Todd Agnew

Okay guys.  We’re going to do a livestream soon.  We wanted to do it on Thursday, but it’s not going to work out.  So next week it is. I’ll probably chat a little about the new record, answer some of your questions, and maybe play a song or two. Hope to see you then, well, I won’t see you. You’ll see me. Stay tuned and we’ll give you the details here on toddagnew.com. Thanks.

Todd

Well, guys, it’s one of my favorite times of the year, college basketball season. The tournament starts tomorrow and I’ve set up a bracket, and you can compete too. The top three finishers win a copy of the new CD, #H2BL.
Go here to register:

http://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/t1/group/144369/invitation?key=57bc9a1efbb20df6

And the password is: howtobeloved

This doesn’t include the play-in games so you have until the beginning of Thursday to set your bracket. See you on the court.

Todd

I did not see this coming.  Our tour manager had already let me know that we were going to a church in one of the poorest counties in the country.  He had informed me that these people may be discouraged.  60% of the church was unemployed.  I was ready and prepared to be sensitive, positive, and possibly even encouraging.

Instead, these people fed me the best ribs I’ve ever had away from Beale St.  They were kind and giving all day long.  And I had carved out some time to spend with their pastor, hoping to be a support and encouragement to him.  Instead, he both challenged and encouraged me.  He had been leading his people through a study of the Bible that had fairly strongly centered on giving.  He didn’t know how his people who couldn’t even care for themselves could be asked to give.  And yet, the messages kept leaning that way.  Sometimes extravagant giving is not giving a huge amount, but giving a small amount that you actually need.  He had taught through the Bible.  God asked Moses for the stick in his hand.  A little boy gives up his lunch and Jesus feeds 5000 people.  You give what God has given you.  God doesn’t ask you to independently solve the world’s hunger problems.  He asks you give what’s in your hand.

But his people had nothing to give.  What can a church do when their people don’t have anything?  So instead of giving up, they looked at what they did have.  The church had land.  Land that they couldn’t build on because they had no money.  So instead, they started a garden.  A 7-acre garden.  And they grew food.  And helped to feed their people and others.  They gave what they had: land, time, and effort.  And God blessed it.

I have to be honest.  I left that place changed.  We gave of what we had.  Time.  Music.  Jon, our sound guy on the tour, rewired their whole sound system at the church.  But I have to admit.  I left the poorest church on the tour having received much more than I gave.

And I left wanting to share that story.  To challenge people not to be overwhelmed by the needs you see, but to meet the needs you can.  And so I gave in the way I know best… I wrote a song.

Thoughts?

Todd

You can hear “Give What’s In Your Hand” on the new record How To Be Loved.  Available on iTunes, in your local Christian store, or in the store here on toddagnew.com.  And here are some of the stories behind the other songs on H2BL.

The One You Want

Love Your Neighbor

God Undefeatable

Letting Go

There Is Coming A Day

Loved

Give What’s In Your Hand

Don’t You Think

House of Boxes

You Are Good

Your Great Name

The new CD How To Be Loved comes out today.  You can find it at your local Christian store, on iTunes, or at our online store.  You can only get the corresponding t-shirt on our online store.

I’m so excited to finally share this record with you guys.  It has been a long time coming, but it has given me time to appreciate this record and the process.  This is the best record I’ve done in a long time.  At least I think it is.  I can’t wait to start to hear the stories of how God uses it in your lives.

At the beginning, I brought an idea to my label, Ardent Records.  I wanted to go to Nashville and record a couple of the songs with Jason Ingram.  They bought into the idea, and I went down the road and wrote The One You Want with Jason, and we recorded it and one of my favorite worship songs Your Great Name.  Then Ardent brought an idea to the table, what about working with Paul Ebersold on the rest of the record?  I was honored, but I wasn’t sure how we would mesh.  I loved Paul as a person and really respected all he’s done professionally but I didn’t know if we would work well together.  After a long phone call, I felt the complete opposite.  It seemed like he was perfect for this and I think he was.  Paul pushed me in every area.  As I’ve mentioned before, he’s the only producer that’s ever challenged me spiritually as well as musically.  We talked often of George MacDonald and other things.  And he really pushed me musically as well.  Most importantly he saw value in some songs that I had missed.  Letting Go and There Is Coming A Day are definitely so much stronger because of his belief in them.  We made a good record.  And then, because of some business things, the record had to wait.  I didn’t completely understand why, but I knew God had a plan for it.  And He has brought that plan to completion today.  For some reason, today is the day God wanted you to hear these songs.  And I am so excited that you get to.

Below I’m going to provide some links to the Story Behind The Song blogs.  Keep checking back over the next couple of weeks and you’ll get to catch the rest of them as well.

The One You Want

Love Your Neighbor

God Undefeatable

Letting Go

There Is Coming A Day

Loved

Give What’s In Your Hand

Don’t You Think

House of Boxes

You Are Good

Your Great Name

I hope you guys enjoy this record.  And more importantly, I hope God uses it powerfully in your lives.  I love you all and hope God teaches you how to be loved.  He won’t do it in this record, but He will do it.  Through His word, and through your lives.  Be loved.

Todd

This is the song that the album title came from.  The last line is “You’re teaching me how to be loved.”  And honestly, that is a lot of what God has been doing over the last few years.   I have been learning that God is the main character in the Bible, not me.  And He’s also the main character in my life, not me.  That really changes the stress and pressure I feel.  But it also alters my role.  If He is the main character in the story, then what does that make me? As  awkward as it feels, I think I might be the love interest.  Which is uncomfortable, but is actually a very safe place.  Unfortunately it’s a role I have no understanding of, or any ability to fill.

So God gave me a wife and kids.  And I definitely felt the weight of caring for them and loving them well.  But the main thing I’ve learned since then isn’t about loving them, but about being loved BY them.  My wife knows me well and has consistently challenged me on receiving love from them.  On letting them care for me.  And of course, I disagreed and kept trying to carry all of the load.  But God finally started showing me that their love for me was a part of His kindness to me.  He desired my good, and one of His best gifts is the love of my wife and kids.  I started to realize that I had never been good at receiving from anyone.  I couldn’t receive from my friends, not even my band guys.  I always tried to care for them, but never let them care for me.  That kept some distance between us.  And some of the good God had for me was missed.  I didn’t want to miss that in my family.

And so I’ve been learning how to receive, learning the value of being loved.  I am learning that when I am busy in the afternoon and my son asks me to go out in the backyard and play tetherball, I can look at it as him being selfish and not realizing how busy I am.  Or I can realize that God has given me a huge gift in that my son, out of all the things in the world, wants ME to come and play with him.  He is expressing love and value.  He is a gift from God.  And that every minute spent playing tetherball is God giving good to me.

It’s still kind of hard to explain.  But I hope you enjoy the song, and the record.

Thoughts?

Todd

Hey everyone, Sirius XM is celebrating Bible Appreciation Month in the month of March. They will be featuring me and my music tomorrow so make sure to tune in. They asked me about my favorite verse. I chose not to give my normal smart aleck comment about liking the whole Bible. Instead I talked about how much Nehemiah 8:8 has meant to me lately. There is great power in the word of God, much more than the words of any man, no matter how wise he may be. May we continue to present the word of God to people and when they need help understanding, offer it. So tune in Tuesday to The Message on Sirius XM.

What is your favorite verse right now?  And why?

Thoughts?

Todd

It was Wednesday.  I was preparing to lead worship at my church here in Austin for the first time on the upcoming Sunday.  I got a phone call informing me that there would be communion in the service.  So I went to look up what communion songs we did at this church and found none.  Then I went to see what communion songs there were in the world at large and found 3.  Okay, maybe not 3 exactly, but I did enough research to find that there is a severe shortage of worship songs about communion.  The only song that jumped out at me was “In Remembrance of Me” which we sang at my church as a kid every single time we took communion for almost 2 decades.  So I decided to try to write one.

And write one I did.  Now if you’re not a songwriter, you may not know this fact.  Every songwriter thinks the song they just wrote is the greatest song they’ve ever written, possibly the greatest song anyone has ever written.  So over the years, I’ve grown to understand that when I have a new song, I have NO idea if it’s any good or not.  This time, it needed to fulfill a function and I thought it could at least do that.

So I played it on Sunday.  And honestly I thought that would be it.  When I was called to lead again a couple of months later, I had no intention on bringing that song back.  But one of our teaching pastors immediately asked, “Are you going to do the sweeter than wine song?”  I told him I hadn’t planned on it, and he informed me that I should be planning on it now.  So I did.

And so, a song that I had no confidence in, no plan for, became one of the songs of our church.  Because there is some inherent value in lifting up the goodness of God.  It’s a simple song.  There is no theological brilliance, no melodic pinnacle acheived.  It’s just “God Is So Good” for grown-ups.  And I think there’s some real value in that.  Even if I didn’t recognize it at first.

So thanks to Jeff Mangum for seeing the value in a song.  Thanks to the Stone for worshipping with me.  And thanks to my friend Ted Dekker for one of our very strange conversations that inspired a bit of the lyric.

Thoughts?

Todd

The book The Art of Forgiving by Lewis Smedes had a big impact on my life and that impact is reflected in two of the songs on How To Be Loved.  One of those is in the second verse of Love Your Neighbor.  But the second is in a song called Letting Go.  In his book, Smedes looks at the original Greek word that we translate as “forgive”.

“From an etymological perspective, the concept of forgiveness is derived from the Greek word aphesis, which has been variously interpreted as meaning “to release,” “to set free,” or “to let go.”"

So forgiving is an act of setting free.  But Smedes points out that the person who is being freed is really the one forgiving.  They are releasing the hold this pain has had on them.

The more time I spent with this idea, the more it seemed to apply to my life.  Not just to areas where I needed to forgive others, but also to many areas where I was holding on to something in the past. Most of the time it was something negative.  I always remember the mistakes I’ve made.  I always remember the names I was called.  I always remember the criticism I’ve received.  And I completely disregard most positive things.

And so I pulled out another amazing old hymn, this time I Surrender All.  And I decided to turn those negative things over to Christ.  Let Him take care of my past mistakes.  There is nothing I can do about them anyway.  But there is a great deal He can do.

This was a very personal song that I almost didn’t even turn in for the record.  But I did, still assuming it wouldn’t end up on the final songlist.  But my producer Paul Ebersold came in day one and talked about how these same ideas had really resonated with him.  He really breathed life into this song.  It is so much stronger than I ever dreamed it would be.  Then Ellie Holcomb came in and sang on it as well.  Which I admit, is totally cheating.  She was amazing.  You’ll just have to hear it for yourself.

And right now, you can get a free download before the record comes out thanks to my friends at New Release Tuesday.  So here you go.

http://www.newreleasetuesday.com/freemusic.php\

Thoughts?

Todd

You won’t drive through many major intersections in my hometown of Austin, TX, without passing a guy with a sign saying that he’s homeless and will work for food.  Most of them say “God Bless” at the bottom.  We all respond to that guy differently.  Some people make sure their doors are locked.  Some people look away.  Some suddenly need to pay great attention to changing the station on the car stereo.  A few roll down the window and contribute.

But most of us drive past.  We think many things.

“He would just use the money for beer.”

“He’s probably not even homeless.”

“I read an article on how much money you can make begging.”

“If he really wants to work for food, then he should get a job.”

One night I was in downtown Memphis with a friend, and a guy came up to us telling a story about how his wife was pregnant, and they were traveling across the country, and their car broke down, and they just need some money to take the bus to her parents, so they’ll be closer to the hospital, etc.  I had a couple of dollars and gave it to him.  My friend looked at me like I was crazy.  She said, “You know that was all a lie, right?”  At the moment, I replied. “Yeah, but it was a good story.”  But God was doing something much more complicated in my heart.

The thing is… I don’t think God is up in heaven saying, “I can’t believe you just gave money to that guy who said he was in need!  What were you thinking?  Couldn’t you tell he was lying?”  I think God is using those moments to shape me, much more than affecting that possibly homeless guy.

And so, I thought I started to understand more about “Love your neighbor.”  God’s command didn’t have nearly as much to do with my neighbor as it had to do with me.  This was not God’s only opportunity to provide aid for this man.  This was His chosen plan to grow me in both affection and action.

And so I thought I had figured it out.  Loving my neighbor wasn’t nearly as much about him, as it was about me.  But that was only part of the story.

Over the last few years, God has been teaching me about the Bible and about life.  A major lesson was that the Bible isn’t about me, it’s about Him.  It does apply to me sometimes, but He is the star.  And life is the same.  My life is not about me, it’s about Him.  And so, I began to wrestle to understand and apply these commands, “Love your neighbor” (Matt. 22:39), “Love your enemy” (Matt. 5:44), “Love your wives” (ph. 5:26), “Love one another” (1 John 3:23).  And it finally started to make sense.  God asked me to love everyone, not to make it difficult to obey, but because He is love.  He cannot set a standard less than His character.  Loving my neighbor wasn’t just about my neighbor.  And it wasn’t even just about me.  It was primarily about God.  He is love.  And when I love, I am reflecting His image.

So I can’t just pick and choose who I love.  God’s character does not change depending on who I happen to be in a conversation with.   I don’t know that God is nearly as concerned with the truth of the sign held by the alleged homeless, the supposed poor, as He is with His glory and character being reflected just for a moment at that intersection.  Through the kindness of one of His children, the glory of God brightens the darkness underneath that downtown bridge.

And that’s at least part of the story behind the song “Love Your Neighbor”.  Heck, I didn’t even get to the second verse.  Well, you’ll have to wait for the record.

Thoughts?

Todd

Hey guys. So one of my favorite parts of our community, this little online family is the conversations that happen in the comment responses to the blogs here. I have noticed that since we launched the new site, the comments have dropped dramatically. So I’m trying to understand why. Admittedly, I could have just been on a tear of writing terrible blogs. I understand that. But in case it’s something else, I wanted to ask. So here are some of my guesses as to what’s going on.

1) I thought maybe it was because there is a new way to comment and you haven’t learned it yet. If that is the case, then at the bottom right of each blog is a comment link. Hit that and you can comment.

2) maybe it is because I asked my great web guys to put all of the blog on the front page of the blog. Because of this, you don’t see any of the comments until you follow the link to the blog page itself. So maybe you’re afraid you’re the first person and you don’t like being alone.

3) my third idea was that maybe you were uncomfortable giving out whatever information they ask you in order to comment. Admittedly I don’t know what that is. If that’s a problem for you, obviously you don’t want to comment here to tell me that. So maybe hit me up on twitter and let me know. I’m @AgnewsDei.

There are probably a lot of other good reasons but this was all I could think of on short notice. And I didn’t want to let it go on any longer. I miss hearing your thoughts and ideas. Looking forward to hearing from you this time.

Thoughts?

Todd

*Update*

Hey everyone, thanks so much for already engaging on this.  Please don’t feel any pressure.  I’m not in any way saying you have to respond.  I read blogs all the time and rarely comment.  I know we are all busy and sometimes you just need to read and get back to your life.  That’s great.  I do love to hear your thoughts, but I’m not trying to squeeze comments out of you.  I just wanted to make sure that with some of the new changes we’ve made that we weren’t impeding your participation in any way.  Thanks again.

TA