting 10 or 20, the ripple will go out from there and God will multiply it all. It is more about experiencing God and watching Him bring His kingdom to bear on our lives in this present moment than it is about saying we’re going to erase the need. What God wants is to reveal Himself more fully to us.’
The adoption began in 1999 when his daughter Emily, 13 years old, ‘came up with this idea that she needed a little sister’ (Jamsline cited). When Steven and family traveled to
‘Shaohannah has just done such amazing things to this family. We named her laughter. ‘Shao’ means laughter and ‘Hannah’ God’s gift of grace. It has been an enormous lesson in faith to see God change even the hearts of my own family, and see us enter into this incredible mystery of what does it mean to embrace a child who didn’t have a family and now we are her family. Now we are a part of her and she’s a part of us and that’s what God has done with us and that’s what the Gospel is.’
You don’t know Steven and Mary Beth’s family. Emily (19), Caleb (15) and Will Franklin (14) are their biological children, their own flesh and blood. Shaohannah (5), Stevey Joy (2) and Maria Sue (1) are all adopted, Chinese. The joys and the pains of an extended family are theirs. ‘All they really want is a family,’ says Byron Pitts (25 Dec 2005, cbsnews.com/). For those who want more family, the Chapmans with their foundation Shaohannah’s Hope have already helped 500 families adopt orphaned children from around the world.
You may ask: His other activities (like with Chuck Colson and his prison ministry, Luis Palau with his Christian ministry) and his great many tours (in his 1996 tour, visiting 80 cities), are these designed for Gospel music lovers to buy more Steven Curtis Chapman records? Says John Huie of Creative Artist Agency, ‘No, it’s going to give a broader awareness of the problems we face in our society and hopefully get people thinking about coming up with some solutions’ (Trexler 1994 cited). Concerned about criminals and their families, Steven and Colson, in cooperation with Sparrow Records and Parable Group (a chain of Christian bookstores), gave away hundreds of thousands of CDs of ‘Heaven In The Real World’ to children with parents in prison. They want to help children of inmates grow up well, considering they are 6 times more likely to follow the footsteps of their parents.
And now, here’s the world for the rest of us:
(E) AS CHRISTIANS
AS WE ARE, WE CAN BE GOOD WHERE WE ARE.
‘You know,’ Steven says (Kuo cited), ‘ultimately, politics isn’t going to provide the answers. There is certainly a great opportunity for those in powerful positions to make a change for positive things. But as I’ve said before in ‘Heaven In The Real World’ (1994), the answers don’t lie in the right laws or the right legislation or even the right people in office. Ultimately, our hope is the hope of God’s power at work, evident in the lives of those who claim to be his followers and believers.’
Ecce homo! Behold the man! ‘Homo’ is Latin for human; ‘sapiens’ for being wise. Now, humans have grown too wise for their own good. But there is a hope. Steven encourages this of those who cannot be involved in music making or in missions or in ministering to others (Trexler 1994 cited); what he says is that which I refer to as Steven’s Surprise, that ‘We can have the heartbeat of heaven beating at us in a way that says:
‘Today, the way I treat the person behind the grocery counter, the way I treat my family, the people I go to school with, I want them to see in my life that there is a hope that motivates me through the course of the day, and that hope is my relationship with God and His love in my life.’
The heartbeat of heaven beating at you everyday, if you want.
What does Steven think of when he does what he does? He says (Chat cited): ‘One thing that I always think of about the calling to do what I do, is a scene from the movie ‘Chariots Of Fire.’ The runner in the movie, named Eric Little, makes a statement that says, ‘God made me fast, and when I run fast, I feel God’s pleasure.’
Those who have ears, let them listen; those who have eyes, let them see. Those who have feet, let them run.
Steven listens to his pastor. His idea for the 2004 album ‘All Things New’ initially came from his pastor’s series of sermons entitled ‘Renewal Of All Things.’ He prayed and read books, and that ‘opened up my understanding that God really is telling a story with all his creation.’ In creating the album, Steven saw that God makes things new ‘in the middle of chaos, dirtiness and stuff of life’ (Argyrakis cited).
‘All About Love’ (2003) is ‘about all kinds of relationships with others’ (Michael Herman, 10 Feb 2003, ChristianityToday.com/):
‘It’s so easy to watch a few newscasts and get sucked back into that weighed-down feeling again. But we can’t lose perspective of eternal things. There’s a reality that’s greater and deeper than what we see here on this earth.’
In the
When he was composing ‘Bring It On’ (in the 2001 album ‘Declaration’), Steven’s mother called to tell that she had been diagnosed with cancer. ‘Let the trouble come / Let the hard rain fall / Let it make me strong / Bring it on.’ Who was he to say those very words? Was he really prepared for what the message was saying? But as the phone call went on, Steven began to look at things from a distance. Then he saw that this was precisely the reason why he needed to share a song like that: ‘Either I believe it I’m really prepared to live it, or else I’m just kind of toying with it’ (Herman 2002 cited).
When they got married in Fall 1984, Steven was 21, Mary Beth was 19 (they are both Chapmans but not related). We were ‘immature when we got married,’ Steven says. Then Mary Beth became pregnant with Emily 6 months after the wedding. Then 5 weeks after Emily was born, their apartment caught fire and the Chapmans almost lost everything. Then there erupted a colossal argument. Then the parents took sides; it became Chapmans versus Chapmans,
‘Then I did something that freaked out everybody, including myself. I screamed at the top of my lungs: ‘SATAN WILL NOT HAVE THIS FAMILY!’
Satan did not. The Chapmans talked, and the new Chapmans bid goodbye to the old Chapmans. And Steven didn’t lose the fire in his soul and Mary Beth didn’t lose the warmth of her love. But again they almost lost everything.
You can lose everything to a fire, but don’t ever lose the fires of faith, hope and love.
Steven and Mary Beth got married with only $50 dollars between the two of them (Joan Brasher, Spring 1997, Marriage Partnership, posted ChristianityToday.com/). They had met in school at
In the first years of their marriage, there were ‘heated arguments over their conflicting expectations’ of each other (Brasher cited). He was creative and chaotic (as a writer, I know you can’t be creative if at first you do not create chaos); she was domestic and disciplined (you can’t be a good housewife if at first you do not create order out of disorder). She was consumed by her home and family; he was consumed by the creative process. She didn’t want to talk about it; he insisted that they do. Then it would be the next day. She would feel fine; he would not. He would say, ‘We didn’t resolve anything.’ She would say, ‘But it’s a new day!’ Steven says, ‘In those first years, we learned a lot about trust and faith.’ You learn when you’re willing.
Three years into the marriage, Steven’s parents divorced (Brasher cited). That devastated everyone, especially Steven. Right after that, Steven saw a Phoenix rise from the ashes of his parents’ marriage and become a song, and since then it has become one of the most loved songs in Gospel music history: ‘I Will Be Here’ (1989). He wrote it for his wife. Do people like it because it is a ‘tender ballad’ with loving lyrics? It is much more than that – it is a love promise, and all the sweeter because the loved one didn’t ask for it. What God has joined together, let me not put asunder.
The rest is (unbelievable Gospel music) history.
Steven’s fame adds on, his Christianity matures further, the problems persist. He tells Campus Life (2002, ChristianityToday.com/), ‘I’m a guy who isn’t perfect, who argues with his wife and kids, who doesn’t have all the answers.’ The songmaking continues, the discovering, the growing. To Prodigy chatters, Steven says, ‘It’s a process’ (Chat cited). To Joan, he says it’s ‘struggling redemptively’ (Brasher cited), and ‘For those who think marriage is too hard, that they can’t handle it, we are here to say, ‘God is faithful.’
From Jamsline (cited): ‘I want the same kids who love ‘Live Out Loud’ (2001) or ‘Dive’ (1999) to listen to this record (the 2003 album ‘All About Love’) and hear me asking ‘what is it about a kiss?’ or ‘what is it about a touch?’ or ‘why does love have this power to drive us crazy or to transform us?’ I have discovered and believe that there is in fact something profoundly spiritual going on in these human experiences that reveal much about God’s love for us.’
Another genius shares the same birthday with Steven, 21 November, and this is Francois Marie Arouet (Voltaire) of France, easily one of his country’s great writers and philosophers, one who disdained religion and proclaimed the primacy of the human intellect. Steven Curtis Chapman, of the
I’M GLAD to have learned from Steven Curtis Chapman today what I shall now call the Gospel of LIFE – Living In Faith Everyday. Winning, losing, trying, I SING!
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December 9th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
[...] He wins, he loses, he hurts. Like every husband, every father, every songwriter, every singer, like everyone else. And he’s been to a maximum-security prison with Chuck Colson, who was Richard Nixon’s special counsel, feeling the deep pain of hopelessness. Click here for the full essay [...]
January 28th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
[...] else will will it for her. (You might also be interested in another’s Phoenix Rising; try my ‘The Gospel Whisperer,’ [...]