Move my feet to follow after you, Lord; change the world; and let it start with me.” A three-part harmony echoes through a church sanctuary. No Other Name, an up-and-coming Christian group and International Mission Board (IMB) partner, spends its time in churches impacting listeners with its music and message on sharing the gospel.
“[The IMB partnership] is such a cool thing to be a part of, to be able to educate people about what’s going on worldwide … and to encourage people to be more active through giving and going and praying,” group member Sam Allen said.
As far back as Allen can remember, he and his sister Laura were always singing. Since their father was the music minister at a church near Tampa, Fla., they were immersed in music. And as they look back on their musical journey, Sam and Laura are amazed at how “God really blessed” them.
The siblings traveled to Nashville in July 1997 to attend Ben Speer’s Stamps Baxter School of Music, a two-week intensive music school. There they met Chad Smith, “a beast of a vocalist,” according to Sam. The three sang in a group performance during a concert at the school’s conclusion, and Sam and Laura immediately realized “how well [Chad’s] voice blended with theirs but (also) how his commitment to ministry mirrored their own,” according to the group’s website and spent the next several months communicating about how to form a singing group.
The next year Sam and Laura were encouraged to move to Nashville by some promising contacts. So the siblings packed up and made their way to Music City to team with Chad, who moved from Louisiana, to form No Other Name — a leap of faith to leave family and try to make it in the ever-competitive music industry. The group’s name was pulled from Acts 4:12: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
No Other Name’s first concert was a “hodge-podge” of a cappella songs at Round Lick Baptist Church, Watertown, Tenn., Sam recalled.
The first few years were rough with little money and few singing engagements. At one point, the group members questioned whether they had made the right decision in starting No Other Name. But after a prayer time together in the small apartment the three rented, they each felt the Lord reassure them of His will in their lives — which included No Other Name.
Laura and Chad worked during the day, and Sam started attending Belmont University in Nashville in 2002 to pursue a bachelor’s degree in commercial music. While a student, he “caught the attention of legendary record executive Mike Curb,” according to the group’s website.
In 2008, the group signed with Curb Records — a mainly country label filled with Christian employees who believed in No Other Name and other Christian artists like Natalie Grant, Selah and Plumb.
In 2009, No Other Name was approached by the IMB about forming a partnership. The IMB filmed a music video for its song “Lead You to the Cross” in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The IMB also filmed a music video for “Let It Start With Me” in Bangkok. The song, written by Sam and Laura, is on No Other Name’s first full-length album, “The Other Side,” which was released recently. It is really “the words of a prayer,” Laura said in a video on the group’s YouTube page.
Sam said they kept going back to the idea that “God can use anybody (to accomplish the Great Commission), but what if we’re not willing to be used?” The lyrics naturally flowed from that idea, he said.
And No Other Name now sees educating people about the Great Commission as its own task and an act of obedience to Christ. “We want to entertain people, but (we) also want to challenge them specifically to be involved in the Great Commission … and to find their place in it,” whether that be in their local churches or Thailand or Africa, said Sam, a member of Inglewood Baptist Church, Nashville.
He, Laura and Chad are personally involved in international missions and have led two IMB missions trips with No Other Name fans to Nicaragua in 2010 and Brazil in 2011.
Ken Winter, IMB church and partner services vice president, said he is “impressed by the heart and depth of the passion of (No Other Name) for the nations.”
“God is using [No Other Name’s] gift, and the open doors that its musical gift provides … to communicate and multiply that passion among God’s people,” he said.
The group was nominated for the New Artist of the Year Dove Award in 2011 and felt it had another confirmation from God, Sam said, like He was telling them, “You’re still important to me. Keep doing what you’re doing.”
“There’s so much to do (to reach the world for Christ) … but the only thing we can do is change our heart and be obedient to what He tells us to do,” Sam said.
This spring, the group will make its way to Alabama with the START Tour and a concert scheduled at First Baptist Church, Decatur, on Feb. 19 at 6 p.m. For more information, visit www.no-other-name.com.
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