With about 100 combined years of performing, TobyMac, MercyMe and Matthew West are well known in the contemporary Christian music world as having amazing concerts and have “helped define a generation of worship,” according to TPR Live. On Sept. 25 in Birmingham, Alabama, these three powerhouses will come together to begin an 8-city arena tour that includes Biloxi, Mississippi; New Orleans, Louisiana; Beaumont, Texas; Jonesboro, Arkansas; Highland Heights, Kentucky; Charlottesville, Virginia; and Hershey, Pennsylvania.
Though concerts have been a large part of their lives, and each group has demonstrated their ability to put on a good show, each sees himself more of a songwriter than a performer.
Subscribe to The Alabama Baptist today!
SIGN UP for our weekly Highlights emails.
It wasn’t TobyMac’s dream to become a professional singer/songwriter. He “kind of stumbled into it” after starting as a rapper who wanted bring hip-hop into churches.
“There’s some people that can walk on stage and just sing a song and it’s effortless and it’s incredible. I’ve got to work really hard.
“I always have it [when] writing songs. I call myself a songwriter disguised as a pop artist. Really, I’m a songwriter. That’s what I do. I’ve written my songs from DC Talk to today because I love writing songs. I love communicating the goodness of God, the layers of God in songs,” TobyMac said.
Bart Millard, the lead singer of MercyMe, feels similarly.
“There’s nothing natural or comfortable about standing on stage in front of a lot of people. It pushes me to do things that I wouldn’t normally do. I’m pretty introverted outside of this,” Millard said.
“Ironically, I’m not a huge fan of big crowds otherwise,” he continued. “I’m one that fear is crippling to me if I’m not careful. So I think that’s a reason for me personally this has worked — because it has forced me to step out into that unknown. I mean, every time I get on stage, I’m so reliant on God moving through me because I’m not capable of doing this well.”
Matthew West considers himself a storyteller but through music instead of writing.
“That’s always been my drive. My passion was to share the stories of real lives and more specifically, just how God is at work in the stories of our lives. Every songwriter begins telling their own story. That’s why I wrote songs in the first place — it felt like a vehicle for me to tell my story to the world,” West said.
“And when I saw how sharing my story could impact other people, help them find hope or encouragement, I began to kind of broaden my sights. ‘Well, what would it look like for me to use my ability to write a song to actually not just tell my story, but to tell all of our stories?’” he continued.
Humility
Humility is something that each strives for — but isn’t easy given their success.
One way TobyMac stays humble despite all the accolades is to constantly remind himself that “God is really big, and I’m really little.”
“I’m trying to just stay in that literal moment and trying to serve God, not Toby. If I dare call him Lord, that makes me a servant and a servant waits on the request of his Lord.
“And that’s how I want to live,” he said.
MercyMe has a natural way to stay humble… each other. The majority of MercyMe’s 30 years as a group has been the same five men: Millard, Nathan Cochran, Robby Shaffer, Barry Graul and Michael John Scheuchzer.
“I don’t know how solo acts do it because being in a band is like there’s always someone within inches that can knock some sense into you if you lose focus on what you’re doing. So, there’s this amazing built-in accountability with the five of us that works really well because we’re still doing it and still loving it, and it doesn’t hurt that we all have the same dumb sense of humor,” Millard said.
“For me, to be in a songwriting situation with these guys, I think it should be my way but then I step back and recognize that, man, they’ve all got great ideas too. I think that’s been a lot of what’s worked for us,” Scheuchzer said.
‘Audience of One’
Surprisingly, Matthew West deals with ego more at home than on the stage.
“You know you think it would be the ego of wanting to be a celebrity or things like that, but it’s more about the ego of when I know I’m wrong and my wife is right, but I’m too proud to apologize,” he said.
Relating to his career, West said, “I want to be successful. I want to do a great job. I get discouraged when people don’t come to my shows. It can be a struggle when you get on stage and you see empty chairs. You’re like, ‘Oh man, I’m a failure,’ but I think at the end of the day you have to know what your purpose is on earth and know who your real audience is — an audience of One.”
For more information on this tour, go to https://tprlive.co/collections/mercyme-tobymac-matthew-west
Share with others: