Chris Estes: 0:06

Alright, welcome to the first Power Songs episode. I'm going to do some of these episodes where they're really just focused on a song that has a powerful story, and they'll be shorter podcast episodes in nature. Some may actually be longer. There's some pretty powerful stories out there that have been involved in and know about. This particular one that I'm going to start with is straight from my story, actually my journey with Bethel Music, and if you listen to the first podcast, you kind of get my journey with music and the power that songs had from a very young age and how it really helped me with a lot of life that happened to me in my teenage years and dysfunctional family situation. So it's always kind of an escape for me and something that brought life and was safe and thoroughly connected with that. This story is an interesting one because it was in the early days of my journey with Bethel Music, which started in 2012 and continued on for over a decade. This particular song, Ever Be, is from the We Will Not Be Shaken album, which you may remember as the Mountain album. When they we all went up the mountain and recorded that album. It was really actually pretty stunning a lot of great video content and it was literally set outside of one of the mountains there in the Trinity Alps region of Redding and it was just natural beauty and picturesque.

Chris Estes: 1:57

I used to travel out to Redding on a frequent basis as we were starting to really staff up the label and doing a lot of things to continue the indie label that Bethel Music would still be today, and so I was meeting with teams and the one thing that I loved about Bethel from the very beginning was the culture of the church especially the label and the artist and the musicians was a culture of honor and encouragement. So they often would just take time to honor people on the team, to pray for them and different team meetings. And one way that they would do that was with kind of a prophetic prayer book, encouragement book, things that they would see and hear that God's highlighted about you. They would write them down and encourage you with it. A lot of times it had scripture attached to it and it was really, it was really heartfelt. So it was a new experience for me. I hadn't really been around that kind of culture.

Chris Estes: 3:07

So one of my early trips out there we had recorded We Will Not Be Shaken. We were listening to like first mix stuff. So I had the album in that format and as I was leaving to head back to South Alabama where I live, they gave me this book, which I knew what it was. I kind of knew and they were like, hey, read this when you get on the plane. So I had it in my bag and drove two hours to Sacramento to fly out, fly home, and I was also listening to some of the demos of sorry, not the demos, but the mix songs from the album.

Chris Estes: 3:44

And this is where it, this is the power of that particular song God's kindness and love that he often times extends out to us through community, through people, and the intersection of all that and I'm laughing, sorry, I did a little pre-laugh to my, it's not really a joke, but the as I'm kind of reliving this moment. So I sat down in my seat on the airplane listening to songs and remembered I had that book in my bag, so actually have it in front of me right now. And I reached down and I just started reading through these and, as I'm listening to music, just reading these words of encouragement that were really special and touching. And I got this one from Lindsay Strand, who is an amazing creative person. She did Amanda Cook's first, Brave New World album cover design. She led the creative team for a while. She did a lot of different roles, as we all did at the label. Her husband, Bobby, is an amazing producer, guitar player, writer he actually was on We Will Not Be Shaken album, helped to produce it and just an amazing couple. Lindsey worked with me on the team. So I've read through the timing of all. This is what is probably the most powerful and beautiful thing about the song for me. I love the song.

Chris Estes: 5:15

I love Kalley. She leads a song and as I'm reading through it I got to Lindsey's entry and she starts it with Chris, stay, you're such a piece of this office, truly brains of the place. And then she goes on to you know, love the first time You're the first person I saw on release day in the office. And as I'm listening to Ever Be, in the second verse after the first chorus, it starts with you, father the orphan. And as I'm reading that I mean as I'm listening to that I'm reading Lindsay's note on this entry and it says thank you for choosing us as your family, for stewarding us so well. And when I heard that the song's powerful, I still do love the songs this day.

Chris Estes: 6:07

Kalley's an amazing writer and leader and as I heard those words being sung and I read those words to me, I always felt growing up that I was a bit of an orphan from a normal family and actually went live on my own from 16 on and didn't have a normal teenage life. So when I heard that and you guys have heard my testimony, if you listened to that first episode God really reached down and saved me from a lot and literally saved my life in this time and then, obviously, for eternity. But he, you know, fathered me and that love that I felt from him and then the love that I felt from Lindsay and this note that I happened to be reading at the same time. I've heard that verse, just it had me the reason I was laughing earlier because I literally just started kind of ugly crying in the airplane on, if you guys can relate. But there's a type of crying that is, there's a joyful cry, then there's a joyful ugly cry, that is.

Chris Estes: 7:22

I mean I just felt God's presence through a song, through lyric, through what Lindsey wrote me, and it just all intersected with me and this joyful explosion that had me sobbing in my to the point where I was like having to cover my face and I'm, you know, I was sitting next to people on the plane and I'm like. These guys are probably thinking I'm a nut job and I just couldn't stop and it was. It was so powerful and so profound and it really kind of ministered to me. It was, it was a good cry and really needed it, but I just felt the Lord's love in that moment, felt, felt it in so many different multi-dimensional ways that it, it, just it really got me and that was kind of the. That was the first time I really, I think I felt God's specific intersection with music and song and ministry and healing and all of that directed right at me and in the most you know, you couldn't, you couldn't say it's coincidence, you couldn't say that just happened like the timing of all that happening, and that moment was really powerful.

Chris Estes: 8:39

And so I wanted to kick off the Power Song episode series which I'll title them that way as we get into it with that one, because that's one that I really remember and will always be when I hear. That song will always be a soundtrack to that moment, to God's just tangible way of loving you like a father and accepting you into his family, and that was kind of early on in the Bethel journey. And I would do several more albums and have many more encounters that I'll share as we get into some more of these Power Songs that happen specifically with some of the music that I was able to be a part of. In the future, too, I'll also have some artists and songwriters and producers that talk about. There's so many stories. That, which is really part of the reason I started this podcast, is because I've lived these stories. I know these stories. I know these people that are involved in the songs in different capacities, even from outside of the artistry side, and the songwriting people that are involved. And just being in the music industry, I'll have experience, especially in this genre that I've been able to have a career in which is specifically the Christian music and more specifically in the church, which just carries ministry. So it's really the heartbeat of the podcast and it's a touching moment for me.

Chris Estes: 10:09

If you guys haven't heard that song, go listen to Ever Bee from Kalley Heiligenthal. If you ever wanted to know how to pronounce her last name, that's exactly how you pronounce it. She's also an artist now just by the name Kalley. She has some great solo projects as well, but on Bethel Music's we Will Not Be Shaken album, Ever Be is a great album. It's also really, really. All the videos from that session were amazing. Hers was, I believe. I remember it being around Sunset which is really magical on top of that mountain. But there it is the power song story for Ever Be. How it forever touched me and I'll always remember that song in that way and I just encourage you to take a moment, if there's songs like that in your soundtrack of life, to play them, relive some of those moments and just remember how powerful they are. So there you go. There is .