I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s and feel privileged to have grown up in that time because it was wild and unique. I grew up in a time when disco had it’s moment and rock n roll was getting harder and louder.
I became a Christian in the fall of 1981, I was 13 years old. Through youth group and older christians, I started to listen to Christain music. The first christian album I remember hearing was I was being driven home from a Jr. Counselor meeting by a man named Bill Dunklee and he was playing a cassette tape by someone named Denny Correll. The bluesy/disco tune Wings of the Wind came on and I was sold.
This would be track one of my discipleship soundtrack. It was a song that kind of reminded me of the Love Boat tv show theme song but that was a plus. It took me some place I had never been. I was hearing truth in way I had never heard it before.
This leads me to track two. I was probably 16 years old and heard about a band called Mylon Lefevre and Broken Heart. They were playing at the Ft. Pierce Civic center in Ft. Pierce, Fl. and this southern rock/gospel blues band broke my brain. I had no ideas Christians could rock like this.
Songs like Way Maker, Freedom, It’s Alright and Working On A Building dug deep into soul and anchored my heart to spiritual truth like never before. I heard about things like the end times, having a deeper relationship with Jesus and freedom in Christ and it inspired me to read my bible and grow in faith. It didn’t hurt that the guitar player, Dean Harrington, got off the stage, jumped on the chair in front of me and played nasty guitar riffs in my face.
This was basically the concert I saw.
When I became a youth pastor, music played an even more integral role in my life and ministry. I start a tape lending library to expose more kids to Christ. I would do cd exchanges with kids. If they gave me their Judas Priest I would give them a Stryper CD but eventually I would just give CD’s away.
At the first church I worked at they had radio station and I became a co-host DJ for what we called the The Saturday Night House Party and if it rocked, we played it. We would also have a few teens come in once a month to do song discussion. We’d play 2-3 songs about a topic like dating or worldliness and then ask a few questions of the teens. It was an awesome format.
Later on I became a writer for a company/ministry called Interinc where I wrote Bible Studies for youth ministries. Each quarter youth pastors would get a box of CD’s with Bible Studies based on songs on the albums.
I’m still writing bible studies to songs because kids are still listening to music more than ever in more ways than ever.
According to headphone addict,
82% of teens say they listen to music every day.Overall, a typical kid spends 2.5 hours listening to music per day which is a bit less than adults.
“This time doesn’t include listening to music passively when watching TV or driving in a car but solely actively listening to music.”
According to Statista,
Spotify was the most popular online music service among young people aged 12 to 34 in 2020, with the platform being the most used among all respondents in that age group.
May 3, 2022
When students are not in your youth group, bible studies or church they are still being discipled by someone, they have their own discipleship soundtrack and it’s usually people in their ear buds who don’t have your students best interests at heart.
I have a few music based bible studies across different genres available in my store. They’re free.
- In My Own Lane/Where Are You – JNibb
- Church Clothes – Lecrae
- Where would I Be – Christy Nockels
- Hope – NF
- Lost – NF
Denny Correll passed away a while ago and just recently, I heard of the passing of Mylone Lefevre. They’ll never know about the impact they had on my life, until I get to heaven and tell them, but they’re still track 1 and 2 of a very long playlist of bands who’ve taught me about who God is, comforted me when I was all alone and inspired me to get up and keep following Jesus.
How has music discipled you? Send an e-mail to thediscipleproject@gmail.com and tell me who your #1 and #2 tracks are on you discipleship soundtrack.
My Discipleship Playlist
This is not an exhaustive list of songs that impacted my life but a sampling of songs, which also represent albums, that contributed to my spiritual development.