Kim: Hi Joel. How are you?
Joel: I'm good. You know, just spending my life putting out fires. Isn't that the way it works?
Kim: I'm glad that I'm getting the chance to talk to you. I've read your packet and listened to your CD's. I really liked what I heard.
Joel: Oh thank you.
Kim: Your resume' is quite impressive.
Joel: Well thank you. laughs I should keep adding more stuff that I make up as I go along. Just kidding.
Kim: You know, you're nationally recognized as a worship leader and communicator. What was it that made you feel like your church should be bigger than the church down the street?
Joel: You know, for me it's been a spiritual evolution, if you will. That's exactly how I started. I started out as a college student leading praise and worship at my school. And we did a thing every day ... In Acts, chapter two, it talks about how the disciples met every day at 3 o'clock to pray. So we did that at school every day for a whole semester during my junior year. We met every day at 3 o'clock to pray and to worship God. God just did this huge work. We started with just three people and we ended up having about 200 people every day, jam packed into this little chapel. There was no marketing or posters. People just came. Through that I winded up traveling a lot to different churches doing concerts and leading music. It just kind of evolved and I started taking the music even more serious and my writing (songwriting) more serious. Then I wound up doing a project with a very well-known Christian worship artist and the next thing you know, I'm traveling even more. I don't think you ever really set out to do great things. What happens is that the passion that you have for what you do at the moment begins to develop and it kind of catches on fire. I think that's what happened. One of the bad parts though is that you wind up becoming busy or successful, or whatever you want to call it, and you get more demands and then you wind up kind of resting on that. You forget where you come from. For me, the last couple of years has been getting back to what God started doing in me 15 years ago.
Kim: How do you stay grounded when you reach that pinnacle? Especially after reaching the level of success that you have?
Joel: I think first of all ... you know Bill Murray, the actor and comedian, he made a statement that I read that said "When somebody becomes a celebrity, they're a jerk for a year and a half to two years no matter what". I think that there's a lot of truth in that. For me, I kind of lost being grounded for a while and I got the big-head. I knew how to cover it up though. Instead of bragging I was just like "The Lord did this" ... but I was telling ten thousand people! Spiritualized self-promotion. But what happened is that because I'm involved in my local church and I don't mean that I just show up on Sunday morning, I'm talking about deep relationships with people ... you know, you can't live like that for long without getting your head knocked off in love. I have accountability in my life from my pastor to the guys in my Bible study that meets on Monday night (there's six of us that meet). And I've got all kinds of friends in the ministry that really know me and speak freely into my life, whether I want to hear it or not. It so happens that because I'm a worship leader, and worship leaders don't really know each other because we get paired with speakers, all of my best friends are preachers. So if I get too far off, there's a sermon getting ready to hit me. Plus I have a wife who is a Godly woman and a family who loves me and they're all Christians and they'll all speak into my life. I think you have to be surrounded by people who love you and know you for who you are. Then you have to desire that accountability. It's doesn't just happen naturally. You have to be intentional about it. I have been going to my church for about four years now. I went to church on Sunday's, but I really wasn't plugged in for about six years with my travel ministry. I was just so busy traveling that I'd come in, just sit in the congregation and then leave. I wasn't really experiencing Biblical fellowship. So I was so dried up spiritually and I was craving those relationships. I prayed and God led me to my church and my life was changed. The people in my church could care less what happens in my quote-unquote ministry career. They're more interested in how I treat my wife and my children. It's a neat thing. I'm very blessed.
