Voices In My Head Podcast # 245: Michael W. Smith and Amy Grant

<LYRICS>Hymns, Prayers and Invitations</LYRICS> The latest album from Rick Lee James has garnered praise from CCM Magazine, Worship Leader Magazine, UTR Media and more. Written and arranged using hymnals and prayer books for inspiration, this collection of 10 modern hymn-like worship songs will inspire individuals and congregations to draw near to the heart of God. <LYRICS>—Holy name of God.</LYRICS> Highlights include Christ Is Lord, inspired by St. Patrick's Breastplate Prayer, Advent Hymn, and the Communion Hymn: The Invitation. Worship leaders will be glad to know that all songs on the album are published through Lifeway Worship. Find Hymns, Prayers, and Invitations on Amazon, Spotify, Apple Music, CD Baby, and at Rick Lee James. Have you ever thought to yourself, man, I'd like to host my own podcast? Well, guess what? You can go to podbean.com/voices and get everything you need to create, manage, and promote your podcast. I use Podbean every week for Voices in My Head. 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And don't forget to let the voices in your head be heard by following me on Twitter @RickLeeJames and sharing your thoughts about today's show. Well, welcome back to Voices in My Head, everyone. I'm so glad you could be here with me this week. Uh, this is probably going to be my final seasonal episode, I guess I would say, of Voices in My Head. We've had some great ones. We've had an Advent sermon. We've had a Hanukkah episode a while back. We did the Almost Christmas special, which featured Point of Grace and Jonathan Cain and Wes Skaggs, Weston Skaggs, and just had a great time. And so tonight is gonna be something different. I'm recording this on a Saturday evening, and I'm Man, I'm gonna start out with just a little Christmas song, a little short thing. We got a little snow already this year, and I love the music of Christmas, and I especially love music that comes from around the '40s and '50s, the 1940s and '50s, that is. This is one I really like, which came around really around the time of— I think it was around World War II, but I'm not sure. I think it's in that era. I should do my homework more, but I'm Dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know. Where the treetops glisten and children listen to hear sleigh bells in the snow. I'm Dreaming of a white Christmas. With every Christmas card I write, may the days be merry and bright. And may all your Christmases, all your Christmases, may all your Christmas is bewhite. Listen. May all your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be white. Yeah, I just love old Christmas songs from that time period, and last night was a very special treat. For me and for my wife, both. And I'll tell you how it came about. Last night I got to see Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith with special guest Jordan Smith at the Nationwide Arena, huge, a huge venue in Columbus. And it was really great to see. It was a beautiful time of Christmas music. A lot of it was from, I would say, the World War II era. It was with a not only their regular house band you would expect to sit in on an event like that, but it was with a full orchestra and it was just beautiful, the whole thing from start to finish. I think it was almost a 3-hour concert. It had 2 really great sets, very well planned out. There was a wonderful thing by Compassion International about sponsoring children. And so I want to tell you how it came about that I got to be a part of that and thank the people who allowed me and my wife to be able to be a part of that beautiful evening together. And then I'm gonna tell you a little bit about the concert. And then I had a thought about A Christmas Carol, if I remember to get to that part. The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, a new aspect of the story that had never struck me until I was rereading it again this year. I try to reread it in some form or fashion each year. There's various ways that it's been rewritten in different stories. Sometimes other authors have taken characters from the story and written new stories about it. There's obviously a ton of different movies that they've made, everything from cartoons to serious dramas to musicals. So I'm gonna try to reflect a little bit on that with something that I've just been thinking of this evening as I was doing some rereading in yet another medium of A Christmas Carol. But I'll start with this concert. I had heard that Michael W. Smith was coming to Columbus, and I knew because someone that I work with a lot through Hoganson Media, Rick Hoganson, he has been wonderful and been very helpful to me on this show, providing us with many great guests over the years. Everybody from Paul Balazs to Tim Timmons. I just— there's a number. You could go through a list of people that he's helped us make contact with. Jonathan Cain from Journey.— and he's just been a wonderful guy to work with. And he always does these great press releases and sends out new things. And I knew from one of the Hogenson Media Agency's press releases that Michael W. Smith had a new album, a new song, and a new video that's going to be coming out. And they were trying to really get some publicity around that. And the new music video for Michael W. Smith, it's very sci-fi. I guess it'd be very timely with the new Star Wars movie coming out because it's a very space-feeling video. It's him in in a spaceship actually, which is pretty cool. And they actually showed the video in the auditorium on the huge screens last night, and he sang it live with the orchestra and with the band, and it sounded awesome. But I knew Michael W. Smith was coming to Columbus, and so I emailed Rick and I thought, hey, you know what, I know this is a long shot because, I mean, he's just super busy and he doesn't give a lot of interviews, but I thought I wonder if there's any chance we could get Michael to come on the Voices in My Head podcast while he's in the area. I literally am just, you know, a few miles down the road, about a 40-minute drive from where the venue is. And I thought if there's ever a good time to try, it would be now. And I did not expect it to happen because people of his caliber, they're extremely busy for one thing, and frankly, this podcast is probably just not worth their time when it comes to music business. It's, it's really an honor whenever I get people of any caliber on, on this show, but there are just other outlets. And so he wrote back, and as I expected, he said, you know, there are a few interviews and Michael's only giving a couple this year, and they are actually on, on TV. And I think he said it was going to be like CBS, like morning show type things, and 700 Club and places like that. So I totally get it. I'm not that caliber. I'm, I've try, and I'm continuing, and I'm hoping to, you know, eventually be something that can be of that caliber one day in the media world. But for right now, you know, we're doing good. We broke into the top 5 this year on iTunes for religious podcasts at one point. So, you know, we're doing well, we're plugging away. So I'm not disappointed at all when I get turned down from an artist, and I completely understand that and expect it. But what Hoganson Media, they wrote back to me and said But you know what, would you be interested in doing a review for your podcast of this concert? And he said, if so, I could probably get you some review passes to go and see it. And I thought, well, my goodness, please, if you can, that'd be great. He said, well, let me do some checking and see if I can work it out. So within a couple hours, I had an email back from the Hogenson Agency, and they said, guess what, we were able to get you two passes. And I was so excited to be able to do that because I love Christmas music and I knew that this concert was going to be special, not just because you had two very talented musicians, but they were going to be featuring music that was from a different era. And not only their music at different points of the concert, but just music sort of like the songs that I sang at the beginning of the show tonight, stuff from that World War II era, 1940s, 1950s period of Christmas music, which seems to be sort of where we're frozen in time each year at Christmas, whenever the holiday rolls around. So I had 2 passes, so it became a date night for my wife and I to be able to go out. We went and had a nice dinner at Marcella's in Columbus, and then we made our way over to the arena. And when you walked in, I mean, for one thing, the stage setup is just beautiful. It really— I can't think of too many words better to describe it. When you walk in, and I should say that we had incredible seats, we were right on the floor, and I kept thinking throughout the night, although they had these enormous television screens for you to be able to view what was going on on the stage from anywhere in the auditorium, I kept thinking, as I look over at the screen and I look up on the stage, I don't know where I had the better view from. I mean, it was maybe just slightly clearer from the TV TV screen only because they really zoomed in on people's faces. But we were that close to the stage and you could just see everything wonderfully from where we were sitting, and you could hear everything wonderfully. I could see the electric guitarist doing his guitar solos throughout the night and I loved it. I mean, you know me, I'm a guitar player, so it was great to be able to see that. Amy had her original drummer from the '80s there. It was pretty awesome. Michael had this beautiful grand piano on stage. They had background singers that was not just the usual background singers. There was like, I think there was 5 of them set up over on Michael's side of the stage, which would have been stage right, my left. And they really filled in the vocals. It sounded like the big band era of Christmas music, which I'm a huge fan of. And to have an entire full orchestra being conducted behind every song throughout the evening. I believe the conductor and composer was David Hamilton, who was there. He's a longtime collaborator with Smith. And if you're like me, and you may not be, but if you're like me, this music is just— every time it rolls around, it's special because this is the one time a year I listen to that kind of music extensively. And to get to hear it live and see these incredible players and singers. It was just breathtaking. Jordan Smith came out, and I had not been really familiar with Jordan Smith before, but Jordan is just an incredible voice. And he would just sing songs like O Holy Night, and it would just be effortless, it seemed like, and would just be through the rafters singing. Uh, just, it was inhuman the way that this man would sing. So it was a really cool night. It was from the time you walked in and they started singing things like, you know, you thought you were listening to an Andy Williams album or something. You know, it's the most wonderful time of the year. And so they're doing those Christmas standards and classics. And in the beginning, it was mostly just secular music. It was just, as again, that sort of big band era stuff. The lighting was was really something to see the stage set up with all the Christmas trees and the lights that would change. There was a point that the background would move a little bit and you actually felt like the auditorium was moving. It was just an incredible sight. And they did versions of Jingle Bells that were just out of this world. I can't remember who he said what version it was of Jingle Bells. He said, but I just stole it from this record back in the '50s and Smithified it is what Michael W. Smith called it. There were times throughout the evening that were just instrumental where Michael W. Smith would sit down at the piano. And I'll be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of Michael W. Smith when it comes to his singing, and that's no slam against him at all. I have a great admiration and respect for him. It's just, you know, some music you like and it really clicks with you and some doesn't as much. But one thing that has always clicked with me. And one thing I have admired him so much for is he is just an incredibly talented instrumentalist. And he sat down to play a piece that he wrote and composed, which is very Christmasy sounding, and it was no words at all, and it was the most elaborate instrumentation. It was beautiful. He was playing just at lightning speeds on the piano. He was sort of, you know, he has this effortless way. It's almost like he just gets lost in the music when he's playing, and it just seems like he's just having a great time. It doesn't seem like he's struggling at all. And what most piano players would look at and go, I don't know how I'm gonna play this, it's so intricate. There was— I wish I could remember the name of the song, but the violins, the way that they were plucking throughout the song, it was just beautiful. They almost had a mandolin-type feel to them, the way that they they were playing, and it just sounded like a Christmas dream. I think, I think the song actually was maybe called Whittaker's Dream. It was something about Whittaker because he said it was written for one of his grandsons, and this grandson has the same middle name as he had. So Michael Whittaker Smith, little fact if you didn't know that. I didn't until last night. But by far the most meaningful part of the evening to me, and maybe where it began being really meaningful. Up until this time, uh, it was just fun. I mean, it was just really Christmas fun. I mean, they were having snowball fights on stage using some kind of like Styrofoam. They're throwing stuff into the audience. Amy Grant came out and she's singing, and she literally is hula hooping through Rocking Around the Christmas Tree. She starts out playing guitar, and then they bring her a hula hoop, and she's, she's literally singing and doing a hula hoop, which is amazing to me because I can't do a hula hoop at all. Anyway, but the most meaningful part— this is where we came in— and it had to do with Amy. I had never seen Amy Grant live before, with the exception of one time I saw her come out and do one song with Vince Gill when I was in high school, but she really didn't do a lot of talking or anything. She has a real gift for connecting and making you feel like you're sitting in her living room and that she is hosting you. And when she talks, she just has this spirit about her that makes you feel like you're the only one she's talking to and that she has something very generous to say and something very kind. And she just has that spirit about her. And this meaningful part of the evening for me— and you guys know me, I'm not a war guy. If anything, I feel like the gospel is about promoting peace. So it wasn't that this was like an overly dramatic moment and like rah-rah USA type thing like that, but it was probably the best way I could think of because I, as much as I am anti-war, I always want to honor those who have sacrificed themselves in it because I think that there are many noble people who are doing things sometimes that are not exactly noble, but their intention is noble. And I don't know if that makes sense in how I'm saying it. I hope I'm expressing it right, because I do feel like our veterans are incredibly noble people and people that we have a lot to be thankful for in them, even if I'm not a person that believes war is the way of the Christian. And so I'm not here to argue about that. But she came out and she was talking about the song "I'll Be Home for Christmas," and if you look on my Facebook page, you'll see I put a little of the song on Facebook Live for people to see. But she talked about the song "I'll Be Home for Christmas" and the significance and meaning that it had because it came out of this World War II era. And she said people at that time, they latched on to this song because you're in the throes of World War II and you had family members, and especially the young people of society who, you know, and it usually seems to be the young men who will recklessly go and give their lives. And I don't say recklessly in a bad way. I mean that they are just willing to give of themselves. And she said in that time when they would sing the song "I'll Be Home for Christmas If Only in My Dreams," it was a time that, you know, people were feeling this in their hearts. They were longing for their loved ones to be home. War was hitting them and it was hitting them hard. And as she spoke, she said, "We need to pray for the people who are giving their lives in this way." I wish I could remember exactly how she phrased things, but it was elegant and it was loving and it was warm and it was so respectful of those who have given their lives. And then she asked for veterans who were in the auditorium if they would stand up. And all around the auditorium, different veterans stood up. And then she said, "If there's any family of veterans, would you please stand up so we can acknowledge the deep sacrifice that you give by your family members being away and serving in that way. And then when everyone sat down, she asked for anyone who was in the room who had ever lost a family member because of war, because of combat, or serving in some way, if they could stand up. And around the room in that moment, And there was this poignant pause as men and women throughout the room stood up, some husbands and wives, some fathers, some aunts and uncles. We don't know their story, but I was just moved looking at them and feeling their pain and their hurt and their loss in that moment. And Amy said, "We just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge to you how, how—" 'How sorry we are for your loss and how grateful we are for your family member who gave up their life for us.' And it was just a beautiful moment. And then she started to sing 'I'll Be Home for Christmas,' and she had the whole auditorium stand up. And it was a reminder, I think, to all of us that we are best when we are united, and we are best whenever we find our home in God and with each other. And it was from that moment on that the rest of the evening took on a very hopeful and very deeply religious tone. And throughout the rest of the night and through the rest of the set, there were worshipful moments that— there were just times I just felt like we should just stop and pray. And there were moments where we did that throughout the night. There were times where we were just asked to sing along in songs of praise to our God. And there were, again, breathtaking moments when Michael W. Smith sang "Gloria," some of the most beautiful instrumentation I've ever seen live. The orchestra was playing. I felt like it was the music of heaven we were hearing at certain points. It really was amazing. And Amy Grant, to go into "Breath of Heaven" and to hear that live with an orchestra, such a meaningful song anyway, and it was just like, "Okay, you got me," and then they would just hit you again with something else that was just so meaningful and so powerful. And so Christ-centered and so powerfully reflective of the gospel. So I don't know what else to say about it. I hope I'm not boring you telling you about it, but it was really a significant evening for me and my wife and gave us a lot to talk about on the way home. And we were just thinking, we were struck mostly by the way that Amy Grant carried herself. And we all know that she's been a figure of controversy in the Christian music world for a while, for better or for worse. But I was saying to my wife, I said, you know, she carries herself with such dignity and poise. And when she speaks, it's like she speaks with the generosity of the Lord, and it's like she speaks with the grace of Christ. And not everyone would carry herself in that way. And the plea that they made throughout the evening for us to care for children around the world who are in need through Compassion. It was one of the most heart-tugging moments I've seen in a long time. They did a very good job, and you could tell they really care about sponsoring children around the world. So all that is to say, it was a beautiful night, and if there's any time left for you to see the Christmas tour in your area for Amy Grant or Michael W. Smith, or even if you just want to pick up their Christmas albums, or Jordan Smith, who He was on NBC's The Voice. He was the winner in season 9. If you haven't got to hear him sing, it's really worth your time to find his music. So those are my recommendations for right now. A great, great Christmas concert. Really great live show that turned out to be more than just a show. But you know what? Something that I think gets underplayed a lot is, you know, when we play and sing for God, we should give our very best. And we witnessed some of the best musicians in the world last night on, on many fronts, not only vocally and instrumentally, but just the, the skill of connecting with an audience in the way that they did, and the skill of being able to talk elegantly and eloquently about the gospel, about caring for those in need around the world. About a way that was not divisive and speaking in things like people who have served in wars, you know, and would really brought people together. It was just all beautiful. So thank you, Rick Hogenson and the Hogenson Agency, for hooking me up with those review tickets. It was such a pleasure to be able to do that, and I feel like it was such a beautiful gift. Thank you for giving that to me and to my wife for that evening. All right, well, I told you I was going to be talking about, about The Christmas Carol just a little bit, and I'm going to do that. But just before I do, a quick message from one of our sponsors. Today's podcast is brought to you by Audible. Get a free audiobook download and 30-day free trial at audibletrial.com/voicesinmyhead. That's audibletrial.com/voicesinmyhead. Over 180,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle, or MP3 player. That's audibletrial.com/voicesinmyhead. Give it a try today. Well, there is a story that has captured our imagination for hundreds of years now. It's a story of a man who is redeemed. It's really a salvation story. It's the story of a person who undergoes a complete conversion. It's a story of a person's life and how the choices that they make can take them down roads of bitterness or roads that lead to grace and graciousness. And you know the story. I'm sure you know it very well. It's Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol. And as I said in the outset of the show, this story has been told many times and in many different ways. And every year I try to watch it or read it or find some new medium that I haven't seen it in. So I've seen it done by the Muppets. I've seen it as a musical. I've read the full regular version of the book, the novel. I've read ones that were amended a little bit with different illustrations inside. I've seen plays of A Christmas Carol. I think you may be there with me. I've seen Flintstones versions of A Christmas Carol. I've seen Mr. Magoo's version of A Christmas Carol. Just about every show on television, it seems like, has some iteration of that But if you read the book by Dickens, it is a really— because Dickens himself was such a strong believer and his life had been so profoundly changed by Christ, you just can't help but sense the real power of the gospel throughout the pages of A Christmas Carol. And I'm reading it in a different format than I've ever read it before. Actually, this year on Comixology, and it may be an exclusive to Comixology. Most of you that listen know I really love comic books, and I've been enjoying finding from year to year there's different ways it's told. One of my very favorite illustrations of A Christmas Carol, it's actually by Lee Bermejo, which I'm not going to be talking about tonight, but it's called Noel, and it's actually a Batman story And I know this is going to sound silly to many of you, but it's a story about Batman, and it's sort of a take on A Christmas Carol where Batman is Ebenezer Scrooge, where he's become so bitter about humanity because of all that's happened to him. And throughout the story, you actually see the villain in the story actually becoming a very sympathetic character, and Batman actually has to become softened and look look behind the story into criminals and see that they may actually be humans too, and that they too have a story that's taken them down a path that's led them where they are, sometimes out of desperation— almost always out of desperation. So that was kind of a cool take. That was the first time I'd ever read like a graphic novel based on A Christmas Carol. But this year they actually released a real true graphic telling of A Christmas Carol, and it's by Harvey Kurtzman, who has passed away. And it's called Marley's Ghost. And I've been reading this, I'm almost finished with it, but just earlier this evening I was reading through it. Harvey Kurtzman, he was the creator of Mad Magazine, actually, or one of the creators, and he's considered one of the most influential creators in the history of sequential art, really. There's Harvey Awards that are named in his honor. And so Marley's Ghost is this posthumous completion of his work, his adapting Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol. And I guess the concept for it began in the 1950s, and now over 60 years later, it's finally come into being and has been released after, I think it was writer Josh O'Neill and Shannon Wheeler, they expanded on some of his notes and finished this workup that he had. And so the thing that hit me tonight as I'm reading this, and by the way, it's a very good adaptation, it's beautifully drawn. I think it's only like 99 cents if you read comics on Comixology, and it's called Marley's Ghost. But there's a point in the in the book, and it's in the book, it's in the graphic novels, it's in the movies, it's in just about every adaptation I've ever seen of stories about Scrooge, but I had never thought of it for some reason until tonight. There's a point in the story when Scrooge goes back in time with the Ghost of Christmas Past and he's looking at his earlier life, and we see he's in a schoolhouse by himself. Like, he's alone at the holidays. Everybody else has gone home to families that love them. And we're never really given a backstory too much other than we just know his father is a harsh man. And he's not, he's not necessarily at this schoolhouse by himself because he wants to be. It's because Scrooge's home life is so bad. He either doesn't want to go home or isn't invited to be at home. And it's one of those tragic moments in the story that, that does shape Ebenezer to be bitter towards the world.. And it's one of those things that humanizes the story, where we see in the beginning Scrooge is really this awful, evil man, but we go back to his younger days and we start seeing reasons why he is that way. And something that stood out to me I'd never thought about before in the story was when his sister comes in and tells him that their father has had a change of heart and he is ever so much more kind than he used to be. Please come home, come home, Ebenezer, come have the holidays with us, come join Christmas, Daddy wants to see you, you know, and all the stories, however it's adapted. And it never struck me until tonight that it seems like Scrooge's father, although we know very little about him in any adaptation or even the original work, it seems like Scrooge's father has gone through, gone down the same path that we see Scrooge go through, because all we know about him is he's a harsh man He's not a good guy to be around. And then suddenly we just know that something has happened to him, that he is a kind man now, and that something has changed in him, and he's ever so much gentler than he used to be. Please come home and be with him. And, and there's a sense of excitement that Scrooge gets to go home, almost like this prodigal coming home again, but to a father that really wants him and loves him. And it's interesting because it's almost like from there we get the perspective of the outsiders of the Scrooge story, because at the end of Scrooge's journey. I don't think anyone, for the most part, knows what has happened to Scrooge that brought about Ebenezer's change of heart at the end of A Christmas Carol. Obviously he's had some sort of conversion and it's changed him. And almost like Zacchaeus in the Gospels, you know, he begins paying back everyone and then paying even more than what he stole from them in the first place. And he's giving gifts to children and he's being generous and he's bringing, you know, just amazing amounts of food and celebration and wine and going to families that he's done wrong, and the Cratchit family, and he's getting medical help for people, and he's living the gospel is what's happening. But the people around him don't know what has changed in him. And I almost wondered, reading at this time, if we're supposed to, or if Dickens even hoped that we would do this when reading the story. Looking at Scrooge's father, we don't get any details about him. We just know that a change has happened, and it's something that, as I'm reading this, it kind of makes me want to know about Scrooge's father and what's his story. What happened to him? What, what changed in him? And I wonder if through the story we're supposed to be asking the question, did something similar happen to his father? And Scrooge went on the same path. Are we in some ways destined to go down the same paths that our fathers went down somehow, to come to similar conclusions in some ways? If we are bitter people, are we going to have experiences that can change us and can make us new? And can it happen again and again? And I won't— I just don't know where Dickens wants us to go with that exactly, but I feel like in some ways That's the perspective that everyone in the story has. They don't know necessarily what has happened to Scrooge. They just know something has happened and it's changed him, and they want to be around him now. And he's happy to be with them. He's, he's glad to be with them, and life is new and everything has changed. And I don't know, maybe that's just a kind of reflection of the gospel. You know, Scrooge's father seemed to be in the story someone that was never going to change. He was this person that was not loving and not gracious, and then suddenly he has this change of heart and Scrooge comes home. Well, then even in spite of that, Scrooge goes through all he goes through and becomes this bitter, angry, greedy man who doesn't like people. In fact, hates people and wants them to all be relegated to prison and just leave him alone. And the poor can just go die. But then he has a change. And once again, what Dickens— what I believe Dickens wants us to see is the change the gospel brings about in a person's life, and the real change that it brings when discipleship happens, when a person truly becomes a follower. I think the story is to remind us it happened in Scrooge's father, it happened in Scrooge, and as you're reading the story, it can happen to you as well. You can be a person who is also changed. It just doesn't have to be the way it is. The world can change. The world can be a place of hope. The world can be freed from the darkness, and the darkness does not have to overcome your entire life. You can be a person who walks in the light. And so that was sort of a new take on the story for me, but it's a story I like. I wonder if Dickens, in his wisdom, actually wrote that into the story ambiguous enough, but in a way that, like a parable, draws us in to just think more about it. That's just one particular reading of the story, but maybe as you watch and read and see— and, you know, I've even heard radio adaptations of Scrooge— I wonder if you hear it, see it, watch it, whatever you do, listen to it this year, I wonder if this year you'll be listening with gospel ears and seeing with gospel eyes and allowing your heart to listen closely for the gospel that you hear in Scrooge's work. It's pervasive this time of year. You hear the story everywhere, and yet I wonder how many times we really hear the gospel that is being portrayed in the story. It is a powerful gospel conversion story. So if you read it and listen to it, hear it, be reminded that it's It's a story, yes, but it's a true story. Not in the sense that it happened, but it's a true story in the sense that it does happen, and it can happen, and it will happen again. And this year we are going to see it happen, maybe in our lives, maybe in the lives of people around us, maybe in people far away, that we're just going to hear the story that something has changed in them. And we should be people who live toward that hope. I am a person that complains too much about people, and I pray too little for them. And so who knows, maybe this next year will be a year when we're gonna see real change happen in the gospel coming through, and we're gonna see people who seem so evil and so bent on destroying everything around them, and people who want to use their power for ill, maybe we're gonna see this year the gospel do something in their life and it's gonna change them and it's gonna change the world around them because of the Christ that lives inside them. That's my take on it. I hope that you hear the Christmas story in that light, the Christmas carol, because if it doesn't become real then it's just a story and nothing more. But it is a true story. These stories we tell of change and conversion, even if they didn't really happen, like A Christmas Carol, they are still true stories because they do happen. They continue to happen. They have happened, and they will happen again and again. And that's the beauty of the living gospel that continues to change us through Jesus Jesus. So I hope you have a wonderful Christmas with your family. Again, I think this is gonna be my last Christmas-themed show or Advent-themed show. We'll see. We might have time for more between now and then. But I wish you all the very best if I'm not back in that amount of time. On a closing thought, on the— let's see, 18th, I believe, it's this coming Tuesday, whatever Tuesday is the week leading up to Christmas Eve, I'm gonna be on Shine FM here in Ohio. You can listen to it online if you just look up Shine FM Ohio. And on that Tuesday morning, I'm gonna be on the air as a guest host for about 2 hours on Shine FM from 7 to 9 AM. That's Eastern Time. If you're Central, it's gonna be an hour different, or wherever you listen throughout the country. 7 to 9, I'll be playing music live. I'll be co-hosting as a guest anchor for the day. We're gonna have 2 hours of fun doing this great Christmas special. And then on the 22nd at Beacon of Hope Bookstore in Springfield, Ohio, I'm going to be playing a Christmas concert. I'm just calling it a Christmas show. We're gonna have Christmas carol sing-alongs. We're gonna be doing a night of just fun music, and I want it to be a night you can come to relax You can shop in the store a little bit if you want to buy some gifts for people. You can drink coffee, you can have a smoothie made, you can do whatever you want throughout the evening. But we're just gonna have a night of celebration and fun and best of all worship together as we sing and, and as you listen to some classic carols. So that's gonna get started at 7 o'clock. We're gonna go for about an hour and a half that night. Just gonna be kind of hopefully a fun break in your week where you can set aside the hecticness of Christmas and just come to enjoy the holiday. God bless you all, and may the Lord bless you and keep you, and I hope you are enjoying this beautiful Advent season and are learning wonderful new things in the Lord. Thank you for listening to Voices in My Head this week. Thank you for joining me here this week on the Voices in My Head podcast. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com, follow me on Twitter @RickLeeJames, like my artist page on Facebook at facebook.com/rickleejames, and keep up to date on what I'm writing at my author page on Amazon.com. Make sure to follow my calendar on the website, and if you would like to have me come to your town to do a concert, a speaking engagement, or a book event, you can book me through my website by clicking on the link link for Pare Booking Agency. That's P-A-R-E Booking. And finally, it would mean the world to me if you were to leave me a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast is on the internet. And now the benediction: May the God of peace who raised Christ from the dead strengthen your inner being for every good work, and may the blessing of God Almighty, Father Father, Son, and Holy Spirit rest upon you and dwell within you this day and forevermore. Amen.