My first attraction to music was my grandmother’s piano. It was one of those old Sundayschool uprights and barely in tune. But to me it was the door that opened up into a world of endless possibilities, especially for a three year old.

I received my first guitar for my seventh birthday and despite the fact that I had no idea of how to tune it, I spent hours making up songs.  But the real epiphany came in sixth grade.

I was failing English grammar and my teacher was concerned that I just couldn’t catch on. But then we launched into studying poetry. Our assignment was to write a poem, which I accepted with great enthusiasm. I went home that night with one single mission: to write a great poem!

The next morning I arrived at school so excited to turn my poem in to the teacher and my heart leapt as she selected mine to read to the whole class. Before I caught the bus home Mrs. Brewer asked me to write another poem and to bring it back the following day, which I continued to do until the last day of school that year. Each afternoon she would sit down with me and read through my poems helping me steer through the grammar, the tense and the flow.

By the end of my sixth grade year I was starting to add music to those poems and thus a career was born. My first band, The Surfers, was formed. Remember, The Beach Boys were one of the top groups then. Well, all musical journeys need to start somewhere!

Little did I know in the sixth grade that I would end up in LA and Nashville recording songs I’d written!  Little did I know that I would discover what it meant to follow Jesus! But the Lord captured my heart, and my music, and has taken me on a journey around the world to over fifty countries and every state in America.

Being a part of the early days of contemporary Christian music or “Jesus Music” as we called it in the 70’s was as exciting as blazing the new frontiers of the wild west!

This was radical music for its time and just to see a drum set in a church sanctuary was a marvel unto itself!

Times have certainly changed since the days when Larry Norman cried out, “Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music?”  Hundreds and hundreds of music and worship CDs by so many talented Christian musicians have proven that the music of the Kingdom marches on with each generation as they express their adoration of our Redeemer.

My songs are all a part of my journey. I once said that they are my confessions. They are also my profession: a profession of faith in the excellency of God! To declare the supremacy of Christ through music, worship and mission is the heart of all I do and all I sing.  Soli Deo Gloria!

PS: And by the way, I got to meet The Beach Boys!