IS THIS the NEW MUSIC??
Posted by: prophetic <prophetic@...>
-Benjamin M.
To be honest I'm not sure what to say except to tell you what is
happening with myself and a small group of artists here in the
States. A little about myself: My name is Benjamin and I live in
Waterloo, IA. I am a musician/artist by night and a Marketing
Director for a software company by day. I'm the oldest of 8 children
raised by parents that have never waivered in their walk with God
sinced they came to know the Lord during the Jesus Movement in CA.
Through a serious of events over a period of 4 years I made a
committment to the Lord when I was 21, and it was then that I first
read the "Sons of Thunder" prophecy. [NOTE: This is the prophecy
that can be found at the bottom of http://www.revivalschool.com - which
speaks of God using MUSIC mightily in the coming Revival - ed.]
I was leading worship in a small church and the drummer (a good
friend of mine since I was 5, his name is Nate) gave me the article
from Morningstar Journal and insisted I read it. I read it in a church
parking lot by myself in a van and was extremely moved by the
Holy Spirit. I wept and told the Lord that if this was real, I wanted
to be part of it at any cost. At around the same time Nate introduced
me to another worship leader in the area named Jonathon. We
have remained friends for 9 years now. Nate and Jonathon have
continued playing music full time in various bands and other ventures
whereas God pulled me out of full-time music and has blessed me
extensively in the business world. I still play music, mostly late
into the night by myself 2 or 3 times a month.
For 9 years Nate, Jon and I have discussed the dream/vision that
James Ryle had periodically. About 8 months ago Jonathan and
I had a very intense discussion about it again because we felt that
part of the reason we haven't seen that anointing released yet is
because we musicians and artists have not been seeking Jesus
and haven't been asking Him for it (We have not made it to the
"Stone" yet... to quote the prophecy). So we made a commitment
together to start to seek God for this music.
About 5 years ago Jonathon started a small artist collective
consisting of artists from almost every medium (-basically a bunch
of "Davids" in the wilderness). This group has grown to about 80
people and they put on a small conference every year. This year
the conference was in Indiana at a campground, and on a whim I
brought my music gear (guitars, pedals, samplers etc). For the
session the second day the speaker asked Jonathan, Nate,
myself and another musician who plays sitar to open the session
with music. We have not played together in years so we just set
up our gear and went for it.
We just started improvising and the Lord really anointed what we
were doing. In that session it was just instrumental music without
any vocals. For the session on the 3rd day they cancelled the
previous plans for the worship time and asked us to play again.
And again the Lord really anointed the music. About 15 minutes
into the session I noticed Jonathon singing so I handed him a mic
that I had running into my samplers. I then recorded what he was
singing live and my intention was to loop some of the things he
was singing and play them back. I don't know how to explain
technically what happened next but basically the only way I can
say it is Jesus took over my sampling equipment and looped just
a few phrases that Jonathon was singing which ended up being
just a really simple song to the Lord. The loop just kept repeating
and I was so stunned and overwhelmed I just stopped playing and
got on my knees. The loop just kept playing over some cello type
things I had sampled live before and it ended up with none of us
playing for the next 30 minutes. Just Jonathon's simple song
looping over and over. It was SO POWERFUL, most of the people
in the room were in tears. Several times I reached to turn the
sample down and both times the leaders that were there asked
me to keep it going.
Fast forward 2 months from the time of the conference (3 weeks
ago) and a young man I've known for quite a while gave me a call
to see if I wanted to play some music with him. His name is
Ethan. I met Ethan at a concert about 3 years ago and when I
met him the Lord showed me that he had an amazing musical
gift and a call of God on his life. From the time I met him until
now I've tried many times to talk with him about the Lord and what
God is going to do with music and I've never been able to get thru
at all. Ethan grew up in chuch but became disallusioned and has
not walked closely with the Lord since.
As we were playing that night I started to go thru my banks of
samples to find something we had been working on and I played
the sample I had recorded from the conference with Jonathan
singing... it only played for about 5 seconds and I moved to the
next sample trying to find what I was looking for. Ethan stopped
me and said "WHAT was that?" I explained it was a moment I
had captured live at an artist conference I went to. He asked me
to play it again, so I let it play. The anointing was still just as
strong on that sample as it was when it happened live. Ethan was
so overcome, he said "That is so simple, yet is one of the most
powerful things I have ever heard." He was almost in tears,
obviously moved by the Lord (he is a very emotionaly gaurded
person). I then was able to share with him what the Lord was
going to do with music and many other things for the first time
since I've known him.
Now back to the conference. After the first session we played,
the main conference speaker came up to me and asked if we had
ever done any recordings of the type of music we played that day.
I said no. He then offered to pay for us to do an album. So we are
headed out to Vermont in June to spend time for a week seeking
Jesus and recording some music.
I often vehemently research music, musicians and music history.
And I stumbled onto some things several years ago that we are
going to use as a blueprint for the Vermont sessions. I have been
extremely interested in the idea of what the church would call
"prophetic music" or what the secular world would label
"improvisational music", and I have often felt that this was a key to
the new sound God is going to release. Several years ago I got
into Miles Davis. I read and listened to almost everything I could
that had his name on it. Through Miles I then started looking into
John Coltrane. (If you are not familiar with these 2 musicians I
apologize, they are 2 of the most significant giants in jazz music).
While Miles Davis was extremely dark, both his music and
everything I read about him, John Coltrane was different. I found
out that John's grandmother followed Jesus and told John that he
had a gift to play music and he was to use if for the Lord's purpose.
John Coltrane got involved in the jazz scene in New York and
subsequently became a raving heroin addict while playing with
Miles Davis. Then sometime after leaving the Miles Davis group
he had an encounter with God and wrote an album called "A Love
Supreme" which he called his "Love Song to God". After recording
this album John become interested in "receiving music from God"
vs. writing/composing music. He then recorded an album called
"Ascension" which is a completely improvised piece of music
about 35 minutes long. The rumor is that he would lock himself
and the musicians that he was playing with in a room and they
would pray until they felt like God had "released" them to play.
To me this is exremely fascinating as John Coltrane is considered
one of the best all-time jazz composers/writers/players (the record
"A Love Supreme" is often considered to be the best jazz album
ever written with the possible exception of "Kind of Blue" by Miles
Davis), and he basically threw it all in the trash to try and get
music from heaven.
In Vermont we are going to spend the beginning of each day
seeking Jesus in prayer and meditation in the Word until we feel a
release to play and record and hopefully He'll beautifully wreck us
and give us a taste of what is to come.
My father has been a student of revival for years (he has an
enormous library of rare books and tapes/reel-to-reels) and by
default I have learned quite a lot from him that parallels the things
you speak of... I'm amazed by the things in your article that are
resonating strongly in my life right now. Your quote "As I have
said, the 'Davids' will almost always feel like misfits in the current
church set-up"... describes me perfectly. However, recently God
has dealt strongly with me in regard to bitterness/resentment that
has led to a certain level of rebellion in my life.
Anyway, I know I've rambled quite a bit... I apologize.
I do have one question: Have you or anyone you know recieved
any revelation on the relationship of prophetic music to the Sons
of Thunder dream/vision?
---------------------------------
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