BETWEEN THE LINER NOTES
Charlie Hall: Just a Little Bit Off Beat
By Hannah Goodwyn
Associate CBN.com Producer
CBN.com
– Behind the widely popular worship songs “Better Is One Day” and “Salvation,” is a singer/songwriter who thrives on worshipping God. Charlie Hall, a recognizable voice on all of the Passion CDs that swept the nation’s college campuses a few years ago, praises by sharing Christ’s love to the world.
“I decided at some point instead of folding up and walking away, it was more about giving my life,” Charlie said. “And as I stepped out to give my life, a new life came, a new vision came.”
A new day comes when we are available to God and others.
“We were on the airplane and the lady in Tokyo said to shut our shade, we would be flying into daybreak,” he explained. “And I thought, ‘Yeah, that’s it. That’s exactly what I just did.’ I’ve started to give my life away and I’ve started to throw masks off. And there’s been a new life that has come over me and through me.” Charlie’s new CD titled Flying Into Daybreak encompasses this part of a faith-filled life.
The promise of new chances and new life is an encouraging revelation that many people need to hear today.
“I’ve found myself many times as they are talking, feeling just in my gut, ‘hey, it’s about to be new for you. Hang in there; it’s about to be new,’” he said.
It’s hard to walk in faith, especially when you feel like there’s nothing to catch you when you take that next step. But, the absolute worst thing you could do is to remain still because of fear.
“I think it’s worth all kinds of crazy things that could happen to you because you have stepped out into what God is already doing and what He came for,” Charlie said.
If you don’t live life as God intend and obey His commands, then you are wasting precious time and the plans He has for you.
“It was worth people looking at me saying, ‘Charlie, you’re crazy!’ ‘You’re different,’ or ‘you’re going to mess things up,’” he said. “It was worth being just a little bit off beat.”
Don’t just spend your time “inside the bubble of the church. As beautiful as that bubble is,” Charlie said, “we weren’t meant just to stick there. We were meant to explore the world around us and to touch the people in it.”
His personal exploration started even before he had faith in God. Growing up in a traditional Baptist family, Charlie fought against accepting his parents’ religion as his own. He searched for truth, but gave in when he realized he was running away from the real thing.
“When I started following Jesus, I disappeared and Christ started living His life through me,” Charlie wrote in his online journal. “The powerful truth that pierces the earth and that I want to die living out is: God came to be with us and to bring life.”
As a self-proclaimed “Christ carrier,” Charlie does whatever he can in each moment to bring new life to others who are hurting around him.
“I want to see them laugh, enjoy and celebrate life,” Charlie wrote, “be healed of heavy, hard things in their pasts and see Jesus as the goal of life and the one that causes the celebration, laughter, and healing.”
And he uses his art to do it. Charlie said that he realized, as an artist, he could speak to people through his creativity and just living life. He began to connect with Christians and his friends outside the church.
But, he knows that life’s burdens can hinder. Lately, he has been caught “somewhere between learning how to be brave and wanting to change the world” -- faith and fear battle it out, and that you have to rely on God’s strength to get you through.
“The biggest thing for me in the past couple of years has been stepping into the vision, stepping into things I see in my heart that I feel like comes from Him,” Charlie said. “There are not always the legs there to stand on. So, you jump out in the vision. And all of a sudden, the next step is there.”
For Charlie, the steps have been pursuing music and keeping Christ the center by using his talent to encourage worship in his generation. He also praises God by simply being a good friend to those who need one, when they need one the most.
“It’s taken me a lot of jumps to get to the place where they’ll let me hold hands with them and walk through life,” Charlie said. But, his willingness to just be there to listen has allowed him opportunities to be Jesus’ arms of compassion holding them in their darkest hour.
Instead of being inside church walls early one Sunday morning, Charlie went on a two and a half hour road trip. He visited a friend who had overdosed and was recovering at a drug rehabilitation center. They spent the morning chatting and laughing, but Charlie said he really “felt God in that moment.”
“To me, that’s a part of God’s presence,” Charlie said. “If He were here on earth, He’d be looking for the broken people that He could sit and laugh with and cry with and touch. He’d go be with them.”
Not only are we to know Christ as Savior, but we also are supposed to be Him to the world. Since, He lives inside of us, we carry His presence everywhere we go and to everyone we meet.
“To me, worship is more than the grand statements. It is all the life that we live before we go to the concert. It’s got to have the life of you behind it as you communicate to Him.”
The praise we sing to God isn’t and shouldn’t be limited to the lyrics of a popular worship song.
“Our worship is lived with our lives and hearts, then exclaimed with a song,” Charlie wrote in his online journal. "The goal is Jesus, to peel back the beautiful curtain of ‘the song’ and see the one ‘the song’ is about.”
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